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.
Therefore, I learned we should not second guess our first instincts. If we feel like we should place additional bids into an auction we should go ahead and do it. We never have to worry about putting too many bids into BidBuddy because all of our extra bids will automatically be returned to our account. It is always better to place too many bids into our auctions than not enough, especially if we leave our shopping device to do something else.
Lesson No. 2: Focus on your auctions
Prioritize, and do not spread yourself too thin. Decide what you most want to win and focus on that. I learned that if I shop for one item at a time and put all of my bids on that one item, I usually win.
My mother often said, “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.” That might be good advice when referring to career choices because it is a good idea to have a backup career plan. Whenever we are shopping on DealDash, however, that might be bad advice. If we use our bids in too many different auctions at the same time, we might quickly run out of bids and not have enough bids left to win anything. But if we use all of our bids on the auction item we most want, we might come out a bit stronger.
Lesson No. 3: Only necessities
Only shop for items you want and will use and/or items you know a family member or friend could use. It’s easy to get carried away, get overly generous and start shopping for all of our family members and friends. I learned it’s a better idea to encourage our family members and friends to join DealDash and do their own shopping. I have to admit I won many items on DealDash that are still in boxes or in my closet that I have never yet used.
For example, I won a KitchenAid mixer because several of my friends said they have one and they just love it. But I do not enjoy cooking or baking, so I have not yet used my Kitchen Aid. I only keep it in case I decide to do some baking in the future. Right now, I just don’t have enough time. I also won a beautiful guitar. Actually, I won at least two beautiful guitars. I gave one to a friend for as a Christmas gift and she loves it. I kept the other one for myself because I used to play guitar and intend to start playing again sometime. However, I am beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get around to it because now I’m working on writing another book.
Bottom line: It might be a good idea to make a shopping list and stick to only the items on our list, so we don’t end up with items we do not need or use.
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.