In theory, the purpose of a low starting bid is to generate more bids while the reserve guarantees you won’t lose money on the auction. That may work on a huge site like eBay, but in a smaller community like this one, it tends to backfire sometimes. Reserve not met, and that bidder will never bid on your auctions again.

I used to set reserves on my occasional auctions but soon learned it is better for business in the long run not to. Unless I’m auctioning something worth millions, and then I would probably post a thread here with the reserve listed.