Profits on eBay

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

You can try to search around in ebay to see what is the average sale price for that. Or maybe watch the same items that other sellers have been selling and see what their starting bid and ending bids are. If you don't see their ending bid in good amount then don't risk it. Also check around if there are active bidders because if there are only a few, then it is probably going to be a hard sale to hit the amount you want. Good luck.

if the completed items are selling for $500 or more then you know you can start the bidding at $.99. I start every one of my auctions at $.99 with 1 day auctions and i always make a profit.

If you're really not sure you can always set a reserve. Not as many people may bid but at least you've protected yourself.

Also sometimes with a high priced product you may want to consider setting up your own sales site and market the product yourself.

Ebay.com is highly competative as you may know. Maybe also try looking at other international ebay sites to list your items.