Why do some ebay items have a bid for as low as $0.01?

[Kish-Mish]

I was on ebay looking for parts for my old laptop that is not working. I came across a very interesting item that I am considering purchasing. The item is going for $0.01. It is a unbelievable deal,which leads me to believe that it is too good to be true. I do not have a lot of experience with ebay, so I am skeptical about placing a bid. Why do items sale for so cheap? Does anyone really know? Can you enlighten me?

[Paul]

When searching for items to buy lots of people will search on "Lowest price first" so the lower the price the closer to the top the sellers item comes so low price ads often get bid on first. The second reason is that you will only pay for an advert on E-Bay if its over £.99p (in the UK) i guess it will be $.99 cents in the US. So the low starting price saves the seller paying for the advert. Also some E-Bayers will profit from high delivery charges so check if your $.01 item has a $50 delivery charge or if they allow collection. The best way of checking to see if the seller is genuine is to check the sellers score (Measured as a percentage with 100% positive feedback being the best) also check to see how many items they have sold. If they have sold for example 100 items with 99% positive feedback its a good bet that they are an ok seller.

[Zella]

Check the shipping cost it might be overpriced there. Or they are trying to get attention by having the bid so low. You might want to use a sniper like goofbid to bid at the last seconds.

[dourdan]

if you start an auction at 0.01 you pay NO listing fee- at all.

for sellers with rare/not very easy to sell items, it is smart to start the bidding low, so ebay will not collect a fee.