In article puyXc.97922$TI1.33401@attbi_s52,
Jay Honeck wrote:
starts at $25k, needs fabric work, good winter project!

If it "starts at $25k" -- that's a "reserve"...

In 'real-life' auctions, as well as eBay ones, there is a
significant difference, between 'starts at', and 'reserve'.

In real-life auctions, if there are no offers at the 'starting bid' price,
the auctioneer will lower the requested bid-point until somebody bites.

Unfortunately, this _doesn't_ happen in the artificial eBay environment.

A 'reserve' price can exist for either type of auction. It is _usually_
an *undisclosed* (to the bidders) _price_ (although the _existence of the
'reserve price' must be disclosed) below which the seller elects not to sell
the item. Prospective buyers must take the existence of a 'reserve' into
consideration, when deciding whether to expend the time/effort in bidding on
any particular item. Most real-world auction houses tie the _minimum_ starting
bid to a relationship to the reserve, if one exists. e.g. starting bid must
be at least 50% of reserve price. Seller can elect to have a starting bid
higher than that minimum, allowing auctioneer to drop the opening bid, if
no takers at the initial starter. If the opening bid _is_ the reserve
minimum, and no takers at that price, then the item is 'withdrawn', without
lowering the opening ask.

COMMENT: It would be *nice* if eBay would adopt a policy of that type, with
regard to reserves and opening bids. Also if they would let an auction
run -past- 'closing time' until there were no more bids for some reasonable
interval, e.g. 5 minutes. This requires 2 changes -- one to the language,
'auction closes _not_before_ {timestamp}'; the other to the bid handler,
where every successful bid updates the closing time to the current close
or 'now plus 5 minutes', whichever is later.

In real-world auctions, if there is a reserve price, and the reserve is -not-
met, when bidding -has- occurred, then the (non-)seller owes the auction house
the commission on the actual bid price. Note: if there were -no- bids, then
that's a different story.

'Reserve prices' work to the seller's advantage. UNDISCLOSED reserve prices
work to the advantage of the seller _and_ the advantage of the auction house.
The theory being that the 'frenzy of bidding' will carry the price to a point
above where one could _start_ the bidding at. There is *lots* of real-world
experience to support that theory. grin