Thread: Reserve Prices

The reserve price is a very good thing if the buyers are rational. If they are, they would bid whatever they have decided the item is worth to them and they can never lose.

But unfortunately buyers are not rational - they are on ebay to get a 'great deal' not pay fair value. Fair value appears to be considered gross overpayment. They also have no idea what they value the item at and go for the herd effect - more bidding must be something valuable.

I have sold razors with and without reserve, as well as Buy-it-now. I like to put a reserve and start at 1cent for one reason - if the razor doesn't get bid up above the reserve I still get a reference point of how the market values my razor, instead of just completely wasting my time to create the listing in the first place. Also if the highest bid is close enough to my reserve I may decide to take that as a 'second chance offer' instead of wasting more time relisting the razor in a better market environment.

Frankly, though if I have a reserve on a razor I am not concerned at all about the lawballers who want to pay 1/10 to 1/2 of what the razor is worth. As far as I am concerned if they place such a low value on their time they should spend the tens or even hundreds of hours hunting for that razor at their desired price point.
I personally think it's a stupid way to buy high quality razors because even with a minimum wage job one can earn the money in less time than constantly browsing ebay, but that's why we're all different and like to do things differently.
For me the cheapest way to get a razor I want is to find it from a very reputable seller in an excellent condition, pay the very little premium, and have 99.9% guarantee of getting exactly what I want without wasting my time hunting for it.