Category: Strategies and Tips

Long-time shoppers on DealDash.com will usually develop different bidding styles to win auctions than new customers. We all develop our own different winning styles. Regardless, we all have a few things in common. 

First, we love DealDash because it’s a fun and entertaining way to shop. For some customers it becomes a hobby to pass time and prevent boredom in retirement. DealDash is also a great opportunity to win bargains on gifts for children, grandchildren and friends. Over the last l0 years, I won several expensive products on DealDash that I could not afford to buy in a regular store. 

Second, we all know we must place at least one bid in an auction before it reaches the “No New Bidders” limit, which is usually at $5. If we fail to do so, we will not be allowed to participate in the auction.  

Other than those few things DealDash shoppers have in common, we differ greatly when it comes to our bidding habits and styles. Some of us are early shoppers, some are late shoppers, and some are what I call sporadic bidders. What kind of shopper are you?

If one style of bidding is not working for you, perhaps it’s time to choose another one. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of bidding styles. 

Early bidders

Early bidders will consistently place the bulk of their bids into the auction they want to win as soon as the auction opens or even before it opens. One disadvantage to this bidding style is that those shoppers will often run out of bids before the auction closes. One advantage to this bidding style, however, is that sometimes an auction sells early. That means whenever early shoppers do win, they always win at a minimal cost and get some of the best deals. 

Knowing most shoppers only place one bid when an auction opens, I decided to place more than one bid (maybe 3 to 11 bids). Then when the auction closed early and I was the only one who placed more than one bid, I would have the winning bid. Sometimes that works!

Late bidders

Most experienced bidders like to save the bulk of t heir bids until the auction gets down to the last two to three players. That’s when they place the bulk of their bids, or at least that’s the plan. One disadvantage to this late style of bidding is that sometimes auctions unexpectedly close early and then those shoppers miss out on having the opportunity to win it because they are not there when it closes. Of course, the idea is to win an auction using the least number of bids as possible. Therefore, one of the advantages of being a late bidder is that it is one way to save bids. By not placing bids when there are a dozen or more competitors, late bidders save their bids to use only when they think the auction is about to close. When using the late bidder style to winning auctions, the key is knowing when it’s the best time to add the bulk of our bids. If too many of our competitors are using the late bidder style, then the auction could be running for a long time. So we must figure out the best time to add the bulk of our bids and know how many bids it might take to win. Do we add our bids at $5 or $15 or much later? 

Sporadic bidders

These bidders are unpredictable. They show up when we least expect and we never know how long they will stick around or when they might suddenly disappear. The sporadic bidder might have a plan or a pattern of bidding or they might not. In an effort to save bids, sporadic bidders might only place 10 or 20 bids for every dollar the auction goes up. The greatest disadvantage to this kind of bidding is that it’s highly likely the auction might sell when they are not there. The greatest advantage to this kind of bidding is that the sporadic bidder might still have bids left at the end  of the auction and win after everyone else has run out.

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.

A few shoppers on DealDash.com might win some auctions by accident, but we can win more auctions by winning on purpose. What in the world do I mean by winning on purpose? How could anyone do that?  You might be surprised  how many things we can do to win auctions on purpose. 

If we simply buy a package of bids and start bidding, we cannot expect to win because we are not bidding smart. In fact, some new customers skip using the free tutorial to learn how to play. That’s a big  mistake. Customers who place their bids one at a time from the home page are only wasting bids and will soon run out. Nearly all of the winners place their bids into Bid Buddy, the automated bidder.  If you do not know how to do that you should contact customer service.

DealDash now has more than 20 million customers so it would not be realistic to expect to win as easily as we did years ago. To win auctions on DealDash we must bid smart and to do that we must now have a realistic game plan. If we devise a good plan, we can still win auctions. However, we must first do our homework before we start bidding. We can start by doing the following things.

Read the winning tips

Reading all of  the winning tips at the bottom of the home page and these blogs at DealDashTips.com will help teach shoppers how to win on purpose.

Check the Previous Sellin Prices

Checking all of the selling prices of previous winners in each auction will be very helpful. If we see how much money the auction usually sold at, we can make a better judgment whether or not we have enough bids in our account to win. I look at the lowest and the highest prices the auction sold at. I also look at the number of bids the previous winners used to win. Then I try to play it safe by investing the same number of bids the highest winner used. That usually works.

Avoid Power Bidders

Watching the auctions and learning to recognize screen names of power players will also help. I try not to compete in the same auctions as power bidders. Whenever I see screen names of power shoppers I save my bids and find another auction I have a greater opportunity to win. 

Check the Winner’s List

Checking the Winners’ List to see which auctions are selling for the least amount of money is also a good idea. Sometimes this changes from week to week. I often see patterns where certain auction items consistently sell low while other auctions consistently sell high. If we pay close attention to that, we can purposely choose to shop for the items that consistently sell low. When an auction is down to the last few players, I also check the Winners’ List to see if any of my strongest competitors recently won a large bid pack or a high-dollar product they might have traded in for a large number of bids. Knowing that helps me to decide whether to cancel my bids or add more. 

Watch for special features

It might be easier for us to win auctions during certain special features. For example, when DealDash varies the “No New Bidders” limit, this can be a great time to win auctions that have been designated with the lowest “No New Bidder” limits. That’s usually from $1 to $5. During that special feature I try to place bids in several auctions with the lowest cut-off because that usually results in fewer competitors. Therefore, I love this special feature.

Avoid distractions

This is where I often mess up. I cannot tell you  how many auctions I could have easily won if I had not allowed myself to be distracted doing other things. I like the fact that we can place our bids into Bid Buddy, the automated bidder, and then walk away. However, whenever I do that, I often forget to come back in time to add more bids when needed. It’s always best if we can shop only when we can focus on DealDash and nothing else. 

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.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to receive some unusual Christmas gifts? Would you like to find some unusual gifts you might not find anywhere else?

Then DealDash.com is the right place to shop. Some items on DealDash are hand-made and not too many places sell hand made products, anymore. 

When I was growing up  the most popular items on the top of most shopping lists were the same old items like socks for kids, pots and pans for mothers and neckties for fathers. Gifts like that were often met with some moans and groans and comments like, “Oh no, not that again!”  You might say gifts “like that” made really dull gift exchanges.

Perhaps we should think twice about what we put around the Christmas tree. Let’s add more excitement in the gift exchange event. To help other DealDash shoppers out, I looked for some unusual hand-made items that might be greatly appreciated.

A unique scultpure

Did you see the hand-made Rooster sculptures?  Wow! These sculptures are iron welded and assembled by hand.

The Fearless Rooster stands at 18 ½ inches high, 6 ½  inches long and 15 inches wide. Its vivid plumage is so colorful it really stands out. 

This Fearless  Rooster sculpture has a BIN of $1,850 but  it’s a fairly new item so it does not have any reviews yet as of this writing. 

The other hand-made rooster sculpture is the Proud Rooster with a BIN of $2,150. Several DealDash customers won some awesome bargains on this one. Some of the best deals so far were:

• Nov. 24, the Proud Rooster sold at 10 cents and the winner paid a total of 61 cents including the cost of the 3 bids used;
• Nov. 17, the Proud Rooster sold at 96 cents and the winner paid a total of $6.76 including the cost of the  29 bids placed; and
• Oct. 31, the Proud Rooster sold at 40 cents and the winner paid a total of $2.10 including the cost of the 10 bids placed.. 

To prevent rusting, each piece is treated with a special electrophoresis powder and the final touches of paint. 

Based on 169 reviews, the Proud Rooster received an overall rating of 4.92 out of a possible 5.0.

Birds of a feather flock together

Another hand-made sculpture is the Wandering Mallard duck with a BIN of $1,850. This exquisite metalwork sculpture with a lustrous green and bronze tone stands 14 inches high, 6 inches long and 13 inches wide. 

This one-of-a-kind piece is hand-crafted by expert artisans that are not found anywhere else. 

The bottom line

If we want to find an unusual Christmas gift perhaps we could win one of the above auctions. Good luck!

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.

Wow! DealDash.com now has a new auction item that brings back many happy memories when my children were young – an arcade machine with a BIN of $599. At such a reasonable price some shoppers could BIN it, even if they don’t win it.

In the old days, arcade machines were available in many places where families hung out, such as pizza parlors, and the first place my children would go was straight to the arcade machine game room. Of course, they first held their hands out to mama and begged for a fist  full of quarters. Not any more.   If you win this arcade machine one of the best things about it is that no quarters are required.

This arcade game is a new auction product listed on DealDash so it does not yet have past winner information or product reviews, but it’s one of the most requested home arcade machines ever. That alone is a good enough reason to add this item to our family game room. This machine was “officially licensed by the NFL,” and features every pro team and legendary players during the time when it was originally released in the late 1990s.

Another great feature is that this machine can be easily assembled and the on-screen menus are easy to navigate on a brilliant, well lit, marquee display. According to the DealDash description, “They play great, look great, and are instant conversation pieces.”

A history of arcade games

The late 1970s to mid-1980s is said to be the “golden age” of arcade games, when this type of entertainment was a superpower in popular culture. However, the word’s roots go back to the Latin word “arcus,” which means arc or bow.  According to my research, “An arched, covered passageway with shops or stalls on the sides is also called an arcade and was a precursor to the shopping mall.” The Burlington Arcade in London opened in 1819 and was the first shopping arcade of its kind in Britain.

Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, created the first arcade game. 

In October 1958, physicist William Higinbotham created a simple tennis game, which is thought to be the first video game. Ed Rotberg designed the first first-person tank shooter video game and is considered to be the first successful first-person shooter video game. 

Arcade video games remained the largest sector of the global video game industry until about 1996. The console market began surpassing arcade video games for the first time in the late 1990s. 

A list of the 10-most popular arcade video games are listed online. Can you guess what they are?

The bottom line

If you enjoy having some stiff competition, keep your eyes open to shop for the arcade game machine. 

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.