The Edge of Nowhere

[dark_child666]

Does anyone have any experience with them? Any particular tips or tricks you could share?

It seems like quite an ingenious business model for both the customer and the site, wondering if there are any hidden fees or excessive S&H to be worried about.

Related to this all, post what you've gotten for ridiculously cheap.


For reference, examples of penny auction sites:
http://www.dealdash.com/
http://www.blitzpenny.com/
My understanding of it is basically you pay a fee per bid (where their profit comes from) and then pay the final bid price + taxes + shipping&handling. Timers go down to zero but go back to 15-30 seconds if a new bid is added.

[Nusky]

penny auctions rarely actually finish cheaply. Most of the won stuff they show on their page is either cheap crap that most don't really want or just flukes. Your best bet is to wait till like 3 AM to bid yet there are no auctions that end that late.

[dark_child666]

I actually watched a MacBook Pro go for $35.xx at like 4pm today. Unless it was fake, that's ridiculous.

Edit: in some info I found, it says to expect to pay up to 30% of the retail price in bids, which, provided you get the item cheap enough, isn't that bad.

[Demerit]

Thing is, if there is 20 people paying 30% of the total price of the item then they are making HUUUUGE profit. You may win it cheap, but that means 19 other people wasted 150 dollars in bids also.

[Zergi]

I just clicked on the blitzpenny website and noticed:

[zeiris2]

Strictly speaking, the price shown is false. If each bid costs a dollar and makes the price go up one cent, you ought to multiply the "visible price" by 100 to get the true cost. (And then add the un-multiplied visible price again, since afaik you have to pay that too.) This would make that MacBook pro sell for around $3535.

They obviously have measures to ensure an item does not sell until it passes break-even, and generates a certain % profit for them. Thus, rule 1: there's absolutely no point bidding on items that haven't passed that point.

On the site I looked at, the termination of an auction occurs essentially when there's only one person left willing to bid. I assume that happens when others have run out of bids, or no one cares to enter a bidding war. I'd hazard to guess that the best strategy is thus to stock up on tokens, choose an item with a high price (and preferably on the low end of the visibility/desirability curve) and not stop bidding 'til it's yours. This is a completely uneducated guess, however, and I wouldn't wager any of my own money on it

Rule 3: the system is obviously rigged massively in favor of the site owners. They control the game, and have far more information than you. You are not in a position to win here, and will get ripped off with 99% certainty.

[dark_child666]

Yeah I understand the implied cost vs shown cost, that wasn't what I was asking for. It states in the Terms of Use on most sites that employees + close family cannot use the site, if you they they're lying that's fine.

I'm looking for people with experiences from using these sites, regardless of how stupid it may be.

[WhoIsJohnGuilt]

[zeiris2]

See rule 3. Getting experience in this is pretty stupid, unless you have excess money and time.

[DaFox]

From a business standpoint it is absolutely ingenious. From a consumers? Its basically a scam.

All of these sites allow you to buy bulk votes and automatically have bid wars on items with it. Everytime that someone bids the auction timer increases some 10-30 seconds allowing someone to outbid you (especially if they have it set to auto bid on the item.)

If you do get lucky and everyone runs out of auto bids on the item at the right time and you do happen to win an item great, you just scored a cheap laptop or what ever... But the company made some thousands of dollars from it and you probably spent atleast a few hundread trying to get it.

[royo]

[Aryan]

if you include all of the other auctions your failed on it might

[PhatZilla]

Cant believe people still think they can get 'cheap shit' off penny auction sites.