Who is 'private listings - bidders identities protected'?

[lornaloo1964]

I am being bid up on a few items by 'private listings - bidders identities protected'. What is this?  Why would a buyer hide who they are?  Is this actually the seller trying to bump up the price of the item because it looked like I was going to get it cheap.

[pierrelebel]

Some sellers prefer to make their listings "private" so the identity of the buyer remains unknow.

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/private.html 

Many potential buyers avoid such listings.  I know I do.

[surplusdealdude]

There are innocent reasons for Private sales as well.

Some buyers get embarassed buying certain items, some are reselling the item and don't want their customers to know what they paid for them.

[Anonymous]

"Many potential buyers avoid such listings"

I am puzzled as the sellers cannot have "private" feedback or do you mean sellers' listings are private?  I don't see how as you can see their listings but don't see the buyers' names, is that a problem?   Why would you avoid them?  Could you please clarify?  Thanks.

[pierrelebel]

Clarify?

eBay states that sellers "should only make your listing private if you have a specific reason".

eBay is an open platform.  If the seller tries to hide something (without a specific reason) why should I trust him? 

With hundreds of millions of items openly offered for sale on eBay, I do not wish to deal with sellers wishing to hide what they sell (private listings do not show in feedback). My choice.

[lady.stark]

I also avoid private listings, but only for auctions. It is way too easy to shill bid with private listings. At least, with a regular auction, sometimes you can "guess" who the other bidders are and see if they are legitimate or not.

With BIN items, it's impossible to shill bid, so I don't mind buying such items.