Nah - works like this. (And apologies if this has already been
explained by others). You put up an item with a secret reserve of $100.
I decide to bid on it, poor demented fool that I am and I'm prepared to
pay $160. So I bid $160. If there was no reserve and no other bidder at
the time my bid would show as one whole dollar. As I am prepared to bid
higher than the reserve, my bid automatically racks up to the reserve
and I'm shown as bidding $100. At this point we are both happy, me more
than you. A second bidder enters with a maximum bid of $140, damn and
blast him. My bid now automatically advances to $141 (assuming $1
increments) and you are now a bit happier and me less so. And then some
pratt like Jonnequin jumps in and bids a couple of thousand and I go
and sulk for days and you, the seller, gets a terminal fit of the
giggles.
If two bidders both bid below the reserve, the higher bidder will be
shown as not making the still unknown reserve.
No conspiracy my paranoid sweetlings, merely a very sensible approach
to fair trading. Personally I prefer to set a fair start price rather
than a reserve. Some think it scares off bidders; I think it scares off
tyre kickers.
AndrewF
On 05/03/2005, at 3:58 AM, Walt Wayman wrote:
> I'm hoping he just made a lucky guess, twice, and that there's not a
> way to find out a reserve price and/or some tricky program that will
> bid just up to that amount, because I'm going to soon be a newbie
> seller and putting some gear up for sale myself. Don't get excited
> when I don't offer it here first; it's just my surplus Graphic gear.
> I need to get rid of the stuff I don't use so I can justify buying
> some more Mamiya RB67 goodies -- like the 140/4.5 macro and a set of
> extension tubes.
>
> Walt
>
> --
> "Anything more than 500 yards from
> the car just isn't photogenic." --
> Edward Weston
>
> -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: "Jez Cunningham" <jez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>
>> Dumb question follows:
>>
>> I just listed a couple of items for sale (OM4 and Tamron 80-200
>> f/2.8). It's
>> the first time I've had to use ebay - my id is crdbbe - and the very
>> first bid
>> in both cases is the reserve price. How did the buyer know how much
>> to bid? Or
>> did he make some sort of autobid that stopped when it hit the reserve?
>>
>> Thanks for helping an ebay-seller newbie
>> best regds
>> Jez
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