I do not have your experience, Cotty, but my experimentation shows that it all depends.
Generally, anything that gets you a large number of bids will result in a higher final price, but sometimes that backfires and you wind up giving the item away. For us guys selling our own things, as opposed to resellers who are making a big profit who can afford a occasional loss leader, I have concluded the way to do it is put it up with a minimum bid at a bargain price, say what that reseller would have given you for it, then put a BIN at an outrageous price, say 10-20% higher than you think it may max out at (sort of like the MSRP on new stuff) to give folks an idea what you think it is actually worth. Of course that is all based upon the way I think, not what the experts say, but it seems to work out OK for me. Sometimes I am surprised and it goes for the BIN. A listing with lots of description, especially obviously written by the seller sell to sell higher. Also I avoid those listing that are hundreds of words of rules and regulations and two lines of description like the plague, they usually seem to come from some "Get Rich on eBay" franchise anyway. -- graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com http://webpages.charter.net/graywolf "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" ----------------------------------- Cotty wrote: > On 24/9/06, Paul Stenquist, discombobulated, unleashed: > >> I generally get more bids when I don't post a reserve. As long as the >> minimum bid isn't outrageous, traffic will be good. I will sometimes >> risk setting a minimum bid well below what I consider my minimum price. >> That will sometimes generate a bidding frenzy and a very high final >> price. > > Agreed. I think the key here is the starting price. If it's quite high, > effectively the reserve, then I think it can be more limiting than a low > start with a reserve. What I don't like is someone who starts low, with > no reserve, and bottles out with a day to go, and pulls the auction. > Like I say, for the serious buying, I'll bid right at the end and bid > high. If the auction's gone, I can't do that. If the auction's there > with a reserve, I can. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
