Start Your Own Business Ideas - EBay Explained: Private Auctions

All users who participate in these auctions are completely unknown to each other. Are exactly the same as regular auctions except you can not see who you are bidding against, private auctions. You may not be familiar with private auctions on eBay as they are only used by the minority of sellers.

As a recent survey I conducted amongst my website visitors showed 27% of eBayers would be unlikely to bid in a private auction, i'm guessing I'm not alone here. After all it would be very easy for the seller to take advantage of the privacy factor and bump up the auction price though the practice of shill bidding, the first time I bidded in a private auction I was a little skeptical.

Both parties can still leave feedback but the item number will be unavailable to click on, with a private auction. If your auctioning off something that may be considered embarrassing or perhaps something of an adult nature bidders may not want this item shown on their feedback profile. It provides privacy to both parties - the seller and the winning bidder, firstly. There are some very good reasons for using a private auction, however.

Using the contact member feature to alert members to their own auctions, many less than credible sellers have been known to poach bidders for their own auctions. It may be sometimes necessary to run a private auction to protect yourself from other sellers, unfortunately.

It may be worthwhile trying a private auction, if you suddenly find a lot of bidders withdrawing their bids for no reason. This is very very common practice, in some eBay categories such as the Business and Industrial.

Just be sure to check out the sellers feedback first - if that's been made private as well then maybe it's worth having a second thought before you place your bid. There's no reason to avoid bidding on a private auction more than any other auctions, overall.