Extensive research has been conducted in order to improve the security and efficiency of electronic auctions. However, little attention has been paid to the design issues. This paper discusses design issues and contrasts the differing security requirements between various auction types. We demonstrate that poor design for an electronic auction breaches the security of the system and degrades its practicality, irrespective of how secure/efficient the building blocks of an electronic auction are. This is accomplished by illustrating design flaws in several existing electronic auction schemes. Furthermore, we provide a solution to these flaws using a group signature scheme and give recommendations for sound auction design.