Thanks Seteve and others. I now see several reasons why the seller may want
to have a hidden reserve, all valid but debatable. Nobody has made a case
for why revealing the reserve "defeats the purpose" of an auction. That
assertion was the reason why I asked the original question, I probably
should have made that clearer. As far as I can tell from the input on this,
in it's pure form there are few reasons not to reveal the reserve, it is for
other tangential reasons like you mentioned that you keep the reserve
separate. The best reason I got for concealing the reserve was to prohibit
people from waiting until the last minute and then placing a bid at reserve.
In this case the seller looses the benefit of a possible bidding frenzy
initiated by the first bid. Assuming the seller placed his reserve at the
fair value of the item I have only limited sympathy in this case, definitely
some sympathy though.
Basically I understand that the secret reserve protects the seller in cases
where the market value is in question. If the object was fairly priced to
begin with the reserve need not be secret and it protects the seller from
selling below market. The timed auction on eBay has many faults including
the last minute bid scenario if the reserve is known.
Frank
> Frank Marrone wrote:
> >
> > No Comment but a question... why does it hurt to reveal the
> reserve price
> > in an auction?
> >
> > Frank
>
> Frank,
>
> This is a common practice in the auction business. If the seller has
> grossly underestimated the fair market value, he may get a view that his
> offering is not in the higher value condition. On the other hand...
<snip>
>
> My $.02
>
> Steve
>
>
> --
> Steve Laifman < Find out what is most >
> _/_/_/
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