Private Listing - Bidders' Identities Protected

How does one do this on ebay? What would be the reason?
Thanks,
pat

Well, if you're selling something that might cause embarrassment to a purchaser, you might opt for this. It's one of the boxes you click on beneath your item description. It tends to arouse suspicion because it can be a cover for shill bidding. It's easy to click it accidentally, and I suspect that many don't know what it means - one lady I raised it with said she'd ticked it because she wasn't a business seller.

It also makes it harder to know who you are bidding against. Some very straight shooting dealers protect the identity this way.

It was strange. There was only one other bidder, making one bid. The dealer only had two items listed at the time, now 0. Sales are modest and feedback seem o.k.
Will see how it goes.
pat

There currently is no way on ebay to see bidders identities so there is nothing to protect. My sense has been that for stamps, where there is exceeding little likelihood of embarrassment over a purchase, is to protect shill bidding by the seller.

For me as a buyer, this feature prevents me from accessing bid history: If it is a new bidder bidding against me, or it is the same persistent bidder from most of the offers. This way I can't know if I should bother with the listing, or if there's someone set to buy the item. It is important to me when there are several items by that seller, and I aim to combine shipments to lower the cost.

That would be true except ebay keeps the same "code" to display for individuals for some time, thus you can see if you are bidding against the same guy who always out bids you for certain items. At that point some folks just stop bothering to bid. Sellers want bidders to bid not to drop out because they already know they can't win.

Yes, it can better hide shill bidding from other bidders, but not from ebay. However if you know the seller is a straight shooter, shilling is not a concern. If you don't like hidden bidders, then don't bid. The less bidders on item I want from reputable dealers the better.

That all said, I would prefer no private information. Even feed back can be made private which I dislike and wonder why a buyer blocks their feedback score.

I do not agree with this statement. In my informal testing, this is a random hash numbers/characters set. (Using several computers and looking at the same listing bid history with different ebay accounts.)

I also believe this because random hashing is a very common tool in SQL databases. Implementing it is quite easy and virtually impossible to detect patterns. Additionally, I cannot think of a good reason that ebay would want to incur the cost and trouble of assigning, tracking, and maintaining tables of millions of these in a temporary fashion. Too expensive (I mean expensive in terms of SQL CPU clock cycles and memory consumption).
Don

I like to see if the person who outbids me has a 3 or 30000 rating. if their history is a lot of late snipe one bids, or they're multi-biding on the the item.

Like to think they saw something as I did that made it interesting.

Don't know what to do with the info, just think it's interesting to see patterns.
Can"t see any of it if private.
pat

I do agree with this part. It's possible to learn a bit more about bidders using their coded ID and reviewing their feedback and types of items they bid on. With all that said, if it's an item I really want, I don't bid until 3 seconds left on the clock. If it's an item that I am maybe 50/50 .... I still bid at 3 seconds. I don't see the point in bidding more than once on a lot, bidding early, or bidding before 3-4 seconds left on the clock.

ebay just needs to implement a simply policy. Any bid made 30 seconds or less before the proverbial hammer drop extends the auction another 30 seconds.

Sort of like an actual big boy auction and not who gets in last.

On one hand a private bidder is much like a SAN bidder identified by a paddle number. On the other hand it makes shill bidding all too easy. In the end auctions whether they be Siegel or an anonymous ebay seller depend upon trust. I trust Siegel.

Ah, they don't make them like Bugsy any more.

Completely agree, when I get a bid from a Private Feedback bidder I immediately place them on my blocked bidder list. I just feel they must be a sneaky person and I don't want their business.

It used to be like that a few years ago.

@ Rob Roy - When are you saying that was a feature of how ebay handled lot closings? I've been on ebay since the very end of 1997 and they've always been a fixed ending time.