If your eBay home business involves the selling of adult items, embarrassing goods, or other items that your buyers may not want others to see on the feedback list, you may want to mark your auctions as private for their protection. Private auctions can also block your competition from seeing the final sale price of your items, which can make it much harder for them to list their items at competitive prices. It doesn't cost extra to make your auctions private, and it may garner you more business, especially if you sell items that others may be weary about publicly purchasing.

Marking your auction as private doesn't actually make your auction private. Instead, what it does it hide the usernames of the people bidding on your listing. When the winning bid is made, and the sale is completed, your feedback listing and the buyer's feedback listing only denotes whether or not the sale was positive or negative, and lists any comments you or the buyer made. The item that was sold and purchased, and the final selling price for the auction, are both marked private and are not searchable by other eBay users.

To mark your auction as private, simply choose this option when setting up your listing. The option to mark your auction private is available with your starting bid price options. All you need to do is check the box to mark it private, and you are good to go.

Some of the items that may do well with a private auction include diet pills, lingerie, adult toys, controversial items that deal with unpopular opinions, racy clothing, and items of that nature. Marking your auctions as private for these items will encourage buyers to bid on your listings, because they know that no one but you and the buyer will be able to see exactly what it is they purchased.

Private auctions can also prevent your competition from gaining an edge on you. Competitive sellers in your niche make a habit of going through past auctions to see what your starting prices and final selling prices are for your items, and then price their items to start lower than yours. Even if it's only the difference of a few cents, this can be all the difference in a buyer choosing your auction or your competition's. Marking your auctions as private completely prevents other sellers from getting this precious information and using it to their advantage.

Many sellers used to practice keeping their auctions private to protect their bidders from being track by competition, or to protect the bidders from harassing each other. This is no longer necessary, as eBay keeps each bidder's username private during the auction process. The only time a username is revealed is when they win the auction, and by then, it's too late to harass or coerce them into purchasing another seller's item. However, since the name can still be seen when the auction is over, marking your auctions as private can still help protect the buyer from other solicitations from sellers at a later date. Your buyers will definitely thank you for protecting their privacy.