ebay reserve price not met

0Jon • 6th Apr 2011 • WWW • bidding, ebay, marketplace, rant, reserve price

I really hate people that set a reserve price on their ebay listings. I honestly don’t understand the point in it. If someone can think of a viable reason to do this please enlighten me. The only reason I can possibly see.. is maybe if certain people are addicted to ebay auctions.. and they start bidding and keep getting outbidded. so they bid higher.. and end up bidding higher then they ever attended too. Regardless of that I still think it’s dumb. Because I doubt those people would end up actually following through with the payment.

But seriously.. it pisses me off to no end. Instead of setting a reserve.. why not just start the bidding off at that amount? Then you wouldn’t waste other peoples time bidding when they have no idea what the reserve price is.. so it’s just a shot in the dark whether you’re going to guess an amount that the seller would actually accept or not. Just tell us from the very start the minimum amount you’re willing to take.. and let everyone make their bids.