It can be advantageous to start bidding out at (1) cent because it encourages more bids. Usually, depending on the nature of the item, the seller could be trying to make up the difference on the shipping charges. Generally speaking, it is against eBay policy to sell known fakes/knockoffs etc. As recently as maybe 18 mos ago, sellers were circumventing the eBay fee structure!. Let s say you had an item worth 10 bucks, but the item was small, and only cost 1 dollar to ship. The seller charges 9.99 shipping and sells the item for 1 cent! The TOTAL sale is 10 bucks..., but the seller pays ebay ZERO commission on the actual sale price of (1) cent item. The seller sold their item for 10 bucks, but paid no commission (fee) to eBay. More profit for the seller! eBay has cracked down on this somewhat, but it still happens quite frequently. Because of these types of fee circumvention techniques, eBay imposed limits on the amount of shipping that can be charged in certain categories. For instance; if you sell one DVD , the maximum amount of shipping charge that the system will accept is like 3 dollars. This is to prevent people from charging 14.99 to ship the DVD, and selling the item at a (1) cent sale price!
Could be that they re hoping people will bid the price up. Could be that they re fakes. Could be that they re hoping to make money on exorbitant shipping charges. Could be all of the above.
