I have been shopping on DealDash.com since Feb. 8, 2012, and over the years I have learned some important shopping lessons.
Some people learn lessons the hard way by making their own mistakes before they learn, and some people learn lessons the easy way by learning from watching mistakes that other people make. By writing about some of the shopping lessons I’ve learned the hard way, you have the opportunity to learn these lessons the easy way.
Lesson No. 1: BidBuddy is your friend
Make sure you place plenty of bids into BidBuddy before you get distracted or busy doing something else.
Several times I placed some bids in an auction with the intention of coming back later on to add more bids. Unfortunately, I often forgot I had even started shopping on DealDash and failed to return to my computer soon enough to place additional bids. Many times I finished as the first runner-up when I could have won the item if only I had not been distracted.
Keep tabs of your progress and competition on DealDash.
DealDash.com tracks everything and has the best record-keeping system I ever saw on any online shopping site. I especially like being able to see who my competition is when bidding and how many other shoppers are bidding in the same auction.
If I want to look up any information on my past wins, orders, monthly expenditures or anything else I can easily find it by just opening up the site and looking it up. I really like that. Let’s take a closer look at some of the many places we can access important information:
Home Page
By double-clicking on any of the auction products we can scroll down to the bottom of the auction item and read reviews and feedback that other customers provide. Customer reviews are very important.
If we go to the bottom of the DealDash Home page we can read all about the house rules and terms of use. We can also read information on how to play, including some tips and tricks.
Dashboard
If we go to the top right of the home page, we will see “My Dashboard.” This is one of my most frequently used headers. If we click on “My Dashboard” the main thing we see when we open that window are all of the items we placed bids on, the Buy-It-Now (BIN) price and how many bids we placed on each item.
This is the page I always go to if I’m running low on bids. I overlook auctions that I only placed a few bids on. However, if I see an auction I placed several hundred bids on, I might do a BIN to get all my bids back free to use in other auctions. Some other features I use most often on Dashboard from the list of headers on the far left side are:
Badges:
Earning various DealDash badges is fun. If I click on badges, I can remind myself what the free bid challenge is for the day. Sometimes I try to meet the challenge and sometimes I don’t. Regardless, this is one of the easiest ways to earn free bids.
Public Profile:
This is where we can find our bio and icon or photo. The bidder bio can be changed or updated but we must not attempt to intimidate other players by bragging about how many bids we have. This should be a friendly one-or-two liner about who we are. We could say we love to shop, ride bike or love travel. We are allowed to update and/or change our bidder bio as often as we like, but it usually takes up to 24-hours for each new bio to be approved.
Buy-It-Now history:
This shows a list of how many BINs we did, how much it cost and how many bids we got back for free.
Transaction history:
This shows the date of transaction, how many free bids we were awarded and for what, and how many bids we purchased.
Bidding history:
This keeps a record of all of the auctions we bid on, how many bids we used, the day and time we placed our first bid and whether or not we won.
Won auctions:
This keeps track of all of the auctions we won, how much we paid at closing and whether it shipped or not.
Account details:
This keeps a record of our stored credit cards, our name on the card and when it expires. It also allows us to view DealDash using the old design or the new design, password information if we want to change it, our screen name, email, the day and time we officially registered (signed up) on DealDash, how many bids we have in our account and the total number of auctions we won to date.
Bookmarked auctions:
This keeps track of all of the auctions we bookmarked.
Contact support:
This provides a quick and easy way to contact the support team on DealDash with any issues or questions we might have. It also includes a list of frequently asked questions and a quick briefing of how the DealDash shopping site works.
The dashboard includes a few other records I did not include, but the above are the ones I use most often.
Bottom line: DealDash has an awesome record-keeping system.
This sponsored blog post was submitted by: Barbara L. Sellers. Barbara was compensated by DealDash for this blog post. Blog posts are written by real DealDash customers. The opinions and advice here represent our customers’ views and not those of the company.
When shopping on DealDash.com it is obvious that many shoppers have no winning strategy. Perhaps they are not serious about winning auctions and are only playing on DealDash for entertainment and fun. That does not mean, however, that those customers never win auctions. Eventually, they might accidentally be in the right auction at the right time when it sells.
Winning on DealDash takes a strategy
In other words, they win through no fault, or deliberate intention, of their own. They remind me of the good old days when Gomer Pyle (Jim Neighbors) in McPhail’s Navy said, “Surprise, Surprise!” I love those shoppers because I feel they do not pose much competition for me.
If we are serious about winning auctions, however, we must do more than randomly place bids on auction products we want. Winning auctions requires us to make some important bidding decisions.
What are the biggest mistakes shoppers make while shopping on DealDash.com?
Did you ever watch an auction wondering if you should place some bids or not when you suddenly saw it sell and close before your very eyes? I cannot count how many times that has happened to me!
Avoid mistakes when bidding on dealdash.com
One of the biggest mistakes I make while shopping on DealDash is hesitating to place enough bids to give myself some thinking time. More often than not, when I have a feeling that I should place some bids in an auction, my instincts are usually correct. It hurts to be a second too late.
Therefore, I decided to write this blog about the biggest mistakes I see bidders make when shopping on DealDash. Let’s take a look at some of them:
No. 1 — Not Using BidBuddy
This is probably the biggest mistake new shoppers on DealDash make. It’s easy to tell when bidders are not using the automated bidder, BidBuddy.
When shoppers cut the clock and place bids every other one, we know they are bidding from the home page. Most likely those customers have not yet discovered how to find and use BidBuddy by clicking on the auction to open the window where BidBuddy is located.
If we place our bids from the home page, we will run out of bids in a hurry. Most winners place their bids in BidBuddy. Bids that are placed in BidBuddy will not be used until they are needed. If five shoppers put bids into BidBuddy, the automated bidder will take turns placing one bid at a time for each of those five shoppers until no more bids have been booked. The shopper with the last bid will win the auction.
The best thing about allowing BidBuddy to place our bids for us is that we are not tied down to our computer or other electronic device like a laptop or phone. After booking our bids, we can take a shower, go shopping or go to sleep and come back later to see if we won. Of course, it’s a good idea to check back every once in a while to see if we need to add more bids.
No. 2 — Not Knowing our Competition
Before we start shopping, it’s a good idea to simply watch to become familiar with the reputations of various shoppers.
Many DealDash customers say in their bio section that they are on this site to “win bargains and save money.” If we play smart we definitely can win some great bargains. To do so we must first know what we are doing. There is more to winning auctions than just clicking the bid button. Perhaps the first step to shopping wisely is by reading blogs like this. The second step might be to learn what kind of bidders we should avoid. It is impossible to “win a bargain” if we are competing in the same auction with the wrong kind of shoppers. I’ve learned there are basically four kinds of shoppers on DealDash:
Power bidders who always seem to have an endless supply of bids,
Over-bidders who consistently over-bid the “Buy-It-Now” price of auctions,
Recreational willy-nilly bidders who are only shopping for entertainment and fun, and
New inexperienced bidders who do not yet pose much of a challenge
I have a list of screen names and I strive to avoid shopping in the same auctions with the power bidders and over-bidders. If I see one of those screen names pop up, I cancel my bids and place them in another auction. When the auction gets up to $5 (or $3 during a special feature) and all new bidders get locked out, I run my mouse over all of the icons of qualified players to make sure none of the screen names on my list are in the auction. The auction could be down to three shoppers but that does not mean no one else will jump in as soon as one of the others drops out.
No. 3 — Not Playing Smart
What do I mean by “not playing smart?” I mean failing to pay attention to details that could make a winning difference. Her are a few examples:
I might be one of the last three shoppers fighting it out to win an auction. I might feel I might be able to win because I have 100 bids left and the other two bidders have not been identified as a power bidder or over-bidder. Nonetheless, it’s a good idea to check those two screen names from the recent winners page on DealDash to see if either one of them recently won a bid pack. Once when I checked the winners list I learned one of my competitors recently won a 750 bid pack. I immediately canceled my 100 bids to save them for another auction. No way would I be able to out-bid that player.
We should also look at the previous winners of our auctions and check two things: First, have the most popular power bidders already been eliminated from that auction? Second, what was the average number of bids previous winners used to win the auction?
If we avoid making the most common big mistakes and take a little time to learn how to play smart, we can successfully win great bargains on DealDash, too.
This sponsored blog post was submitted by: Barbara L. Sellers. Barbara was compensated by DealDash for this blog post. Blog posts are written by real DealDash customers. The opinions and advice here represent our customers’ views and not those of the company.
