How do you know if it's a Private Listing?

fwor

I don't understand why Ebay still has the "Private Listing" feature, because Ebay changed the bid summary page for a listing at least 4 years ago so that the bidder identities are anonymised anyway.

In my experience, the only reason that sellers use the feature is because they want to shill bid on their own listings, and it makes it easier to cover that up. So... I make a point of never bidding on auctions where the feature is used.

Which leads to a problem - how do you know it's a Private Listing if no bid has yet been placed? I'm sure there is a way, but I cannot figure out how, and the Ebay Help pages don't seem to help.

theonlywayisup

No it isn't the only reason. I have always had private listings as I sold items that were very sellable and I sold lots of them. The private listing meant the average viewer had to do more than a few clicks to see what I was selling. Now, with anonymous user names in feedback (the asterisks) it isn't as relevant, but it still shows what you are selling a lot of. I didn't want anyone knowing my best sellers (without doing a lot of legwork) and looking at feedback would generally give the last 100/200 items - clearly showing what was great and what was average.

If you want to search out the shillers, look at the bidding stats and see who is bidding on the listing.

fwor

theonlywayisup wrote: »

If you want to search out the shillers.

I don't want to do that. I want to know whether a listing is a Private Listing so that I can avoid bidding on it.

theonlywayisup

fwor wrote: »

I don't want to do that. I want to know whether a listing is a Private Listing so that I can avoid bidding on it.

Then when you look you will get the note that "this listing is private"

alykatz

theonlywayisup wrote: »

If you want to search out the shillers, look at the bidding stats and see who is bidding on the listing.

But you cant see the bidding stats when the listing has bidder indentity protected on.

also i dont think there is a way to know without any bids being placed im afraid.

fwor

Thanks - now I've looked at an example, I was expecting to see something on the "Bids" page, but actually if you go to the listing itself and scroll all the way down to the bottom, it says "This is a private listing and your identity will not be disclosed to anyone except the seller." That's what I needed to know.

Fortunately the item I was looking at is not, so I can go ahead and bid on it!

alykatz

fwor wrote: »

Thanks - now I've looked at an example, I was expecting to see something on the "Bids" page, but actually if you go to the listing itself and scroll down to the bottom, at says "This is a private listing and your identity will not be disclosed to anyone except the seller."


Fortunately the item I was looking at is not, so I can go ahead and bid on it!

Gosh that is not so easy to find unless you`re looking for it. Though having trouble finding it on the app.

ThinkingOfLinking

Not everyone has sinister motives for private listings...


Some might sell gift items, or items which require discretion such as medical items, lingerie etc...

fwor

Flickering_Ember wrote: »

Not everyone has sinister motives for private listings...


Some might sell gift items, or items which require discretion such as medical items, lingerie etc...

Fair comment - the items I am looking at don't fall into that category, but I can see that some might.

ThinkingOfLinking

fwor wrote: »

Fair comment - the items I am looking at don't fall into that category, but I can see that some might.

I keep all of mine private just in case someone buys one of my items as a present, although I don't deal in those categories either. My feedback, I hasten to add, is not private though.

fwor

Flickering_Ember wrote: »

just in case someone buys one of my items as a present

To be honest, I can't see that as a particularly good justification. It's almost trivial to set up more than one login on Ebay, so if a buyer wants to buy something but keep it secret from someone else, they don't have to think too hard about how to do that!



Similarly, for "personal" items, your Ebay buyer ID doesn't exactly give away much information that could lead to someone tracing the ID back to you, unless you choose to make it so.