From the Wikipedia entry for "price gouging"
Price gouging occurs when a seller increases the prices of goods, services or commodities to a level much higher than is considered reasonable or fair. Usually, this event occurs after a demand or supply shock. Common examples include price increases of basic necessities after natural disasters. In precise, legal usage, it is the name of a crime that applies in some jurisdictions of the United States during civil emergencies. In less precise usage, it can refer either to prices obtained by practices inconsistent with a competitive free market or to windfall profits. Price gouging may be considered exploitative and unethical.
The term is similar to profiteering but can be distinguished by being short-term and localized and by being restricted to essentials such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine and equipment needed to preserve life and property. In jurisdictions where there is no such crime, the term may still be used to pressure firms to refrain from such behavior.
The term is not in widespread use in mainstream economic theory, but it is sometimes used to refer to practices of a coercive monopoly that raises prices above the market rate that would otherwise prevail in a competitive environment.[1] Alternatively, it may refer to suppliers' benefiting to excess from a short-term change in the demand curve.
Starting an auction at a low price is the very opposite of price gouging. The item only sells for what someone is willing to pay. If only one person bids it sells for 99 cents.
Now if they start say a $20 item for 99 cents and $25 shipping, that could be construed as gouging. Or if the 99 cent item is only worth 10 cents, I suppose that could be gouging, although I don't know where you're going with it.
