Most eBay buyers HATE reservations because they don’t know what the reserve price is and could end up wasting time bidding all week long, being the highest bidder and still not winning the auction.

When someone is the highest bidder on your eBay listing (no reserve), they have a picture in their mind that they are winning the auction. They already mentally own your product. The last thing they want is someone to outbid them. Therefore, they are more likely to keep raising your auction price, causing your item to eventually sell for a higher price … which means more profit for you!

But if your eBay listing has a reserve and they bid on your item and see “reserve not yet reached” next to their bid, then they don’t mentally own your product and can start looking elsewhere for whatever you’re selling. They can then bid on a competitor’s listing, be the highest bidder, start to mentally own their competitor’s item, keep increasing their bid every time someone outbid them, and eventually buy their competitor’s item for more than your Reserve.

Adding a reservation also increases your listing fees.

You can research completed eBay listings to see what price your item tends to sell for on eBay. (You must be logged into your account to filter eBay search results and only show completed listings.)

If you find that your item tends to sell for less than its reserve price, your item is unlikely to receive any offers if you list it on eBay with a reserve, so there is no point in listing your item.

If you find that your item tends to sell for more than its reserve price, then you do not need to apply a reserve when listing your item on eBay.

If you think you MUST use a Reserve, set it as low as possible, enough to cover your costs. But it would be better to set your initial offer at the price you would use as a reserve and avoid using a reserve entirely.

You can mention the full retail price of the product in your listing (assuming it’s higher than your initial bid) so that bidders know they can still get a bargain.

But if the reason you want to use a Reserve (or, better yet, use a high starting bid) is because there is not much demand for your product, then you must get a different product that IS in demand!