An auction finds the price two people are willing to pay. When that number disappoints, one of four things happened — and they have different fixes.
1. The room was small
The commonest. An auction with three people watching is not a market; it is three people. The item was fine and nobody who wanted it was there.
Fix: timing and announcement, not price. Your own Timing tab says when your buyers are actually around, and moving a show by two hours is free. How to find your store's numbers
2. The start price was too high, so nothing got going
Counter-intuitive and very common. A high start means no early bids, no early bids means the item looks unwanted, and an item that looks unwanted stays unwanted.
Fix: start low and protect yourself with a reserve. A low start is a hook, not a valuation. How to price for auction
3. The photograph did not open it
People bid on what they can see. A flat, dim, cluttered first photograph loses the item before the show starts.
Fix: one clean, bright, close photograph as the first.
4. You did not use a reserve
This is the protection that existed and was not used. A reserve is a price below which it does not sell — the bidding can run anywhere, and if it stops short, the item comes back to you unsold rather than gone cheap.
It is never shown to buyers, so it cannot be gamed. What is a reserve price?
If a low price genuinely would not have been acceptable, a reserve is the answer, and it is available on the next one.
What you cannot do now
You cannot refuse the sale. The auction ended and the winner won at the price the room reached. Cancelling because the number disappointed is not allowed, and it counts against you harder than almost anything else. Can I refuse to sell if the bidding ends too low?
That is the bargain that makes people willing to bid at all.
Before concluding it went cheap
Check what it actually cost you. Commission comes off the item, not the delivery, and the delivery you charged is not yours to count as profit if Metzee booked the courier. What comes out of a sale?
Check whether it was cheap, or whether you were hopeful. The price a thing fetches repeatedly is its price. One disappointing result is a room; three is a valuation.
The thing worth doing tonight
Set a reserve on anything you would genuinely rather keep than sell cheaply — and then let the start price be low enough to get the bidding moving. Those two together are the whole technique.
More: what is a reserve price, what is sell-through, what happens to items that do not sell.