It's not that you always have to cut down the price to magnetize consumer but understanding the psychology of people can work wonder. Despite setting the auction's initial bid, if you offer the same product with some bugs added to its proposed auction price & with a message reading 'Buy it now' then some percentage of people, who had been searching for the product would take it to be an opportunity to get the product certainly without taking chance in bidding & losing. They actually don't mind paying additional to get what they wanted.
The 'One Dollar Less' tactic
This is simple, but needs a close eye on your rival. As soon as they start a 'Buy it Now' auction for the item you cover, start your auction for the same item with price tag 1 dollar less than theirs. Any search for the product would bring both the results together & you'll retain higher probability for your '1 dollar less' price tag.
The 'Free Shipping' tactic
Shoppers really don't like paying for shipping. You can easily integrate the 'free shipping' title after adding the transportation cost into the main price. You would be shocked to know how shoppers desire to pay the final price (including shipping) for the 'free-shipping' title, instead of having shipping cost additional. Again the psychological factor, they pay the same final price at the end, but feel good that they did not pay an unnecessary additional cost for Internet shopping as transportation fees.
