Private listings, do they put off any buyers.

pinkshoes

Private listings just make me suspicious, so I tend to avoid them

Vernier

There are only two reasons I can see for 'private' listings:

The official eBay one is that the item is something the buyer would be embarrassed to have showing on their feedback (therefore I'm embarrassed to have 'private' listings showing on my feedback!).

The second is to facilitate shill bidding.

For both reasons I avoid bidding on 'private' listings.

GabbaGabbaHey

StaffsSW wrote: »

Most of my listings are private as I accept Best Offer and I do not want the lower-end of the buying market scouring my feedback to see how much they think they can get off

Why would they bother to scour your feedback, when there's a perfectly good Goofbay tool to do it for them?!

It's the "eBay Best Offer Tool" at: http://www.goofbid.com/ebay_tools.html

metoyoubear

I hate it when business sellers have private listings as I will often check out feedback for the item I'm interested in,see if it's any good or not,look what other buyers have said about the item,but if it's been a private listing you can't see what item the feedback left is pertaining to.

I don't buy from BIN listings that are private.

brokenant

Thank you for everyone's thoughts. I agree as a buyer I might be put off by a private listing but the items I'm selling are one off genuine antiques. They have generated enough interest and bids already that I feel confident in leaving them running to the end.

New_Seeker

I read this with interest (in fact I've registered with MSE simply to post on here as my whole view point has drastically changed after reading this thread).

I've almost always listed items privately, specifically because I didn't want my nosey family knowing what I was selling (especially this time of year when it could be their unwanted Christmas presents!).

I didn't realise that so many people were put off, thinking those who list privately could be less than honest sellers. I've since changed my listings and will watch with interest as to whether they sell any better than usual.

StaffsSW

GabbaGabbaHey wrote: »

Why would they bother to scour your feedback, when there's a perfectly good Goofbay tool to do it for them?!

It's the "eBay Best Offer Tool" at: http://www.goofbid.com/ebay_tools.html

The "perfectly good" Goofbay tool doesn't work with private listings :cool:

[Deleted User]

definitely puts me off, why are they hiding anything. I thought the whole idea of online auctions was openess in everything

forgotmyname

I avoid private listings like the plague.

Makes me think either they have been selling dodgy items or dodgy feedback or just terrible sellers.

UsernameAlreadyExists

I've bought various items that I didn't even realise were private listings until after I'd received the feedback and noticed that the item itself in the feedback was shown as private and not clickable.
The items were valuable, and I am sure the seller appreciates that the buyer might not want the items to show up on the buyers account.
However ... I've seen other listings where it's clearly marked as a private auction, but I perhaps mistakenly assume that you had to jump through some hoops to bid on it?
Are there different types of "private" ?