This is a price you need to set on an expensive item if you are starting low - say.01 since you want to draw customers and hopefully start a bidding frenzy.   You can make the price a secret and not tell what it is making the potential customer ask you for what the reserve is. 

Quite frankly this is a waste of time, in my opinion.  I am so eager to bid sometimes I don't see the reserve till the final page says, "you are high bidder but .....".  Then I'm ticked since I have added my highest bid and it still wasn't good enough.  I'll go back reread the auction to see if I missed the reserve but, usually it's not there.  I don't email, I just move on trying to find something without a reserve or a reserve price in the auction.  I feel if the reserve is mentioned I may bid on it, even though the reserve may only a slight bit higher than I wanted to go.  But, I am prepared to pay it.   So the total sum of my outlook is with a reserve listed I may pay extra, but without it I move on and I do not even look at the sellers other items.  Thus without the listing of the reserve the potential of loosing a customer is higher than with it. To not list the reserve price is no less than just a tease.

When the seller uses a reserve Ebay charges you twice, once for the listing cost (which is charged at the reserve price and not your asking price) and once at the reserve price. 

This is why there are so many sellers out there with high shipping and low start prices.  When they are selling in volume they can't afford to get hit with the actual costs of the item, so they disguise it in the guise of shipping and handling.  When you see an item that ships for $79.00 yet the asking price is .01 and lets say it is a necklace - you can rest assured that a necklace does not weigh enough to cost $79.00 even if you sent it insured anywhere in the world. 

For examples of excessive high shipping violations considered by Ebay to be a violation of their policies go to http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-shipping.html

You can start the report process here for any violation:  http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index_selection.html

If you run across this kind of a seller and you want to cut to the chase so to speak,  you can report them on this page http://cgi1.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPICommand=InlineSelfHelpWebform&wftype=2023&rcode=LP%25P10077&subject=Excessive%20Shipping%20%26%20Handling&bcrumb=+Home+%3E+Help+Topics+%3E%A0Rules+and+Policies%A0%3E%A0Rules+for+Sellers%A0%3E%A0Excessive+Shipping+%26+Handling&instruction=&expirationDate=

If the item sells when you have added the reserve price, Eaby will refund the reserve price cost, but most of the time reserve price auctions do not sell and the extra cost is eaten by the seller. 

To see what the cost of the reserve price are and any of the other fees connected to them you can go to this page http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

To learn more about reserve auctions in general you can go to this page http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/reserve.html

Here is an additional page http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-reserve.html

A guide's life with me, depends on the number of votes, it has obtained.  The more people read it, this is a good thing.  But the more people that vote for it as though it were worth while, will continue it's stay.  Otherwise off with it's head, so to speak - and it will be permantely deleted.