Quibids Strategy 3: The Waiting Game (exposing some Quibids Myths)

This is Part 3 of the series on Quibids strategies that I want to publish. These strategies are not conjured up from thin air. They are written from personal experience, but more importantly, personal research. Most penny auction strategies, like Quibids strategies, are to do with Game theory and probability.

You can also find Part - 1 and Part - 2, which deal with different strategies.

Theoretical Efficiency Vs. Practical efficiency:

To understand Quibids and indeed any other Penny Auctions, you should first understand that the theoretical best Quibids strategy need not be the best practical strategy.

To illustrate, consider a typical Quibids macbook auction, as shown below:

The cost of the Macbook, finally, was $426.65. This was a 1 cent Quibids auction (see the top left hand side of the image). This means each bid incremented the cost of the macbook by 1 cent. Thus, in all, there were 42,665 bids placed. That's quite a lot of bids!

Now, consider the time it takes for placing these many bids. This is a really hard question to answer, as anyone who has followed the Quibids auctions knows. There could be 2 people bidding in tandem, in which case things can move quickly but usually people only place their bids when there are less than 5 seconds left.

As an average case, I am assuming it takes 2.5 seconds between bids (I think it is a good number for an average in this case. Other smaller auctions usually have larger average time between bids).

So the time required to complete the auction is 42,665 * 2.5 seconds = 106,662.5 seconds. This comes out to 29.6 hours. That is a huge time interval of over 1 day!

Now, let me ask you - how many people can sit non-stop in front of their computer looking at the auction process for nearly 30 hours to choose their best strategy? Not many.

This is why the theoretical best Quibids strategies will differ so much from the practical best Quibids strategies.

Best Theoretical Quibids Strategy:

Here is the best theoretical Quibids strategy: Wait for the last moment to place your bid. This means, bid on the Quibids auction when the timer is 1 second.

This seems simple enough and most people intuitively do use this for their bidding - let the people fight it out and I'll come in when the time is right.

This is a simple strategy and people are easily deceived by its applications. Let me expose the myth that this is THE strategy to apply to penny auctions. In fact, all the videos on Youtube that claim to show 100% Quibids strategy wins simply use this basic technique, which turns out, isn't the best practical strategy after all for all Quibids auctions.

The problem is, this isn't always the best practical strategy. For example, in the above Macbook auction, can you sit for 30 hours non-stop in front of your computer to see when the timer reaches 1 second? Well, I don't think so.

When to use this Quibids Strategy:
The waiting game strategy should ONLY be used for small Quibids auctions. By small, I mean auctions that usually have less than 200 bids placed on them. In such cases, you can win Quibids auctions by using this Quibids strategy of waiting till the timer goes to 1 second and bidding.

Word of Caution:
When you are using this waiting game Quibids strategy, it is very important that you never quit! This holds even if there is an aggressive bidder, using a strategy I described here (who uses the volunteer's dilemma problem).

The reason for this is simple: If you quit, you will be left with nothing at all. This doesn't hold for all strategies, but in this instance, you must not quit.

Why People Fail?
This particular Quibids strategy seems intuitive - you wait till the last moment to bid, thus saving your bids and ensuring they are not wasted when someone else is placing his bid before yours.

So why do people fail? Simple - they quit!
When someone is bidding aggressively, they will quit. The problem with this strategy is that it appears to reduce risk, while the truth is it can practically be a very high risk Quibids strategy. The reason for this is what people practically do - they get intimidated by aggressive bidders and never win. They lose a few bids in hundreds of auctions and thus they end up with nothing to show for their efforts and bids.

Therefore, this seemingly simple Quibids strategy can backfire and you need to ensure you know exactly why, when and how to use it. Do not try this on big auctions like Holiday trips, cars and macbooks.

What Auctions Can I win this way?
Try out the smaller bids: 15,25 bid auctions are ideal for this. Also, anything with a price of less than $30 can be a good start. Once you know how never to quit and understand how Quibids auctions work, you can proceed to slightly bigger auctions (but never on the heavyweights!)

Good luck Quibids bidding!

Quibids scam: Why no Paypal?

Quibids scam propagates in multi-directions and there are several issues with this. In this post, I am going to discuss the Quibids scam with respect to the Paypal issue.

There are many customers out there who want Quibids to accept Paypal. But Quibids always refuses Paypal. Why? The reason is not difficult to understand - Paypal has a policy of return when the goods are not delivered. This means if I buy something from Quibids using Paypal and they scam me into it, there is a way for me to get my money back using Paypal. Unfortunately, this is not the case with credit card transactions. Because Quibids is scam, it doesn't allow Paypal.

I will retract my words if Quibids is able to allow Paypal transactions. I know this is not going to happen because Quibids strategy is not really a win-win but simply a win-lose where it is the customers that ultimately lose. It is like a giant casino where the house always makes money no matter what. And a few lucky customers might make a few bucks, but really it is nothing compared to what the casino makes.

If Quibids is not scam, they should start accepting Paypal. I know Quibids scam and got suspicious the moment they said no to Paypal. All respectable online businesses use Paypal. If Quibids is what it claims, then it should do the same. Quibids should start accepting Paypal if it is legitimate. Unfortunately for the customers, this is not the case.

Quibids scam doesn't allow it to use Paypal. This is one of the Quibids strategy to keep trouble at bay. For example, if you lose a lot of money out there and want a refund, Quibids ensues that there is no way for this to happen. This is why it doesn't allow Paypal. Quibids macbook might be selling for $200 but in the process, Quibids makes a whopping $11,800 profit. This is for just one Quibids macbook. There are thousands of items listed each day. You do the math.

If Quibids claims it is genuine and honest, it should start accepting Paypal. If Quibids is scam, then it should not allow Paypal. The answer is there to see for everyone.

Update: Quibids is now accepting Paypal! That is good news. Quibids scam can be in many different ways, but not through this route! Read my Quibids review to learn more.

P.S. Update: I had a few complaints that they are still having problems with Paypal. I contacted Quibids support and here is their reply:

Hi Sid,

We do indeed! You can use (and inform your followers to use) this link for PayPal: https://www.quibids.com/store/firstbuy.php?paypal=1

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you and have a great day!

Sincerely,

Kera
QuiBids Support

Quibids Strategy - 1: The Volunteer's Dilemma

Quibids strategy is nothing straightforward or simple because the strategy is also dependent on the actions of other people. In other words, there cannot be the 'best' Quibids strategy because the best will depend on the other people. Therefore there is no golden bullet that will ensure you get your Quibids Macbook for $50!

However, there are certain instances and patterns that you can catch, and these will give you a good head start. The main point to note is, the Quibids strategies that I discuss here are probabilistic, which means you are NOT guaranteed to win. However, I will try to demonstrate my strategies with examples.

I plan to make a series of different Quibids strategies to help my readers, depending on the response. I hope something will be useful to you as well.

Understanding the Volunteers dilemma as relevant to Quibids strategy

So the first strategy I discuss is to do with the famous Volunteer's Dilemma of Game Theory. Let me first present the explanation of this as relevant to Quibids. If you want to know more about these concepts, please follow the above links to Wikipedia.

In Quibids strategy, a volunteer's dilemma occurs when two or more competing players are bidding for an auction and then there is another person who steps in. Seems simple enough? Well not really. Read on!

Let us consider a simple case first - say players A and B are competing for the prized Quibids macbook. Both their strategies are simple - bid at the last moment before the timer runs out. Each one follows this strategy, so that when the timer is about to go 0:0:0, they hit the bid button so they are the current winners. This is a fairly obvious Quibids strategy but not of great interest here but may be I'll discuss this in more detail some other time.

Now suppose a third person C comes in and bids. What should you do? Who among you, A and B, is supposed to bid? Let us see the thought process. A says, "If I bid now, B will anyway bid again after me, so I don't want to waste my bid. Let B bid and then I'll bid after him." Seems logical right? Well the problem is, B is thinking the exact same thing! This creates huge problems for both because each one wants to save their bid and in the result, neither of them bids and C becomes the winner!!

Does it sound too far fetched? No, it is not! Volunteer's Dilemma is a common occurrence on Quibids and if you want to know about Quibids strategy, this is a very strong one. One immediate advantage to you, as C, is that with only a few bids you can win a great deal. Therefore if you are lucky, you can get your Quibids macbook too, as is demonstrated in my real example below.

Example

Ok, so let me convince you this great Quibids strategy that I discussed actually works. Here is a real example from Quibids on an auction that I was following but not participating in. Here is a screen-shot of the example. Remember it is taken from a real Quibids auction.



See the screenshot? A Quibids Macbook for $30! Seems too good to be true, right? Well, even the winner would not have known that his Quibids strategy for this win was actually the volunteer's dilemma that I discussed here. Let us understand in more detail.

The main players in this auction here - rhazdra, Ithackery, and billcristina. The others were secondary players. Now they were battling out the auction among themselves when all of a sudden some new player Lalig comes along. What do they do? Each one thinks about saving a bid and assuming some other person from the remaining 2 will bid, and neither does. The new player walks away with a brand new Quibids macbook for $30!

I hope my example has shown you how powerful my volunteers dilemma Quibids strategy is.


The Quibids strategy: Step by Step

Here is a step by step guide to help you maximize your earnings on Quibids. I am sure it will be of great help if you are looking to win Quibids auctions or a steal.

• Choosing the auction: This current Quibids strategy that I discussed works best for smaller auctions, so reserve the other strategies for your Quibids macbook. Instead, try these out for smaller items like cameras or earphones or anything within $150 ideally.
  

• Following the auction: The volunteer's dilemma Quibids strategy should not be applied immediately as the auction begins. Instead, it works best when an auction is in progress and you should wait for the right moment. Sometimes it never comes, but don't worry - you have to move on to another auction. This is better than losing a lot of money, right.
  

• Understand the auction: As you follow the auction, look for a situation wherein two or more players are battling it out by staying till the last minute. This is important to note because otherwise the players will know that they are locked in the volunteers dilemma and therefore bid accordingly. The trick is they should both be confused - should I or should I not bid.
  

• Repeat if needed: The volunteer's dilemma Quibids strategy that I discussed is no foolproof method and you might have to wait and repeat. However, if you are looking for the really cheap goods you can get through Quibids, then you wouldn't mind waiting would you?
  

Let me know your success with this Quibids strategy and leave your comments.