Why do people bother bidding when they dont want to bid close to the reserve price?

chja

Any item is only worth what someone will pay for it - never hurts to chuck a bid in.

notlongnow_2

I also avoid reserve prices. wheras I LOVE buy it nows with best offer.

fatherazhara

shelovestobuystuff wrote: »

Just wondered if anyone has any thoughts on why people would even bother putting the time into bidding if they have no intention of bidding anywhere close to the reserve price.I have the reserve prices if I have them obviously noted in the listings so its not a secret.
If I have something listed with £100 reserve but its bid up to about £20 what was the point,they have just wasted their time bidding on something they couldnt afford to buy?
Why dont I just start the bidding at the reserve price I want you will probably ask.Well if I use a low start price but place a reserve my listing will show higher up the page when people search by price like I do.Its more likely to get bids and that will make it more visible in the listings too.

I completely agree with you, the problem is, if one person puts in a bid of £10 and they dont want to pay more than that, then if the second person is happy to pay £60 they can put that on as a bid but will only get chance to buy it if someone elses bids against them.... you could always email the 'prospective buyer' and ask them if they would like to buy it for 'your preffered price' as they might very well want to but have been unable too because no one bid against them.?

TurkishDelight

fatherazhara wrote: »

I completely agree with you, the problem is, if one person puts in a bid of £10 and they dont want to pay more than that, then if the second person is happy to pay £60 they can put that on as a bid but will only get chance to buy it if someone elses bids against them.... you could always email the 'prospective buyer' and ask them if they would like to buy it for 'your preffered price' as they might very well want to but have been unable too because no one bid against them.?

The reserve counts as a bid for these purposes- if someone bids above the reserve then the current bid goes to the reserve price

fatherazhara

No it doesnt... i had this problem revcently myself i bid on an item with a reserve of £100 and i Bid £250 but with no one to bid against me i still didnt win the auction, we even had telephone calls with the seller who confirmed on many occasions the reserve priced and she later sold the items to us privately.... and that is an absolute fact....

TurkishDelight

ETA instead of reposting, you will not get any more rises out of me- you are either a troll or just plain stoopid, either way I don't have to justify myself to anyone least of all you.

fatherazhara wrote: »

No it doesnt... i had this problem revcently myself i bid on an item with a reserve of £100 and i Bid £250 but with no one to bid against me i still didnt win the auction, we even had telephone calls with the seller who confirmed on many occasions the reserve priced and she later sold the items to us privately.... and that is an absolute fact....

Okay, whatever, I am not going to get into another argument with you, because it is disruptive to the board and unfair to other users but this is what ebay say, and this is what has happened to me.

If your maximum bid is the first to meet or exceed the reserve price, the effective bid displayed will automatically be raised to the reserve price.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/reserve-price.html

fatherazhara

Only when it has been bid upto that amount, one persons bid cannot raise it alone, maybe you should have some real experience rather than just reading the help sections, or go and look at some real auctions with reserves at the moment that havent been met and see for yourself.

before_hollywood

fatherazhara wrote: »

Only when it has been bid upto that amount, one persons bid cannot raise it alone, maybe you should have some real experience rather than just reading the help sections, or go and look at some real auctions with reserves at the moment that havent been met and see for yourself.

erm....mate you can raise it, cos you can revise your bid at any time so if you want to revise your bid so you are over the reserve you can do.

i know cos someone did when i listed a convertible hard top

and to answer the o.p- if something comes up they will bid on the mindset of 'i'd give x amount for it' not always expecting to get it, like i said my last auction was a hard top for a convertible car, clearly worth close to £1000, looked it up and the owners club said a new one is over a grand, anything over £300 is a bargain and snap their hand off, £300 put us in profit so we had that as reserve, we were offered all sorts of stupid money below reserve but in the end we got double that. no harm in trying though

Smart_But_Casual

If I see "Reserve" on an auction I don't usually bother with it.

I may email the seller and ask him what his reserve is set at and I often find that they really don't have a scooby of the real market value and have plucked an inflated price out of thin air.

Waste of time and cash IMHO

Haffiana

What fatherezhara has stated has also happened to me, more than once. I have also bid on items with a reserve, and bid OVER the reserve. My bid has gone in at the starting price only, and even with a few bids from others, my bid has never reached the reserve. Utterly frustrating.

Now admittedly this was a while ago, and maybe things have changed - but as a result I now never bother with items that have a reserve. I have just assumed that sellers that use the reserve system are newbies or something, especially ones that actually state the reserve price in the listing - it has always seemed pointless to me.

I am not trying to be rude to the OP, but simply stating the position from a buyers point of view. I don't ever search for items by price, but I think I would be less than impressed if I did so, and found that an item has a reserve.