You are not correct again, I know values of my items and I carefully research it (internet stores & ebay). I sometimes choose BIN which would be a dream to sell for that much however it does sell sometimes for that much and I can't stop laughing on the way to the bank.
You forgot that some people buy on impulse and in a hurry with no homework done.
That is how I make the most money.
You also forget that in order to drive the price up you need to have at least two buyers who are willing to compete. With zillions of items on ebay every day you get often to a situation that you only get one buyer and you ended up selling items for 95% of what you hoped for. That is how people end up with such great
buys.
Saying that reserve is not needed in general is a bad advise. I think most people do not care and will bid finding later that the reserve is higher than they are willing to pay for the item (you hate it? that is your problem, and thank you for your bid). On the end you end up with a lot of traffic and some buyers would bid just because they feel that it must be a good deal with so much traffic (bids).
That is why I start with $0.01 starting bid. Also with such bid people will bid on your item and not on some other item with a starting bid much higher as you recommend.
In general starting low with a reserve is better than starting high with no reserve from my experience.
To demonstrate how small the buyers pool is one item that I sold one week for $50 (shipped) but the next week it sold for just $28 (shipped). My reserve was $40 (it costs over $70 + shipping if purchased from a store). Now I have a choice to seel it for $28 or re-list
. On the end it is me who decides the price.
One example that resisting works... I sold a fork for $190, the same one I was trying to sell on Craigslist and forums for $120 for at least 6 months. However the buyer bailed out. I was mad. I re-listed and it sold BIN for $280!!! This OEM fork came for a new $1000 bike I bought on ebay and probably sells for $100 less at internet stores new with a warranty. It was a super heavy beginners AM fork, noting appealing about it.
Sorry, I do not gable on ebay that is not my approach.
