Sell Orders

There's many types of "Reserve" options when it comes to auctions.
One is the "Reserve - with the Right to Sell". It should be considered that this type of reserve function is what we use in these forums.
That is.

If his opening bid is 20, reserve is 50. and he gets the following bids.
20, 25, 30, 35, 38, 39, 40, 42

Then he may decide that 42 was good enough and sell it, but he is not forced to sell it as long as it is under 50.
If it reaches 50 then he would be forced to sell it (not something that is possible due to the fact that this is a forum and an auction house does not hold the item in ESCROW to force the sale).

CCP could have easily added this functionality into the In-Game auctions but instead they wanted to pour thousands of hours into things like a large text, large graphic, slow to use Forum.

Using "Reserves" is also a way that someone can imply what they think the item is worth, but generally most players on these forums do not understand fully how reserves work nor how to manipulate peoples thinking of value. As such they generally copy what others to ;P....