3-9-2023 a 69 lincoln sold for 375.

Question

earlier in the day it said 100. and 1 bid so does that mean it was the same bidder and the reserve was not met at that time.is it better to do a starting bid or post a reserve

woodland_gnome · Answer

An auction that showed at $100 at some time before it ended and $375 after it ended would mean that received a bid after the $100 display was showing and before the end. We'd need to see the actual listing to tell you what happened, and if a Reserve might have been involved we might not be able to answer definitively since eBay has removed the "Reserve met" designation from all pages (the only way to tell from the public pages is if the price is more than an increment over the highest bid of the 2nd highest bidder, or more than the Staring Price if there is only a single bidder).

It is far better to set the Starting Price at your true minimum you are willing and able to sell the item for at this time (don't forget to figure in the fees on the price plus s/h plus sales tax) than to pay the steep fees for a Reserve Price. Even in the absence of the fees, it is questionable at best that a low Starting Price and the Reserve at your true minimum would result in a better return in the long run (I hypothesize that there are more bidders who would bid the higher Starting Price who don't because of the Reserve than those who wouldn't bid the higher Starting Price initially but would be coaxed over a Reserve at the same amount).