Personally, I don't use Reserve Auction, as I know they really tick me off as a buyer, because it often takes multiple bids to find out that it's more than I'm willing to pay, and I can't see what the real price is. I avoid reserve auctions.

Instead, when I sell, I use the minimum price I'd be willing to sell it for as the starting price, even if it's not what I'm hoping for. In fact, the listing fee, plus the reserve fee, is higher than the listing fee for the minimum price you want. And, potential buyers won't bid in any case if the minimum, or reserve, is higher than they are willing to pay. To me, it seems like just another way for eBay to get another fee, and I think they've got plenty already since the whole process doesn't require human intervention and they don't spend a lot of human effort policing their policies. Once you pay for the hardware, software engineering, and electricity as fixed costs, there really isn't a lot of incremental cost incurred for an auction. From my perspective it's a license to print money

I just don't get why some people use reserve prices, unless they have some compulsion to contribute to the eBay stockholders. Of course, sometimes I just don't get why a lot of people do what they do, so that isn't unusual.