On 8/12/02 12:01 PM, Compact Macs at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I agree! Reserve sucks. If you won't accept less than a certain price, just > start the auction at that price. Or even better, start the auction at > slightly less than your acceptable price and offer a Buy It Now! price right > above your price. I know the first thing I look for is a buy-it-now price > and if it is reasonable, I'll use that rather than bother with the auction. > .................................Mike T.
But after having used Ebay heavily as both a buyer and seller for over three years now, I have observed an interesting psychological phenomenon. Let's say you are selling an item that is reasonably worth around $50, maybe a little more. If you start the bidding at $50, people aren't going to bid. (Maybe they think they'd rather hunt around and see if they can find it somewhere else cheaper first, I don't know.) If you start it at something like five bucks, people *will* bid, and bid aggressively, and drive the final bid price up to $50 and beyond. Whereas if you'd started it at $50, you might end up with an auction closing with no bids at all. I see it all the time when I search completed auctions to get a good idea of a price for a particular item. Two almost identical items, one sells for $50, the other doesn't sell at all... the difference? Invariably, it's the starting bid price. FWIW, I too prefer Buy It Now to reserve auctions, but I guess the above paragraph digressed from the original topic because it's not about reserves at all. Anyway... interesting thing, the human mind... -- *** Amber Rhea *** [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.tangerinecs.com /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ / No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect open standards! -- Compact Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/>. Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Compact Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/compact.shtml> The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/compact.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
