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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Quibids Strategy - 4: Using Quibids Bid Vouchers

This is part 4 of my series on Quibids Strategies. You might also want to read Part-1, Part-2 and Part-3.

So this part of Quibids strategy is for a specific case: If you want to win the item but don't want to purchase it at the market price.

There are many Quibids bidders out there who do this - they don't want to use the 'Buy it Now' option. Please do note that this is an awesome feature of Quibids that you should definitely check out and use as often as you can. However, you might be there on Quibids just for fun and would want to win the auction without actually 'needing' the item. Thus you would not want to buy the Quibids Macbook for thousand bucks, but you might still want to bid and try to win this item.

If there is a such a specific item, then you should use this strategy of using bids to purchase bid vouchers. The trade off is that Voucher bids do not count towards 'Buy it Now' bids. However, since you are not that specific about this, you might as well try to optimize your overall bids as opposed to using only paid bids.

For this Quibids strategy to work, you need to know what kind of bid vouchers work best. Quibids currently offers bid vouchers of 15, 25, 50, 100 and 250 bids.

Aim: To win an X bid voucher for less than X bids.

This is not hard to understand: suppose you can win a 250 bid voucher by spending 100 bids. In effect, you are getting 150 bids extra. The price of course is that you used up 100 paid bids and got 250 voucher bids, so be aware of this trade-off at all times.

What bid vouchers work best? In my experience, it is very hard to win 15 bid vouchers for less than 15 bids. However, it is relatively simple to win 50,100 bid vouchers within 50,100 bids by using my Volunteer's Dilemma strategy. Thus, the best bid vouchers are 50 and 100 bid ones. The 250 bid voucher can get quite competitive. You can use my Waiting Game Strategy for this particular bid voucher.

The additional costs involved in the voucher bids is to take the final price into consideration and also the shipping and handling charges. For example, if the final price + shipping/handling comes to $3, you need to account that as 5 bids lost.

Thus if you decide to bid and win an item without any regard to Buy it Now feature, then you should definitely employ this Quibids strategy. This strategy will help you to get the maximum out of your Quibids experience. This is in effect a way to get free bids at Quibids, but it is not really free - you have to work to win the bid vouchers.

Note: Bid vouchers are relatively safe, because if you don't win it, you can always use the Buy it Now for the bid voucher! So suppose you are bidding on a 100 bid voucher and you place 100 bids but don't win it. Nothing to worry - by paying the service charge of $2, you can buy it just like you would purchase normal bids! This is the good thing with Quibids vouchers.

14 comments:

  1. Hi Sid,

    I really like your articles and am glad I found this blog. I'm a new Quibid user and have found them helpful. One thing missing from this article though is the actual cost to buy the Voucher. Say if it gets bid up to $1.95 and sells for that then you have to take that into account...so that could lower your gain too. Keep up the good work!

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  2. jfrein,
    Thanks for your comment, really appreciate it. Do subscribe to the blog so you can keep yourself updated. I write quite often on this blog.

    You are right, you also need to take the actual cost of the bid voucher as well. Usually, at penny auctions this is insignificant, but it still counts like 3-4 bids that you need to consider. I have made the change to reflect in the main article.

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  3. Thanks for the update Sid Kal. I had another question for you as well. I noticed in the bold typing above you said you could pay the service charge of $2 and get all your bids back for only $2. The problem with that would be eventually if you kept doing that you would be using voucher bids to bid on voucher auctions right? Then you don't get credit towards the buy it now...so if you got to that point you'd be out the money for your bids?

    Also I was wondering once you win 3 auctions does Quibids take you out of the "rookie" auctions and throw you in with the pros?

    Thanks so much for the blog, I enjoy it!

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  4. Yes, I wrote in bold: "The trade off is that Voucher bids do not count towards 'Buy it Now' bids"

    About the trap page, it is really a hard question to answer as Quibids is not very open about it. However, it is a fact that Quibids has acknowledged that they do have some criteria so some bidders cannot see all the auctions. Read my post on Quibids trap page and you'll know much more.

    I appreciate your comments and am very glad that you like the blog.

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  5. If you do not plan on using the "buy it now" option, is it wise to continue buying bid vouchers? Considering the cheaper price which you can win these vouchers instead of bid packs, it would make more sense to use these. When you look at the cost, 100 bids = $60. But at the highest I've seen, you can win a 100 bid voucher for $5 or $6.

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  6. Actually these bid vouchers can get much more competitive. Even at $6, you are not guaranteed to win this within 100 bids. If you lose, then you lose all the bids that you have placed. Of course you can go ahead and try to take the risk if you wish. It isn't the wisest thing to do, in my opinion.

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  7. I concur...winning the bid vouchers can wind up costing a lot more. However, that didn't really answer my question. I have come across quite a few bid vouchers lately, but my curiosity has got the better of me. Because I got the vouchers so cheap, would it be more beneficial to continue getting vouchers at a cheap price instead of buying bids? Again, this is along the assumption you do not plan on using the "but it now" feature.

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  8. Well, if you do find that bid vouchers are cheap, then it is certainly good if you never plan to use the Buy Now feature. However, at Quibids, it is usually NOT the case - bid vouchers can be quite competitive, especially the 100 and 250 ones. There are some penny auctions where bid vouchers are usually not very competitive, in which case they are worth the risk. At Quibids, I don't personally suggest using them because of the competition. But yes, if you think bid vouchers are cheap and you don't want to use Buy Now, go ahead :)

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  9. Lol I can't remember the last time I had real bids. I have been on vouchers probably since my initial 100 real bids were spent. When I drop below 200 or so, i start bidding on more. It's mostly a long process of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, but you can eventually build your voucher stockpile back up. Quibids is fun but you would have to be crazy to not see all the ways they nickel and dime you. Why pay full price for real bids when vouchers can still win you anything you want and cost a fraction of what the real bids do. I understand you can't use "buy it now" but I look at it like this, even if I have to burn every voucher I have to win something I really want, I may have used a ton of bids, but didn't spend near as much as someone else would have using real bids and the buy it now feature. Can you imagine if everyone used real bids on a 46k bid Macbook. Yeah the winner got a decent deal- $460 for a Macbook, but Quibids just made $27,600 for that same Macbook. Don't throw them stacks of cash by using real bids when the vouchers are waaaay cheaper.

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  10. Hello! Where can I contact you besides blogger? Like what is your email? I am a quibidder to but as far as bid vouchers go do you have any extra tips? Cause I tried one second bidding and it hasen't worked.

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  11. I don't think bloggers are supposed to contact each other personally outside the forum. Check the rules of this forum or other forums such as AllPennyAuctions.com or PennyWise,com - it's not fair to other readers.

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  12. http://vnlink.co/SSy73wf please sign up for quibuids and type that in as a referral. thanks

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