The Armour Archive

ok, time to ship the kids to the factory.



I'm finally going to sell my gothic harness... I'm going to post it on e-bay. Can anyone give me any ideas as to how to sell it? i.e. should I put a reserve on each piece? Low starting or high? Any tips/tricks you guy's can share?
I still feel a little guilty. If I didnt need to get as much as I could for this harness, I'd rather just sell it here for a lower fixed price and let it go to people I know would care for it.

<sigh>

on the upside, Matt and a few others can expect some new orders from me in the spring - I've already got ideas for a new harness when all the cards are paid off.

Be sure to post the e-bay auction address here when you put it up. Who knows maybe someone from here will end up winning it.

BTW guys this is a really nice harness.

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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory

Well.... "It Depends."

It's all philosophic.

Let's say you have something you absolutely MUST have $100 dollars for. You can put a reserve of $100 on it or you put a minimum bid of $100 on it.

If you put a reserve, then don't put a minimum bid. Let people put their $1 bid on the thing. You're not required to sell it even if the final bid is $99.99. But once the reserve is met, you and the buyer are locked in. The NICE thing about a reserve is that you DO get bidding action...and someone MAY get close to the reserve price and you can negotiate. The problem with the reserve is that people don't know what the reserve is and may not bid. reserve auctions are the least popular type of auction for bidders because they can be weird. Different people have widely differet notions of where to set the reserve, so a lot of bidders just avoid them.

The problem with the minimum bid auctions are that you may just chase bidders away. Auctions with high minimums are the ones that often end with no bids.

If you run a reserve auction and the final bid i that $99.99 and you negotiate with the bidder to buy, eBay doesn't protect either of you. Officially that auction ended in failure.

Some people combine them. They may put a minimum bid of $50 and a reserve of $100. They think they're chasing away the non-serious bidders. My thought is, SO WHAT? Any bid activity is a good thing in a reserve auction.

Do NOT tell anyone what your reserve is, btw. What can happen is you tell someone your reserve is $100, then they bid $99.99. If nobody else bids higher, they may negotiate with you to try to buy it for $75, thus wasting your time.

Personally in the situation you're in, I'd decide either what the ABSOLUTE minimum you want for each piece is and set that as the minimum bid or decide what you'd basically LIKE to get and set that as the reserve. The "like to get" shouldn't be TOO much higher than the "absolute minimum" I don't think. I personally think that reserve auctions, while they annoy some bidders, get more bidding action and as soon as you have 2 bidders, you have 2 people who think they've "won" if they get the item. As a seller, my personal preference is to use reserve auctions. I usually set my reserve as the ABSOLUTE minimum I want for the item and go from there.

Thanks for the advice - I think I'll go the route of the reserve. I'll see if I can get the stuff on e-bay tonight or tomorrow, and I'll post the links here for y'all to take a look at.



Now, what is my minimum price....