I think the discussion of Reserves and BIN's needs to distinguish between dealers and hobbyists. Dealers will set a Reserve at wholesale + x%, and then make a bit more by overcharging shipping. I (and other hobbyists I have observed) will: a. forego a reserve on lower value items; b. protect their investment on high-value items with a reserve.
My approach is as follows... Assume I am selling a FA* 85/1.8 that has been going for around $500. Assume I spent $485 on the lens 2 years ago. I will: a. Set a reserve in the range of $375-400. If it never goes higher, I lose, but not too much. As Keith said, no bargain basement give-aways of my precious stuff! b. Set a BIN of $525. If someone wants to end the auction early and have the certainty that goes with a BIN, they can pay a bit of a premium over the average price. When I sell items here on PDML, what you are seeing on the higher value items is the Reserve price I would use if/when I list the item on eBay; what you are seeing on the lower-value items is my sense of current market value. My basic point is that you should not assume that all sellers have an identical (Dealer) strategy in their use of Reserve pricing, and you should be willing to place a bid on items you want even in Reserve auctions. If your bid is below Reserve, oh well. 30 seconds wasted. If you are over Reserve, you may buy something that you wanted for a very reasonable price. Stan on 9/10/03 5:03 PM, frank theriault at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Excellent advice all around, Patrick! > > If an item has a reserve on it, I usually don't bid. Why bother? I'm > looking > for a bargain, not something with a reserve set at around the KEH price! > > That's doubly true if it has a BIN and a reserve, since the reserve is > inevitably set at the same price as the BIN. I don't know why these people go > through the sham of an "auction". Have the starting price, the BIN and the > reserve as the same price, and stop wasting everyone's time! > > cheers, > frank > > Patrick Wunsch wrote: > >> 9 times out of 10, you will garner a higher selling price by not having any >> reserve. When you set a reserve, most people, including myself, assume >> that the price you set is what it's worth and not a whole lot more. This >> keeps people from bidding on your item. The single driving force to get the >> most money from your item is having all the more people bidding on it. >> >> As far as selling "as-is" or not. I would do the opposite. If your fairly >> confidant in your product, do the opposite and guarantee that the item is as >> described and offer a refund if it isn't. This will surely raise the final >> price. Of coarse you would have to honor that guarantee but that's only the >> right thing to do. >> >> Just my opinion but also my experience from consistently getting a much >> higher than average price for some of the items I have listed. Good luck >> >> Pat >> > >
