Three new sites I visited in the past month include OrangeBidz, BubbleBid and SpeedyFinger. Links below to their sites:
http://www.orangebidz.com/
http://bubblebid.com/
http://speedyfinger.com
Orangebidz only has auctions in the evening, and few at that. I picked up a bid pack during one of their promotional weekends where you get all your bids back if you lose the auctions. I promptly lost all the auctions I bid on, because there are a handful of power bidders on that site (you'll recognize them after one day), who bid like crazy on all the auctions, including small bid packs and $5 gift cards.
Because I was returned all the bids I bought, the second round I only participated in Beginner Auctions, where the competition was much less fierce. I managed to win a few auctions and BIN one of the smaller gift cards. A couple days later I was refunded most of the bids I used that weekend based on the auctions I lost with the original bids. If not for that, I would have been in the red.
Although it took me a couple of weeks to figure out how to compete on Orangebidz, the excellent customer service and lightning fast receipt of my winnings made up for the less than competitive arena. You have to go in there and prove you are going to stick out an auction and the power bidders will eventually respect you.
BubbleBid & SpeedyFinger are both reserve auction sites that I eschewed in the beginning but thought I'd give them a whirl recently. BubbleBid is a lot of fun, but it's not easy to win if you go in there with no other participants. In order to win, you must either guess the price of the reserve by popping a balloon (not easy), or hope that one of the balloons you popped results in "Bubble Bucks" that can be used to buy bids or play their board game. After a few tries, I did manage to win a few things, and they are very fast at sending ecards to you.
SpeedyFinger is addicting. You must have at least 50 bids to begin with, and that can cost $25, but it's fun to hit the reserve price, especially if you haven't blown all your bids on winning a $15 gift card. I pretty much just broke even there, but you can watch for cheap bid packs sold on http://pennyauctioncoupon.com and get them for half price. That's really the only way to break even or make a profit.
June 3, 2013
April 29, 2013
Penny Auction Trials: Bidpunk & IBid2Save
Continuing my unscientific exploration of penny auction sites, I try new sites from reviews on APA (www.allpennyauctions.com), where the reviews are not all from shills, usually. The penny auction sites I tried were BidPunk (www.bidpunk.com), ibid2Save (www.ibid2save.com). Both auction sites have quite different layouts, prizes, bidders and return on investment potential.
Most people acquainted with penny auctions join different sites for the variety, the free bids, and the easy pickings when you are a rookie. This is obviously the way most of these second- and third-tier sites get new bidders. I bought a small bid pack from BidPunk and won a few auctions for $10 gift cards easily. There wasn't much competition and I'm sure the system was skewed for me to win at first. BidPunk has a roulette spin wheel similar to Zbiddy, where you can win free bids every day you log in. At first, I made back my money in two auctions. There are not many auctions on BidPunk and they are set far apart, so you can't hang around long.
After your initial couple of wins, you are then pitted against 5-10 regular crazy bidders who compete like mad for 3 or 4 auctions, so it's not particularly profitable. It appears BidPunk is appealing to a younger crowd, based on the prizes and small denominations of gift cards. Very few auctions are BIN auctions, and the bids are expensive (.60 - .75) even with promotions. Their delivery is a little on the slow side, but not terrible. Most of their prizes are either bid packs or e-gift cards delivered via email.
IBid2Save is a strange and terrible penny auction site. Perhaps once upon a time it was a decent venue, but currently it is far too difficult to win anything good for a reasonable amount of money (my formula of 166% profit is impossible to obtain), and the majority of their prizes are dollar store accessories or cheap jewelry that can be obtained for a fraction of the price at Amazon or at a flea market. If you are a bargain hunter and not an irrational bidding freak, you will realize that IBid2Save is a rip-off.
Initially, I bought a small bid pack and then won another bid pack where I spent $15 on "auction fees" that pretty much voided the great deal I thought I got. Ok, I thought, I can make this back. I noticed the only decent auctions ($200, $100, $20 gift cards and iPads or cameras), never sold for less than 70 - 80% of retail, after factoring in the "auction fees", shipping fees, and cost of your bids. Never mind the fact that those auctions run for 8 hours, since everyone and their uncle places an auto-bid for 300 - 500 bids. Although the average cost of bids was about .03 cents, since everyone got cheap bids, they threw them around like confetti and inflated the final cost of every valuable auction.
The only item I bothered to buy on IBid2Save was a watch that I researched on Amazon to see if the auction fee/shipping fee was less than the value of the watch. I probably saved about 40% on it, but it was hardly worth the effort. Most of the junk on IBid2Save can be bought for $1 - $10 although the site claims it is worth ten times that. Do your homework and you won't waste money.
UPDATE: I was given 350 free bids by IBid2Save (as was everyone else on their mailing list!) and found a few promo codes on their Facebook page and around the 'net. I managed to accumulate about 500 free bids and managed to win 3 $20 gift cards in a row. It was a Sunday afternoon and I suspect I just got lucky. I made back the investment and called it a day. Their shipping is very slow.
As far as Bidpunk, I wrote an unflattering review of the site on APA and they rewarded me with free bids. With those bids and a pack I got cheap on http://pennyauctioncoupon.com I won two auctions. I'm back to zero bids with them, but I feel I got my money's worth now.
Most people acquainted with penny auctions join different sites for the variety, the free bids, and the easy pickings when you are a rookie. This is obviously the way most of these second- and third-tier sites get new bidders. I bought a small bid pack from BidPunk and won a few auctions for $10 gift cards easily. There wasn't much competition and I'm sure the system was skewed for me to win at first. BidPunk has a roulette spin wheel similar to Zbiddy, where you can win free bids every day you log in. At first, I made back my money in two auctions. There are not many auctions on BidPunk and they are set far apart, so you can't hang around long.
After your initial couple of wins, you are then pitted against 5-10 regular crazy bidders who compete like mad for 3 or 4 auctions, so it's not particularly profitable. It appears BidPunk is appealing to a younger crowd, based on the prizes and small denominations of gift cards. Very few auctions are BIN auctions, and the bids are expensive (.60 - .75) even with promotions. Their delivery is a little on the slow side, but not terrible. Most of their prizes are either bid packs or e-gift cards delivered via email.
IBid2Save is a strange and terrible penny auction site. Perhaps once upon a time it was a decent venue, but currently it is far too difficult to win anything good for a reasonable amount of money (my formula of 166% profit is impossible to obtain), and the majority of their prizes are dollar store accessories or cheap jewelry that can be obtained for a fraction of the price at Amazon or at a flea market. If you are a bargain hunter and not an irrational bidding freak, you will realize that IBid2Save is a rip-off.
Initially, I bought a small bid pack and then won another bid pack where I spent $15 on "auction fees" that pretty much voided the great deal I thought I got. Ok, I thought, I can make this back. I noticed the only decent auctions ($200, $100, $20 gift cards and iPads or cameras), never sold for less than 70 - 80% of retail, after factoring in the "auction fees", shipping fees, and cost of your bids. Never mind the fact that those auctions run for 8 hours, since everyone and their uncle places an auto-bid for 300 - 500 bids. Although the average cost of bids was about .03 cents, since everyone got cheap bids, they threw them around like confetti and inflated the final cost of every valuable auction.
The only item I bothered to buy on IBid2Save was a watch that I researched on Amazon to see if the auction fee/shipping fee was less than the value of the watch. I probably saved about 40% on it, but it was hardly worth the effort. Most of the junk on IBid2Save can be bought for $1 - $10 although the site claims it is worth ten times that. Do your homework and you won't waste money.
UPDATE: I was given 350 free bids by IBid2Save (as was everyone else on their mailing list!) and found a few promo codes on their Facebook page and around the 'net. I managed to accumulate about 500 free bids and managed to win 3 $20 gift cards in a row. It was a Sunday afternoon and I suspect I just got lucky. I made back the investment and called it a day. Their shipping is very slow.
As far as Bidpunk, I wrote an unflattering review of the site on APA and they rewarded me with free bids. With those bids and a pack I got cheap on http://pennyauctioncoupon.com I won two auctions. I'm back to zero bids with them, but I feel I got my money's worth now.
April 20, 2013
Beezid's Persistent Telemarketers
Since dropping out of Beezid a month ago, I have received 4 phone calls from their Telemarketing department promising to help me win "The Big Items." I thought this was interesting, so I spoke with the first two telemarketers that called me (from Canada, incidentally).
The first caller told me she had observed that I hadn't won any big items and that she would like to teach me how to do it. The first thing I had to do was log in and buy $550 worth of bids and she would triple my bids. (AS IF I WOULD SPEND $550!) Tripling my bids on Beezid really means doubling them plus 1/5. This is not really a deal, since you can buy bids on the auction site for less than .13 a bid. I know, because I never spent more than .15 a bid on Beezid after the first bid package when joining. I pointed out to her that .30 a bid (the average price of this deal), was still much too high a price to pay for bids. She said that unless I had a stockpile of bids, like the Pros had, I would never win a big item. I said I didn't want to win a big item, I merely wanted to win $25 - $100 gift cards in a fair auction where maniacs and lunatics are not spoiling the auction by overbidding by 200 and 300 bids the value of the item.
She told me that bidders overbid to demonstrate their power and make a name for themselves so that they can then win auctions in the future much cheaper by merely intimidation. I said that was silly and counterproductive, since when I checked www.allpennyauctions.com for these maniacs' names, they, in fact, were overspending on nearly every auction. The whole point of penny auctions, I pointed out, was to win things cheap, not overspend on them. She said that Pros pay much less for bids than average people, and I said not according to my research, or according to the final auction results where Beezid shows how much the bids cost the bidder and what he/she actually spent.
There may be some Pros paying .10 a bid at Beezid, but most are spending .15 - .20 a bid and they are not making any money by power bidding an auction. Most recently, a bidder named "turkeyboy" overbid 50% on three separate auctions - a $25 gift card, a set of towels and a set of sheets. He could have bought all three products from Target for less than he spent on one auction. It makes no sense.
The telemarketer realized I was not an easy mark and let me go. The second telemarketer tried the same ploy on me, and when he realized I wasn't an idiot, but rather a disillusioned and disgusted normal bidder, he encouraged me to give Beezid another chance. I said I certainly would, thank you very much (not)! The next few calls I recognized from Beezid I let roll into voice mail.
The first caller told me she had observed that I hadn't won any big items and that she would like to teach me how to do it. The first thing I had to do was log in and buy $550 worth of bids and she would triple my bids. (AS IF I WOULD SPEND $550!) Tripling my bids on Beezid really means doubling them plus 1/5. This is not really a deal, since you can buy bids on the auction site for less than .13 a bid. I know, because I never spent more than .15 a bid on Beezid after the first bid package when joining. I pointed out to her that .30 a bid (the average price of this deal), was still much too high a price to pay for bids. She said that unless I had a stockpile of bids, like the Pros had, I would never win a big item. I said I didn't want to win a big item, I merely wanted to win $25 - $100 gift cards in a fair auction where maniacs and lunatics are not spoiling the auction by overbidding by 200 and 300 bids the value of the item.
She told me that bidders overbid to demonstrate their power and make a name for themselves so that they can then win auctions in the future much cheaper by merely intimidation. I said that was silly and counterproductive, since when I checked www.allpennyauctions.com for these maniacs' names, they, in fact, were overspending on nearly every auction. The whole point of penny auctions, I pointed out, was to win things cheap, not overspend on them. She said that Pros pay much less for bids than average people, and I said not according to my research, or according to the final auction results where Beezid shows how much the bids cost the bidder and what he/she actually spent.
There may be some Pros paying .10 a bid at Beezid, but most are spending .15 - .20 a bid and they are not making any money by power bidding an auction. Most recently, a bidder named "turkeyboy" overbid 50% on three separate auctions - a $25 gift card, a set of towels and a set of sheets. He could have bought all three products from Target for less than he spent on one auction. It makes no sense.
The telemarketer realized I was not an easy mark and let me go. The second telemarketer tried the same ploy on me, and when he realized I wasn't an idiot, but rather a disillusioned and disgusted normal bidder, he encouraged me to give Beezid another chance. I said I certainly would, thank you very much (not)! The next few calls I recognized from Beezid I let roll into voice mail.
How to Win on DealDash
Yes, Virginia, there is a way to win on DealDash if you are really patient, have money to BIN items you need or want anyway, and can accumulate a lot of free bids from the 20- and 30-second timer countdowns that are very annoying (and boring).
I haven't paid for a bid since my first bid pack on DealDash. I just accumulated tons of free bids by setting the BidBuddy to 100 or 200 bids on auctions where I can BIN (Buy it Now) an item I will use like cash - a giftcard for Target, for example, or an item I like under $30.
Over the past two weeks, I bought over $200 worth of BIN items from DealDash that I will immediately use like cash. Not only did I get all my bids back, but I accumulated over 400 free bids from the timer countdown. Most bidders on DealDash let the clock run down so everyone can get free bids. They are polite that way.
Now, how to win an auction (besides being lucky?): First, bid a few times on an auction before it reaches $5, when it closes to new bidders. You can watch that auction to see how many BidBuddies are running by observing the bidders and how often the clock resets at about 3 seconds. The clock never runs below 3 seconds when there are auto-bidders. Check back on the auction every so often, to see who dropped out. When there are 3 or fewer bidders left, and the price of the auction has gone up to about 30 - 40% of the item value (say $7 for a $25 gift card), consider all the bids you are using for that auction to be free bids. You might as well spend them, since they really didn't cost you anything.
Load the BidBuddy with 200 - 300 bids. You will win. By that time, most in the auction are running low on bids, or don't want to spend more than the item is worth (if they paid for their bids), or are not interested in the BIN option. Anyone entering the auction late, like you, will be using the same strategy, so you can hope you have more bids to spend.
I have only won on DealDash two ways: winning early in the auction by luck, or winning late in the auction by outbidding with free bids and spending 30 - 40% of the final price on the item.
I haven't paid for a bid since my first bid pack on DealDash. I just accumulated tons of free bids by setting the BidBuddy to 100 or 200 bids on auctions where I can BIN (Buy it Now) an item I will use like cash - a giftcard for Target, for example, or an item I like under $30.
Over the past two weeks, I bought over $200 worth of BIN items from DealDash that I will immediately use like cash. Not only did I get all my bids back, but I accumulated over 400 free bids from the timer countdown. Most bidders on DealDash let the clock run down so everyone can get free bids. They are polite that way.
Now, how to win an auction (besides being lucky?): First, bid a few times on an auction before it reaches $5, when it closes to new bidders. You can watch that auction to see how many BidBuddies are running by observing the bidders and how often the clock resets at about 3 seconds. The clock never runs below 3 seconds when there are auto-bidders. Check back on the auction every so often, to see who dropped out. When there are 3 or fewer bidders left, and the price of the auction has gone up to about 30 - 40% of the item value (say $7 for a $25 gift card), consider all the bids you are using for that auction to be free bids. You might as well spend them, since they really didn't cost you anything.
Load the BidBuddy with 200 - 300 bids. You will win. By that time, most in the auction are running low on bids, or don't want to spend more than the item is worth (if they paid for their bids), or are not interested in the BIN option. Anyone entering the auction late, like you, will be using the same strategy, so you can hope you have more bids to spend.
I have only won on DealDash two ways: winning early in the auction by luck, or winning late in the auction by outbidding with free bids and spending 30 - 40% of the final price on the item.
March 27, 2013
Beezid For The Insane
As I suspected at the end of my book, reviews or analysis of penny auction sites could be old news after only a few weeks, and Beezid is a perfect example. A few months ago when I joined Beezid, it was fairly competitive but not full of people willing to bid 2, 3, 4 times worth the cost of the auction. I won a few auctions early, and then when people were busy with shiny objects, I won a nice auction with 2 bids.
This past month every time, no matter what time, I join a modest 25/25 auction ($25 gift card/25 promo bids), which is worth maybe $40 at most (given you only spend .16 a bid average at Beezid), half a dozen power bidders (or irrational bidders) join the fray, bid the price up to $3.50 in a heartbeat (which represents over 50 bids each, already past my limit), and then proceed to bid war each person as though we're in a fight for the death in Thunderdome.
Finally, they let some idiot win after 200, 300, 400 bids, which cost him 2-3 more than the price of the card, plus the final auction price which is, by now, over $6, plus the delivery charge, which is $4.
Insane. This happens every day, all day, with people who would rather win than save money and who are chasing off all the people who just want to get a good deal and adhere to Rule #1: TGIF (To Get It Free!)
This is akin to a bad poker player trying to buy the pot when he has a bad hand. Stupid, irrational, economically a loser, and pointless.
I cancelled my membership at Beezid. It's not worth a single second of my time anymore.
This past month every time, no matter what time, I join a modest 25/25 auction ($25 gift card/25 promo bids), which is worth maybe $40 at most (given you only spend .16 a bid average at Beezid), half a dozen power bidders (or irrational bidders) join the fray, bid the price up to $3.50 in a heartbeat (which represents over 50 bids each, already past my limit), and then proceed to bid war each person as though we're in a fight for the death in Thunderdome.
Finally, they let some idiot win after 200, 300, 400 bids, which cost him 2-3 more than the price of the card, plus the final auction price which is, by now, over $6, plus the delivery charge, which is $4.
Insane. This happens every day, all day, with people who would rather win than save money and who are chasing off all the people who just want to get a good deal and adhere to Rule #1: TGIF (To Get It Free!)
This is akin to a bad poker player trying to buy the pot when he has a bad hand. Stupid, irrational, economically a loser, and pointless.
I cancelled my membership at Beezid. It's not worth a single second of my time anymore.
March 23, 2013
Happy BidDay Winning Strategy
I've won 6 auctions on Happy BidDay, all for $25 gift cards, which won't make me rich, but did give me a nice ROI. It took a couple hundred wasted bids to figure out the best strategy, but since I only paid .06 for bids, it was a cheap lesson.
Unlike other sites (Beezid, Quibids), you can set more than one auto-bid (BidRunner on HBD) service for an auction. The limit for a capped auction (don't even bother with capped auctions) is two Bidrunners, but every other auction you can set as many as you want, for all intents and purposes.
The Bidrunner has a 25 bid limit, so the way to win an auction is first to wait until the price of the auction goes to at least $3. Count the number of bidders who obviously have Bidrunners going. There are usually 4-5 bidders at the $3 point. Since you know each of your bids counts .01 toward the price, figure you have 20 bids for every dollar added to the final price. With 4-5 other bidders, you are safe setting a Bidrunner for 20 bids for every dollar increment. Set your Bidrunners for 20 bids for every dollar - 20 bids between $3 and $4, 20 bids between $4 and $5, and so on until you reach the price you are willing to pay for the gift card. I'm not willing to pay more than $6 for a $25 gift card because the shipping on HBD is already $4.
Now, you can go watch TV or make dinner and take a peek back into the auction to see if any of the other bidders dropped out. You can always add a new BidRunner for 10-20 bids to make sure yours doesn't run out before the $5 or $6 mark. I have fallen asleep and lost auctions when I didn't keep an eye on my BidRunner.
If you stay awake and feed the BidRunner little bits at a time, you will win.
Unlike other sites (Beezid, Quibids), you can set more than one auto-bid (BidRunner on HBD) service for an auction. The limit for a capped auction (don't even bother with capped auctions) is two Bidrunners, but every other auction you can set as many as you want, for all intents and purposes.
The Bidrunner has a 25 bid limit, so the way to win an auction is first to wait until the price of the auction goes to at least $3. Count the number of bidders who obviously have Bidrunners going. There are usually 4-5 bidders at the $3 point. Since you know each of your bids counts .01 toward the price, figure you have 20 bids for every dollar added to the final price. With 4-5 other bidders, you are safe setting a Bidrunner for 20 bids for every dollar increment. Set your Bidrunners for 20 bids for every dollar - 20 bids between $3 and $4, 20 bids between $4 and $5, and so on until you reach the price you are willing to pay for the gift card. I'm not willing to pay more than $6 for a $25 gift card because the shipping on HBD is already $4.
Now, you can go watch TV or make dinner and take a peek back into the auction to see if any of the other bidders dropped out. You can always add a new BidRunner for 10-20 bids to make sure yours doesn't run out before the $5 or $6 mark. I have fallen asleep and lost auctions when I didn't keep an eye on my BidRunner.
If you stay awake and feed the BidRunner little bits at a time, you will win.
Voucher Bid Vampires - Quibids
Lately, I have changed my strategy of bidding only on items I would already buy or can use as business gifts to accumulating as many bids as cheaply as possible. In my book I mention how to buy up bids on Beezid during low-traffic times when you aren't desperate for bids and can wait for the right price. I've gotten 50 and 150 bid packs on Beezid for as low as .08 a bid when nobody was paying attention.
With Quibids, it's a little different. If it's a slow time, there are far fewer auctions in which to participate, so there is more competition. It's best to wait for a higher activity level when you can bid on Voucher bid auctions while more interesting items are on the board (iPads, TVs, etc.) You should accumulate Voucher bids at first by winning them with paid bids. Then, once you have 25-50 Voucher bids, you should only use those to accumulate more Voucher bids.
Be advised that if you are bidding on a hybrid Voucher bid auction where a Game Play is involved, you are going to compete with a dozen people who are playing with mostly Voucher bids and are willing to blow most of them to win a game play where they can win 30-100 more.
Also, beware of the Voucher bid Vampires! When you are observing a Voucher bid auction, hover your mouse over the bidders as they appear on the bid board. If they have won 25 - 50 Voucher bids in a recent auction, you know they are willing to spend up to half of them (or more, if there's a Game Play involved) to win. You have to decide if you want to go against someone who can spend 15 bids to win 25. Not me. You have to accumulate a lot more Voucher bids to compete against them. Start small with new players or bidders who waste all their bids early. Some bidders don't realize they can't spend more real bids on an auction than the item is worth (unlike in Beezid, where insane people spend 2-3 times the value of the item just to win); so you will wind up having to BIN an auction unless you are using Voucher bids. I would not spend more than 1/3 my Voucher bids winning more Voucher bids, but I am cheap like that.
I watch Voucher bid auctions, wait for the price to go to an average level, bid using Voucher bids as late as possible, and never go up against people with 50 - 100 Voucher bids to spend. Your goal should be to accumulate as many bids as possible during opportune times (Saturday & Sunday afternoons between 2 - 5, weekdays between 2-4 pm EDT, and very late if you're a night owl between 3-5 am EDT).
With Quibids, it's a little different. If it's a slow time, there are far fewer auctions in which to participate, so there is more competition. It's best to wait for a higher activity level when you can bid on Voucher bid auctions while more interesting items are on the board (iPads, TVs, etc.) You should accumulate Voucher bids at first by winning them with paid bids. Then, once you have 25-50 Voucher bids, you should only use those to accumulate more Voucher bids.
Be advised that if you are bidding on a hybrid Voucher bid auction where a Game Play is involved, you are going to compete with a dozen people who are playing with mostly Voucher bids and are willing to blow most of them to win a game play where they can win 30-100 more.
Also, beware of the Voucher bid Vampires! When you are observing a Voucher bid auction, hover your mouse over the bidders as they appear on the bid board. If they have won 25 - 50 Voucher bids in a recent auction, you know they are willing to spend up to half of them (or more, if there's a Game Play involved) to win. You have to decide if you want to go against someone who can spend 15 bids to win 25. Not me. You have to accumulate a lot more Voucher bids to compete against them. Start small with new players or bidders who waste all their bids early. Some bidders don't realize they can't spend more real bids on an auction than the item is worth (unlike in Beezid, where insane people spend 2-3 times the value of the item just to win); so you will wind up having to BIN an auction unless you are using Voucher bids. I would not spend more than 1/3 my Voucher bids winning more Voucher bids, but I am cheap like that.
I watch Voucher bid auctions, wait for the price to go to an average level, bid using Voucher bids as late as possible, and never go up against people with 50 - 100 Voucher bids to spend. Your goal should be to accumulate as many bids as possible during opportune times (Saturday & Sunday afternoons between 2 - 5, weekdays between 2-4 pm EDT, and very late if you're a night owl between 3-5 am EDT).
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