I have come to understand from experience and seeing others that people on ebay are reluctant to bid on a high opening bid
for examples sake
i have a lot of a product that will make me no profit unless it sells for $500. but if i set the opening bid at say 20 dollars or something to that extent is the risk worth taking that it wont get much foot traffic and someone ends up winning the item with a bid of only 100 dollars now putting me 400 dollars in the hole?
and setting a reserve price deters bidders even more