What's the logic behind hiding the reserve?

[lypet]

I do not like hidden reserves to the point that I will not bother to bid on any auction with a hidden reserve. If you are too cheap to pay the listing fee to start the auction at the minimum price you will take for it, why should I participate in an exercise in futility. I buy a lot of things on eBay and I always use Auctionsniper to bid for me 7 seconds before the auction closes. I know a lot of people do not like this , but eBay is full of people trying to buy a hundred dollar item for a couple of bucks. this allows me to buy the item without someone bidding an extra $0.50 twenty times to find what I bid. I am never sorry I did not bid more on any auction. I bid the maximum I am willing to pay and if someone else is willing to pay more, it is theirs. As for the winner paying too much... A BYF toggle with a #32 on it would be worth more to me than most other people and therefore I would not have paid too much.

Lynn

Lynn

[lugerholsterrepair]

Lynn says...I do not like hidden reserves to the point that I will not bother to bid on any auction with a hidden reserve. If you are too cheap to pay the listing fee to start the auction at the minimum price you will take for it, why should I participate in an exercise in futility.

Having sold many thousands on Ebay I have found Lynn's statement to be short sighted from a sellers point of view.
If you start out a Luger holster for $300 because that's what you must have... it will often not get any bids. People like to start low and build up. I know cause I tried. They feel too committed early in the auction to plunk down the big money but they will build up to it searching for the reserve.
I don't know why but after trying everything known to man over the last 12 years I know it's human nature.

Jerry Burney

[apis mellifera]

What does it matter if no one bids on your $300 opener versus 20 people bidding it up to $150 and it not making reserve? I don't see the difference other than maybe losing repeat bidders when the item is relisted over and over.

I also don't bid on reserve items. If it's something I really want possibly, but I bid my max (which is usually below the reserve) and move on. Not that I would get caught up in a bidding frenzy by a reserve item that starts at $0.25, but I don't like that assumption, which is basically what the reserve supporters are suggesting/hoping for. I also don't use reserves as a seller. If I can't afford to start an item at a price that will get bids, then I don't take the risk of auctioning it; I use the classifieds.

[Merick]

Originally Posted by lugerholsterrepair

... Therefore the most the winner could get for what he just bought is to sell it to the second highest bid, having overpaid the difference.

This statement seems to make sense but under scrutiny it falls apart....

Jerry Burney

Not to split hairs with you but my statement stands scrutiny, but only under sterile academic theoretical circumstances where every interested party (the whole market) can attend a fair auction. Also there may have needed to be an assumption about symmetrical information, I forget. Obviously as soon as we leave the classroom and enter the real world my statement immediately falls into very very small pieces. Henceforth let us be friends.

Knowledge is a great thing to have, and is why I joined the forum. God knows I can't get by on my looks alone.

Back on topic; Ed's post #4 is correct on how reserves should be used. Unfortunately they are sometimes misused and my sincere advice is if you don't like what a seller is doing before you enter into a contract with him, you probably won't like what he does after either.

[lugerholsterrepair]

Herr Apis, Your refusal to come to terms with auctions and how they work is your business. I speak from experience. I sold $3000 in bayonets last month.. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
What does it matter if? If a cricket had a machine gun the birds wouldn't eat him. I say what really matters is to get as many people interested as you can and you do that by starting low..using a reserve to protect your investment. Anything other than that is ignorant. You MUST have a keen sense of what your item is worth...
Of course my expertise is in selling, yours in buying.
I use the classifieds. I quit using the classifieds 10 years ago as they reach such a small market they are virtually useless except for yard sale junk. Besides they can be horribly expensive. It's vitally important to not only reach as large a market as possible but to pinpoint your buyer. Ebay and some other venues have proven to work a million times better than classifieds and are much cheaper. I would be the village idiot to offer a collector Luger holster in my local classifieds...

Herr Merick..Henceforth let us be friends. How could we be otherwise?
if you don't like what a seller is doing before you enter into a contract with him, you probably won't like what he does after either. Wise words...



Jerry Burney

[apis mellifera]

Have we met?

[383 magnum]

There are certainly many opinions on this and all of them to a certain extent are valid. I really don't have a problem with a reserve if it is reasonable. It just drives me nuts to see the same stuff listed over and over because the reserve is too high. One seller even lists his stuff in 24-hour auctions and all that does is clutter up the new listings.
As Ed said, auctions can indeed be fickle and depend upon who is looking that week. For example, I bought a matching S/42 off Auction Arms recently for $651. This week, a Code 42 Luger with one mismatched part sold for a grand on Gunbroker when someone hit the BIN.

[Edward Tinker]

I think it humerous how buyers and sellers look at things so differently, and of course all the sellers on this thread are also buyers...


I also find it humerous how folks say, well I just won't bid on a "reserve auction"... WHY? I have won many auctions that had an increadibly small reserve; you just never know.

I also figure that if I bid my maximum, and that if I win fine. And something I also find funny, to sound snooty about reserves and in the same paragraph talk about "sniping" programs. God, I hate them as a buyer, it seems sneaky to me. Other folks would say; well, then bid what you want and you'll get the item.

All perspective isn't it?


Ed

[lugerholsterrepair]

383..It just drives me nuts to see the same stuff listed over and over because the reserve is too high. This too ticks me off on Gunbroker in particular. If they had a charge for listing it wouldn't happen so much.

Ed, in some respect you are correct..it is perspective. I know I have sold enough on Ebay that I have been able to see my mistakes and learn from them.

Jerry Burney

[alvin]

Please move steps to the "New Collector" column. I have an 1917 Artillery auction link there saying "PLEASE DO NOT ASK WHAT THE RESERVE IS" in its description.

Would you please take a quick look and tell a number according to its condition?

http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthread.php?t=21203