YouNeverLose Review: YouNeverLose is a penny auction site with a twist - instead of purchasing bids, you purchase gift cards at their retail value, gather points and use those points as bids to win additional products.
Minimizing Risk
I have always advocated that you should look for strategies that minimize your risk. This is why I like it when penny auctions have a Buy Now feature, which allows bidders to cash out their bids to buy the product at full retail (whether this price is inflated is another discussion; it happens, but not always, e..g gift cards have a known retail value that cannot be manipulated). This is why penny auctions like Quibids do well. And they can argue their case in front of any litigation: after all, you decided not to buy the item at retail and lost out.
YouNeverLose also does this in its own way. Essentially, it says, buy at full retail from us, and we will give you a chance to win something else. There is no catch - for example, you buy a $10 Amazon gift card and use the free credits to bid on another gift card, and hopefully win it. This of course minimizes your risk - if you fail to win anything with your free credits, you still have the initial gift card you bought - you come out even.
How YouNeverLose makes money
This is actually an important question to ask for any penny auction. After all, no one wants to operate at a loss. The thing with YouNeverLose is that it asks you to buy gift cards at full retail. However, the 'fair market value' of gift cards is almost always less than their face value. There are several websites out there that sell gift cards for less than their face value. It is not uncommon to see $25 gift cards being sold for $23. It isn't much, but it is something. In addition, I suspect YouNeverLose gets better deals directly from the companies (after all, a huge chunk of gift cards are never used, so companies are usually happy to negotiate gift card deals).
How you should use YouNeverLose
Like everything else, you should use this penny auction with care if you want to come on top in the long run. Look for gift cards that make sense to you. Don't buy something just because you want to. Instead, look for gift cards that you will definitely use in the next week or month. Don't stock up too much (you end up not using them!) Instead, define your needs, see how much money you need to spend and where, and then buy gift cards appropriately. Use the credits to bid on auctions.
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