Posted By:
D. BerginForget about shilling.............as an honest seller I noticed much higher realized prices on many of the types of items I deal with when all of the bidders ID's were able to be viewed.
It seems when the same people collect similar items there's more of a chance to be a bidding war when you know who you're going up against.
A lot of bidders who valued their privacy probably weren't too thrilled about this but there was definitely a culture of collectors who tracked what their competition were bidding on and bid accordingly.
Of course the rise in popularity of sniping programs also contributed to this but the lack of transparency in Ebay auctions have also caused buyers to be more conservative and suspicious in their bidding IMO.
From the selfish standpoint of a seller I wish they would go back to showing all bidding ID's.
I don't think that will ever happen as Ebay continues to chop it's own nose off over and over in order to spite it's own existence and anybody who still deals with them.