{"id":159,"date":"2015-01-21T17:16:05","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T17:16:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/?p=159"},"modified":"2015-01-21T17:16:05","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T17:16:05","slug":"please-avoid-reserve-prices-if-you-auction-anything-on-ebay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":"Please Avoid Reserve Prices if you Auction Anything on eBay"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_161\" style=\"width: 190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/treant.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-161\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-161\" src=\"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/treant.jpg\" alt=\"Reserves piss me off!\" width=\"180\" height=\"177\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-161\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reserves piss me off!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A short note to let folks know that reserve auction prices on eBay don&#8217;t accomplish anything for a seller other than annoying buyers.\u00a0 A reserve price is basically a hidden price that says &#8216;if my auction gets to $XX.XX, I will actually sell this item.&#8217;\u00a0 Please note that auctions with reserve prices <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/notes\/stanton-mccandlish\/why-hidden-reserve-price-auctions-actually-cost-sellers-money-on-ebay\/10150970269121621\">get fewer bids and, on average, sell for less<\/a>.\u00a0 Ok, I don&#8217;t really have any quantifiable evidence for that, but if I am annoyed by an auction with a reserve and will avoid it, so will many others.\u00a0 What should you do instead?\u00a0 Set the minimum you will take on an auction as the starting price.\u00a0 That way, I know whether I want to bid or not, and you don&#8217;t have any chance of selling your item for less than you think its worth.\u00a0 You may think you are creating interest in your auction with a low starting price and a high reserve&#8230;but you&#8217;re not.\u00a0 You&#8217;re doing the exact opposite, as the average eBay seller has the attention span of a cat in a room full of sparrows.<\/p>\n<p>I mention this today because there is a lot of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ebay.com\/itm\/391030090449?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l4449&amp;_trkparms=gh1g%3DI391030090449.N2.S1.M6219.R2.TR21\">D&amp;D minis up this week for 240 minis<\/a> (01\/21\/15, this link will likely live for 90 days FYI).\u00a0 I&#8217;d like to bid on it&#8230;and I even <a href=\"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/treant-card.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-160 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/treant-card-215x300.jpg\" alt=\"treant card\" width=\"215\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/treant-card-215x300.jpg 215w, http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/treant-card.jpg 236w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/><\/a>did.\u00a0 They had a start price of $199 with some reserve price.\u00a0 I bid $240, and someone already outbid me to $243.50&#8230;and the reserve is still not met.\u00a0 I for one don&#8217;t have time to fool around trying to figure out what the seller wants for these minis.\u00a0 $500?\u00a0 $1000?\u00a0 Who knows, but its not worth my time.\u00a0 I will watch this auction for research sake though, and let you know what it sells for, and what it&#8217;s &#8216;price per mini&#8217; ends up being, and then compare that to similar completed auctions and let you know whether the seller made more or less (or didn&#8217;t even sell the collection) by using a reserve.<\/p>\n<p>I sell things online for a living, and buyers want easy.\u00a0 Easy like Sunday morning.\u00a0 Easy bake oven.\u00a0 Easy like Craigslist or the latest hookup ap.\u00a0 They don&#8217;t want your crappy reserve, so cut it out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A short note to let folks know that reserve auction prices on eBay don&#8217;t accomplish anything for a seller other than annoying buyers.\u00a0 A reserve price is basically a hidden price that says &#8216;if my auction gets to $XX.XX, I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/playingwithmyself.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}