It was stated:
>Ebay has cranked the reserve fee throught the roof.
> I can no longer offer my quality items there. If I
> protect it with a reserve, the fees are too high<
The reserve fees are fully reimbursable once the reserve is reached. So the only time that you ever really have to pay for a reserve price in an auction is when your item does not meet reserve. I can't think of a fairer way to handle things. If there was no reserve fee, everybody could readily list everyting with high reserves and then simply contact the high bidders after the auction and settle for a sale off ebay without any final transaction fees. Personally I like the reserve price so that I can make proper use of the 'buy it now' option. At a nickel a shot, the 'BIN' option is a relative deal. When I have an item that is reasonable rare, I tend to offer a BIN price that is just slightly over what I consider to be the 'perceived market' level price of the item. If somebody wants the part bad enought, they will generally cough up the small up-price to ensure they can get the part. The BIN option remains available only as long as there is not a definitive buyer of the item. So if you do not have a reserve, the BIN option disappears as soon as one offer has been made, whether it be of $0.01 or 99% of your BIN price.
Generally speaking, if your item does not reach your reserve, it generally means that either your item has a very small group of interested parties and you may just have lucked out in posting in the time they were all away from their computers; or you have unwarranted price expectations for your product. The latter case seems to be much more common. In this case, putting a reserve price does indeed seem to be very expensive, as you are effectively paying to be taught a lesson on the lesser 'true' value of your item.
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Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ