You’ve worked really hard.
You found out about penny auctions and became intrigued by all of the advertisements and tales of others winning super cool items for really cheap. So you decided to try penny auctions out in hopes of winning.
You’ve spent a lot of money on bid packs.
You’ve spent even more time bidding…
BUT…! You’re still not winning all those cool items for less like a lot of others have been. Why not?
Why aren’t you winning the auction game?
You might not be winning for one, or many, of these reasons.
1. You’re in the wrong place.
2. You’re in the right place, but the wrong time.
3. You’re bidding against “heavy hitters.”
4. You need more patience.
or 5. You’re not taking advantage of a few helpful tools.
or 6. You just need to spend more money.
Ok, so while it may not be obvious, there are some penny auction sites that are flat-out scams. A good resource to reference prior to bidding on any site would be Penny Auction Watch. Sign up on the Penny Auction Watch Forum to get tips and discuss penny auctions with other bidders.
You may be bidding at the right site, a legit penny auction or entertainment auction website, but you’re bidding at the wrong time. And you really never know when they right time is, but there are times where the traffic on a site is at peak levels and the competition is tough. You never know when another bidder, or multiple bidders, will stop bidding and you could be in the auction when the others have just started or can bid more than you want to.
You could be bidding against the big shot penny auction powerbidders. These guys know the game, know the rules of the game, and win often. Sometimes they spend thousands of bids on an item not worth hundreds, other times they get items worth thousands with only a few bids. So you have to do your homework. If it’s a site with less traffic and not as many bidders as a larger site like DealDash, Beezid, or QuiBids, you need to watch and see who is winning and what their bidding behaviors are before you bid against them. Just know the game and play it better than they do. This takes time, and patience.
Patience – you never know when another bidder is going to stop bidding. This is why it’s important to watch an auction closely and bid with patience. Don’t just hit bid every second another bidder places a bid. Watch as the timer counts down and bid when the timer is in the last few seconds (4-3 seconds).
Many sites offer bidding tools. Be sure you are familiar with them and take advantage of them. Bidding tools on DealDash.com include a bid buddy – this is an automatic bidding system that will bid for you with the amount of bids you tell it to use over the specified span of time in an auction. This is great if you are tired of pressing the bid button, want to always show up if someone else doesn’t bid and have a competitive advantage over others not using bid buddy. But note: many bidders can also be using bid buddy the same time as you. The bid buddy system will take turns bidding for you with other bidders, so you may not place a bid each time someone else bids. You could save money this way and you surely won’t miss getting a bid in if no one else bids.
Perhaps this one is the most obvious and you’ve already spent a lot of money… To win a particular auction you may need to spend more money than you want to. It really depends on where you’re at in the bidding and where everyone else is. This is not something that can be gauged. You have to pay attention and keep track of your spending, you may have to quit before you’re too far ahead, or keep going. No one can make this decision for you.
What have you bid on and won lately on a penny auction site? Do you bid on DealDash?