ebay guru's, what dose it mean when...
 

What dose it mean when you have 9 people watching a sell but only 4 people have bid?

There is no need to "watch" the sell if you have already bid, that just takes up space on your ebay page with redundant info.
So it's more like 13 people are watching but 4 have bid.

And these people have been watching for a week without bidding.

bidding just ups the price they are watching and will bid near expiration if the price is right

But I have a reserve so they are wasting their time if they don't bid up to the reserve. It doesn't do any good to bid $20 in the last minute if the reserve is $100.00.

Well, the way people think is they have a set amount in mind of what they are willing to pay. Close to auction close they will bid that amount, if it wins, it wins, and if it doesn't, it doesn't.

Bidding their max early, only gives them less of a chance of winning in their minds

or they are using an auction sniping service.

The one thing real acutions have over the ebay is the "going once...going twice..." thing. Because it's like put up or shut up; there is no trying to place the highest bid before the clock runs out and hoping nobody has enough time to out bid you.

A higher bid can come as long as people are still interested.

OH, some ebayer emailed me and asked what my reserve price was.
I gave her a range of what it could be which didn't tell her anything except it was not dirt cheap.

Should I have just told the ebayer that I will not answer that question?

could it be that none of the nine watchers are bidders?

Often times I watch an auction and if the price goes too hi I say fuk it, if its just right I bid, and sometimes I forget I was watching it in the first place and don't bid on it.

It doesn't really matter, but sometimes it's better if you don't (giving a range is fine) because they will bid it up not knowing what the minimum is, which will attract more people to the auction. So in the end if they are in the dark it is usually better I say. But sometimes it backfires putting up a reserve, because people are far less apt to bid on reserve auctions because reserves are annoying as hell lol, I (shhhh) sometimes start it at .99 cents which attracts MAAD bidders and if it doesn't sell high enough I have a friend buy it and then file for a dispute where we both agreed not to finish the auction ending up in a refund, thats the fail proof way to do it, unless its your brother and you have the same last name lol.

why play games, if you will sell it for 100 tell them the reserve is 100 dollars. That is their to protect you from losing out, if they want it they will bid. I hate when I am looking at cars and I ask and they will not tell, I just move on,

Watchers can also be other ebay sellers.

They watch your auction to see what kind of price you get, so they can list similar item themselves.

They watch your auction hoping to bid last minute & win dirt cheap so they can resell it at a much higher price.

For example, I sell an antique whatever @ $12.50 & other ebayer relists same exact item with reserve of $1000

What you fail to realize is that I can sell it below the reserve price if I chose so not bidding just means they are not going to get it when they may have got it.

If the car seller wont give you a price then offer him "lowball" cash now for the car and see where he goes from there. If he's smart he'll try to bump you up to his price.
If he thinks he has a solid buyer then he is likely to lower the the price and make the sale. There's no point in lowering the price for people to jerk you off and say "well I'll think about it next week".
Then next week they come back asking for an even lower price and you have to tell them to get the fuck out of your face.

yeah tell people the reserve. If they bid the reserve it is sold. All you have to wait for is other people to bid and bump it up even more.
Either that or you will just waste money on the fees.

So why don't I make the reserve higher so they will pay it and nobody will have to bump the price?

I should figure out the reserve than add a bunch of money to it so people who email me asking what the reserve is will pay way more than I actually wanted.

NOT!!!

Since only an idiot would bid what I told them to.
They will bump the price until they get to the reserve to make sure I didn't scam them by saying the reserve was $1000 when it actually was $100.
So they will bump it wether I tell them or not...so like I thought, it's just cheap people hoping they can get a steal when there just isn't one to be had.

snipers...

Why? This is the dumbest shit I have ever heard. I run into it all the time on eBay: people that want to keep their reserve price "secret".

I can tell you that when I am truly interested enough to send a message asking the reserve price that means that I will very likely BUY it. When someone pulls that "I can't tell you my reserve price" shit, I reply with "Then I can't bid on your auction."

You know what you want to get for the item so explain to me how keeping that a secret will benefit you.

Cliff notes: An auction is where the seller makes the buyers compete for the item to get the higest possible price someone will pay. Telling someone my reserve is $20(because I need crack:1orglaugh ) and "devaluing" the item when they would have easily paid $2000 would be stupid.

Long notes:

If you bid and don't meet the reserve then you don't have to pay, so why do you care about amounts you aren't willing to pay.

Telling you what the reserve is will stop you from bidding if the reserve is too high. More bids equal more interest, equals better price for me.

If you get mad and bail out because I don't tell you what the reserve is then I seriously doubt that you would be willing to pay what I am asking since you don't give a shit about the item after you didn't "get your way".

Ebay makes the reserve price secret. Do you think ebay is stupid? Or do you think they set this thing up in an intelligent way and you're just pissed because you don't like what an auction is about.

Buy the things you want from Walmart if you like price tags.
Ebay is an auction house, you have to compete with other buyers that are willing to pay more.

People who don't like ebay probably never get a deal on anything they buy because they don't like to haggle. Haggling is what ebay is all about.

"watch this item" is like a bookmark
alot and i mean alot of people bid last min
the more people watching the better chance that the last minute of your item the prices will skyrocket

+ there are alot of snipers on ebay these days that get the price up really fast in the last 10 seconds

That's what I'm hoping.

Someone emailed me asking if this sale was real; I took it as a good sign that they think it is worth something and doubted I would sale it.