Ebay Secrets Blog

Bids cost $0.75 each and come in packs of 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500.

We have an exciting variety of items to choose from. All of the items auctioned on our site are brand new!

Each time you bid on an item, one bid will be deducted from your account and the auction price will increase by $0.10 (or $0.01 for penny auctions). Note that once you place a bid, it is considered “used” and will not be returned to you.

First of all notice that you pre-purchase you bids for 75-cents each. Unlike other auctions where you don’t pay unless you win, with penny auctions it costs you money to place a bid.  That is a big difference.  Since you bid in increments of a penny and each bid costs you 75-cents, if you bid on a item ten times, you would have spent $7.50. And even if you don’t win the item, you are still out $7.50.

That’s crazy –why would someone do that?

Well – what if you were bidding on a $200 digital camera and you ended up winning the camera with your last bid?  Then you get the camera for $7.50 plus the amount of the winning bid which might be only $7 or $8.  Roughly $15 for a $200 camera.

Consider this a minute.  While I was writing this I watched an auction on BidCactus for a Nikon S8300 Coolpix camera. This camera carries a MSRP of $299 but routinely sells on Amazon and elsewhere for about $265.00.  But when the auctions ended the current bid was $10.99. Since each bid cost a penny, that means there were 1099 bids at $0.75 each. Do the math. That works out to BidCactus receiving $824.25 in bid income plus $10.99 from the winning bidder or a total of $835.24 for a camera that retails for $265.00.  Not bad. Would you rather be BidCactus or the bidder?

Now how much did the winning bidder pay for the camera? You have no way of knowing because you don’t know how many bids the winning bidder placed. If there were on two active bidders and they split the bids then each of them paid $400 and only one of them got a camera.  But what if there were 3, 4 or 5 or even more bidders?  You could have come in at the very end and only placed ten or fifteen bids ($7.50 to $11.25) and you may have been the last man standing and won the camera.  That is why penny auctions are so exciting.  If you get all wrapped up and keep bidding like crazy, you can lose a lot of money and never win a thing. But if you are smart, you can often scoop up a valuable item for pennies on the dollar.

You often see penny auction companies listed on the scam and fraud sites. Invariably the complaints are from people who kept bidding and didn’t win anything.  I am not surprised –there are always people who either do things they don’t understand or they are people with addictive personalities who shouldn’t be doing anything close to this.

You may think this is crazy and why would someone take that kind of risk –and that is OK. You are smart and you are probably like me. I really enjoy playing blackjack when I go to vegas –but I don’t like to lose money, so I limit myself to $100. When that is gone I leave, no matter how many free drinks they offer me.  Its the same with Penny auctions. If you are going to play then you want to do three things:

1. Understand the rules
2. Have a winning strategy
3. Set a strict limit as to how much you will risk.

So how do you win at Penny Auctions?

There are several strategies that can help you win:

1. Don’t bid early. Wait until auctions are about to end. The way penny auctions work is that if someone bids in the last 10 seconds, then the auction is extended another ten seconds to allow another bidder to stay in. So there is no sniping like there is on eBay.
2. Watch several auctions right to the end before you place your first bid. This will help you develop a strategy that works for you.
3. Avoid determined bidders.  If you start bidding and the same person is coming right back at you and they look determined, then you could be up against either a pro or one of those folks with addictive personalities who won’t give up even if they pay more than the item is worth.
4. Don’t play at peak times.  You want to be on when business is slow. This is the same as eBay. If you are a seller then you want your auctions to end in the early evening when business is brisk. But if you are a buyer, then you look for items ending at times of day when there are fewer people bidding.
5. Don’t spread your bidding over multiple items. Focus on one or two items at most at one time.
6. Watch for items with low activity. If everyone is going crazy over a plasma tv or digital camera, you may see a $100 visa gift card going for a song.
7. Don’t drink and play.  If you are in the habit of having a nightcap or two and then surfing the web before going to bed –that is a really bad time to bid on penny auctions.
8. Don’t let you ego get in the way.  Some of us can be very competitive people and we have personalities that just hate to lose. That is a prescription for disaster. Unless you can approach Penny Auctions in a cold, calculating way, then you should just watch TV or read a book. It will be a lot cheaper.
9. Lastly, take advantage of promotions. Almost all of the penny auction sites offer promotions to get you started or sales on bid packages.  For example, Bid Cactus has a promo running now where you can get $10 off of your first winning auction bid. Here is the info you need. $10 Off Your First Winning Auction at BidCactus with Code: K2T8BC.

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