True Auction Style Penny Auction

A new Penny Auction, nebids is in pre-launch. This penny auction aims to be a true auction style penny auction in that it has not just buyers (bidders) but also sellers. This means it is going to really be an eBay styled penny auction where sellers will set up their products to be bid on penny auction style and buyers will bid on the products they want, penny auction style.

This concept isn't entirely new. Several large penny auctions had tried it in the past (not Quibids though as far as I know) including BidRivals. However, the program didn't get a very good response for a variety of reasons (e.g. read the SuperBidRivals review from an actual user of the program when it was active). There are plenty of details that need to be sorted out for such an ambitious program to work. I am sure the founders are thinking about those though.

There are several challenges that will need to be addressed. For instance, you want a good mix of buyers and sellers on your site for the model to work. Also, it is important for a critical mass of bidders to form for the idea to be profitable, more than regular penny auctions will need. Until then, the site will need heavy promotions and hope to attract both bidders and sellers.

The site is being started by Larry, Scott and Marcus from Florida. All of them have previous entrepreneurial experience but not in penny auctions. I hope they understand the challenges of the industry and are ready. The regular features hold, e.g. providing a robust feedback system so that sellers will have an incentive to be honest instead of cheating (again, need a critical mass). nebids also has dispute resolution in place, as it should, especially when it is starting out. After all, it isn't eBay!

A good point that Larry raised was that since this is going to be different in being a marketplace of both buyers and sellers, the problem of shill bidding is eliminated. This should provide a good level of trust and honesty that new penny auctions find hard to attract.

The launch is still far away, about a couple of months ago for beta. It would be interesting if the trio can pull this off and be successful in the saturated and competitive world of penny auctions. They have a nebids blog that you can check out for updates.

There are also some giveaways for interested bidders. During the giveaway they have 2 grand prizes, 1 new iPad and 1 $500 Amazon gift card. They will also be holding dummy auctions where people can win $5 and $10 gift cards as well as equivalent value bids. There's multiple ways to gain entry into the contest, by entering their email address on the landing page, by liking our facebook page, etc.

It will be an interesting endeavor to follow. With their previous entrepreneurial experience, hopefully, they can build something great. 

Penny Auction Mistakes - 1: Bidding Too Early

This is my penny auction mistakes series and the first post is devoted to bidding too early. This is a classic beginner mistake, especially with the ones who think that penny auctions are akin to traditional auctions (they are not). Just avoiding this simple mistake should help you save some bids in the long run.

The important part to remember is that this is a classic penny auction mistake only at some penny auctions. At others, this might actually be a great strategy! You need to recognize if the bidding is a mistake or not through the tips and strategies that I provide here.

Take a look at the auction below from Quibids.

Can you see the problem with it? The auction has over 16 hours left, and already over 500 bid are placed! This is a very typical mistake at Quibids and other established penny auctions. There is absolutely no way in the entire world that these bids could be the winning ones. This is a high-ticket Quibids product that is in a lot of demand. Very likely, the product will end up gathering over 25,000 bids.

Remember that penny auctions like Quibids are not like traditional auctions. Here, the last bidder wins and you don't determine the bid value, which means all bids are the same except separated through time (same value). Thus you would not want to squander away your bids early on. You are highly unlikely to win with several hours remaining for an auction to end. If you are serious about this item, bid when there are a few seconds left on the clock. The auction extends and goes on for hours together even from this stage.

However, there are certain cases, special cases, where this strategy might actually work. This is true for small penny auctions and new penny auctions that are just building up and lack a very active user base. A lot of auctions, especially in the afternoons, might be won just by one bid. In such cases, it is a good idea to place a bid at night if you are not able to place a bid in the afternoon. It might just pay off.

So how do you know if you are making this penny auction mistake? Here is a small checklist for you to go through.

• If the penny auction is popular, like Quibids, never bid when there are several hours left on the clock. The 1 cent wins you see displayed on Quibids are extremely rare. 
• If the item is a big-ticket item, like a Macbook or photography kit or HD-TV, chances are that it is highly competitive and a lot of people will be bidding on it. In this case, it would be a mistake to bid very early. 
• If the auction end time is towards the evening and weekend, chances are that people will log in and check the auctions. In this case, as far as possible, avoid very early bids. 
• If the penny auction is very new and only a few bidders are active on the site, you might want to take your chances sometimes by bidding too early. 

This is a classic penny auction mistake that you should avoid. Sometimes beginners see that there is no competition now, and get tempted to be the highest bidder. This is meaningless because competition will start when the auction is about to end, not when there are several hours left on the clock. Avoid this penny auction mistake and save a few bids.

Also, don't forget to check out my Penny Auction Strategy Guide.

Sites Like Quibids

What are sites like Quibids? People want to know because Quibids is getting more and more crowded and thus competitive. Sites like Quibids should have the desirable features of Quibids, such as product selection and being 100% legit. However, these sites shouldn't be like Quibids in terms of the competition. The best bet is to look for new penny auctions.

Quibids follows the model of penny auctions and there are many such sites that are coming up. Of course you should be very careful when you are looking for sites like Quibids because many penny auctions can be scams and they will not send you the product after you win. Therefore you need to look at trusted sites where there is not too much competition and you have a good chance of winning.

One good site like Quibids is HappyBidDay. I like it because it is relatively new and has some good product selection as well. In addition, they have a ton of free bids that you can use, so if you invest a little money in the bids, combine them with free bids and you have a winning formula. Right now, you get 50 free bids on registering!

I am not sure if this new penny auction can remain attractive forever. This is why I will update this information with various other sites. This is a very dynamic area when you are looking for sites like Quibids because sites and competition change all the time. You should be updated in order to get the best deals online on penny auctions.

New Products at CrazyCigarDeals

I have previously written about a penny auction CrazyCigarDeals. This is a niche penny auction that mainly sells cigars. However, now this penny auction has several other products that might interest non-smokers as well. For example, today there is an auction for a coffee system valued at $120.

The reason why I like this site is because of the competition. There are several auctions every day and really few members who have really joined and are active. This means there is a very high chance of you winning this auction with little investment. I like new penny auctions that are honest, and CrazyCigarDeals is certainly one of them. It is backed by a 10 year old internet cigar company TBS Cigars, so you don't have to worry about any scam. It is certainly the best place for online cigar auctions but now it is also becoming a great place for other items.

Another great reason why you should consider joining CrazyCigarDeals is because of the free bids that you get during registration. If you join now, just use the coupon code SIDSDEAL and get 20 free bids! I wouldn't be surprised if you can win this coffee system or really even the other cigar auctions using just your free bids, considering there is low competition. Even otherwise, you can buy a bid pack and you can get enough bids to win. The site does look promising and I hope my readers think the same.

The cost of the bids is also lower than any other penny auction. For example, you can get 50 bids for just $20 (compared to the price of $30 at Quibids) and 100 bids for just $35 (compared to $60 at Quibids). I would suggest go  ahead and get some bids and then use them for products like Coffee system or even other cigar packs (they can make for a good gift too!) 

Visit CrazyCigarDeals here.

CrazyCigarDeals Coupon Code

You can read my CrazyCigarDeals Review here.
In a nutshell, CrazyCigarDeals is an amazing place to get the best cigar deals in a penny auction model. It is backed by a large internet company TBS Cigars, so it is 100% legit.

Now, you can use SIDSDEAL as your CrazyCigarDeals Coupon code for 20 free bids! Most cigar packs on the site end before 20 bids are placed, so you might as well win something for nothing. The site is still new and there are great deals to be made.

Do check out CrazyCigarDeals.

7thBid Review

This is my 7thBid Review.

7thBid is a new penny auction site that has several features that older penny auctions like Quibids lack. I wouldn't say all of them are good for the bidders, but they are certainly worth checking out.

So you know the background stuff - 7thBid is a penny auction with most auctions incrementing in price by 1 cent. The timer is incremented each time a bid is placed by 15 seconds, which is usual and convenient, as opposed to a few new penny auctions that increment it by 30 seconds. The 7thBid review below assumes you already know how penny auctions like Quibids work.

The Lucky 7: Free Bids
As the name suggests, 7thBid likes to do things different at 7. The first offer you get is that every 7th bid placed on the site is free! This effectively reduces the cost of a bid by 1/7 or about 14%. If you are bidding more, you might as well take the bid pack and reduce its value by 14% to know your true price of bids.

The second promotion that 7thBid runs is that 7thBid gives every 7th Bid Pack sold on the site for free! Of course you would never really know if you were this lucky 7th bidder beforehand. However, it is a nice addition if you like the excitement of penny auctions to combine with an unexpected freebie! One way to look at it would be to motivate some of the bidders to be more active by giving them free bids. It is also a nice addition to the excitement that is already present in a penny auction model.

Beginners are Welcome: Tackling Power Bidders
I'd have to give a thumbs up in this aspect of my 7thBid review because it understands the problem of power bidders and tries to tackle it. If you are not aware, this is a serious problem especially on new penny auctions.

For those who do not know, power bidders are those that invest a lot of money in the bids and keep bidding on auctions till they win. This means that ordinary folk seldom have a chance to win auctions in which power bidders are participating. This naturally discourages people and they drop off the site, which really stunts the growth of a new penny auctions.

So how does 7thBid tackle this issue? It defines anyone with less than 7 wins as a beginner (yea, the lucky 7 again!) and ensures that 33% of the auctions are beginner auctions. This is a good way to tackle power bidders without penalizing genuinely good bidders (Defined as those who read my series on penny auction strategies ;) ).

I would have also liked to see something special for the very new bidders - auctions that only those with 0 wins can participate in. This is simply to motivate the newbies and make them feel welcome! Sites like Quibids do this and I think it works well.

Win Limits

At 7thBid, win limits are really generous. Quibids, with thousands of auctions every day, limits users to 12 wins per month. 7thBid limits it to 18 per month. In addition, there is a limit of 2 wins/day and 8 wins/week. Then you have only 1 item over $200 per month and a total limit of $500 per month. All this does make it a little more complex than it should ideally be. And not to mention the problems when a single item is over $500 in cost.

I think Quibids win limits are very good: 12/month and 3/day. This is simple, neat and effective.

Premium Auctions
Some auctions are dubbed premium when the cost of the item is high. In these cases, the increment is doubled or tripled, which means one bid placed will increase the price by 2 or 3 cents.

Frankly, I do not think that high-cost items should go for a higher cost increment. In a penny auction, the final price isn't the one that determines the profit of the company but the bids placed. In fact, the very reason the price is incremented by 1 cent in usual penny auctions is that it gives the illusion of a low cost and encourages more bids. By making it a 2cent increment auction, the auctioneer, the penny auction site, doesn't end up making more money because many potential bidders would never have placed their bids had the price increment been 1 cent.

I think Quibids is a fine example in case. For old Quibids users, they would remember that there were many auctions that were incremented by 2 cents, 5 cents and even 10 cents. I remember bidding on 10 cent auctions a long time ago at Quibids. These are exceedingly rare now, which is not hard to imagine why - 1 cent auctions usually attract more number of bids. I would guess that Quibids, owing to its huge size, just experimented with these different increments and then stuck with 1 cent increments because it gave them maximum profit.

Bottom line is that for bidders, a 2/3 cent increment auction doesn't really make matters worse.

Limiting Loss ... to the House
7thBid is sensible in that it limits the loss it can incur on high value items. I don't think this will last for a long time - as the site grows, this would probably not be needed. However, as a blogger who keeps tabs on the industry, I know that many new penny auctions just fold because they take huge losses in the initial days they are not prepared for.

So the way 7thBid ensures limited risk is by setting a minimum auction reserve price on special Reserve Auctions. This is set at a maximum of 5% of the retail price, which is still high in terms of giving the house a profit. This is a rare occurrence as of now on the site and bidders bidding on smaller items and gift cards should never really be worried.

If this reserve is not met, then all the bids placed are refunded (only fair) to the bidders and the winner of the auction gets 7 extra bids (yea, the 7 again!)

However, I would really like to see this practice being limited. It is not at all pretty if someone wins an auction only to realize that the reserve was not met. Part of the appeal of penny auctions is the high of winning, and if the site takes this away, it is quite disappointing. I wouldn't be surprised if the winner is really unhappy with just the 7 free bids - after all winning a penny auction needs taking a lot of risk that is not compensated by free bids. That being said, I am not totally against the concept of reserve price, which is better than the penny auction disappearing overnight in any case.

Free Bidding Auctions
Free bidding auctions are becoming popular with new penny auctions and many old ones are also beginning to offer this. Quibids, by the way, doesn't have it. So the way this works is that bidding is free - just like eBay! You don't spend bids on these auctions. However, you still pay the final auction price. This isn't too bad but the final price is closer to retail, so don't expect a 90% discount in these auctions.

In conclusion, I hope this 7thBid review will help you make the choice of whether you want to join or not. I would say that it is easy to contact the people behind 7thBid, which is a certain plus.

Check out 7thBid

OrangeBidz Review

This is my OrangeBidz review

OrangeBidz is a penny auction that is much newer than the more established players like Quibids. This means you can get some great deals on the site as it is still growing. OrangeBidz gives some great deals on new products.

I was surprised to see the number of auctions already up on the site. OrangeBidz is relatively new and it has been online a little more than a week. Even now, there are more than 10 auctions per day, which is high for a new penny auction site.

OrangeBidz reveals all the previously ended auctions and their final price. This is unlike Quibids that hides this data. You can see the list of all closed OrangeBidz auctions to get an idea of the price and your bidding strategy.

OrangeBidz has all the usual good aspects of a good penny auction: no shill bidding, no bots bidding to increase the price, etc. It is a fair penny auction without any hidden fees. The bidding cost is $0.75/bid irrespective of how many bids you buy.

In my OrangeBidz review, I came across a great feature: OrangeBidz has no shipping fees! This means there are no extra costs associated with the auction, which is indeed good for the bidders.

OrangeBidz is also very active on social networks, especially Facebook. This is something Quibids does too, but Quibids is very competitive if you want to win some free bids. However, OrangeBidz is relatively new and you are not just another person out of the tens of thousands. There are regular competitions and contests that help you get some cool deals and some free bids. Penny auctions that are active on Facebook are more popular for obvious reasons in the long term. In addition, free bids are certainly a great way to start off bidding on a penny auction.

The customer service is prompt and helpful. This is an important aspect for a penny auction because it keeps the bidders happy and addresses all their concerns.

Another very positive aspect of OrangeBidz review is that it has very fast shipping. In fact, they ship the products the same day that they are won! They can afford to do this as they are new and there are not thousands of products every day.

I think OrangeBidz is a nice penny auction if you are looking for low competition penny auctions where you have a higher chance of winning than Quibids and other established penny auctions.

Check out OrangeBidz and let me know your thoughts on my OrangeBidz review.

Quibids Alternative: DealDash

To all my readers, I would like to recommend a new penny auction called DealDash as a good Quibids alternative. They are not really a new penny auction - they are in business for 2 years now. However, they take great pains to keep the site neat and profitable for the bidders. I don't think they have as aggressive a marketing campaign like Quibids or Beezid, so they are not as well known but they are very good.

The thing I like about DealDash is they try their best to give it a very personal touch, even though there are thousands of bidders there. The customer service is very good (as good as Quibids and certainly many times better than Beezid). Their personal care shows across the site, for example, you can see their blog which has videos from their employees explaining offers and features. I have not seen many sites do that, and even less in the penny auction industry.

DealDash is a legit penny auction and is BBB Accredited as well. It is much less competitive than Quibids, which means you will have a superior winning chance here than at Quibids.

But now the most important question: How profitable is DealDash compared to Quibids?

To know this, you will have to take a case study - a sample of products sold at both these sites. I prefer to choose a reasonably priced item, so I picked a 12 MP camera from both these stores, of comparable prices, around $110 retail. So how does DealDash compare to Quibids?

The screenshots of auctions from the last week are shown below. As you can see, DealDash is over 10 times cheaper than Quibids in this auction. This seems to be the general trend and not limited to just this one auction.


So DealDash appears to have a very good choice of items. Of course, Quibids still remains the largest penny auction out there, but if you can find the product you are looking for also on DealDash, you can save much more money than on Quibids. In addition, I encourage you to check out the prices of previously won auctions on DealDash and Quibids and you will see how Quibids is no longer as profitable as it once was.

DealDash is not exactly new in that it is not a few months old. It has established itself well in a niche field of penny auctioners who are looking for some good cheap deals with an honest and accredited penny auction.

I would really like to hear from you how you found DealDash as compared to Quibids.

Disclaimer: DealDash have agreed to sponsor this blog but they have in no way influenced what is written and have not provided me any content, have in no way told me what to write about them and are in no way responsible for the content that I post about them or other sites on this blog. Everything written in this blog is 100% my original thoughts.