[jluetjen]

I have two interpretations of what happened:

1) The seller's reserve was set "too high" which thus prevented a deal from happening. He obviously feels that he could do better.

2) The market was not able to reach an "equalibrium point" between the buyers and the seller.

Having seen a lot of "reserve not met" auctions (most of the sub-$10K Porsche listings which I have followed), I wonder if Ebay's system has a flaw in how it handles reserve auctions. Right now if 2 bidders do not bid an item up to the reserve, the auction ends with a no-deal. They then will put out the "Private Offer" feature to try to salvage a sale. A different idea might to ask bidders when creating their bids if they would be willing to purchase the item if they are both the high bidder and the reserve is less then their maximum bid. This would treat the item's reserve the same as any other bid.

I wonder if their "Private Offer" system actually favors bidders by potentially closing a deal at less then the original reserve. The trade-off is that fewer deals will be consumated since the seller may not chose to pursue the "Private Offer" through Ebay.

Anyone here good at "Game Theory"?