Penny Auctions

For a long time now, and I do mean a looong time, I have been known as a bargain hunter. I use Ebates to get cash back, Amazon for a myriad of things, coupons.com for groceries, and more but today I want to tell you about my experiences with some penny auctions.

Quibids.com is one of the better penny auction sites. Bids cost 60 cents each and if you do not happen to win the auction, they give you the opportunity to buy the item, less the cost of the bids you already used. In other words, I bid $35 on a Wii system valued at $199. They took the $35 off and I was able to buy it for $164. Yes, I know I paid full price for it but when you are bidding, you tend to forget that you are bidding with real money so those bids are not lost forever. At some of the other sites, that is not the case. Once you use the bids, and you lose the auction, you have no way of regaining them. I found that I have more success using Quibids (pronounced Kwibids) than at any other site and it costs less for the bids too. So far, I have gotten a $25 CVS card for 4.99 (29 cents for the card, 1.20 in bids, and shipping), a 16 Gb memory card for about 6.50, and my favorite buy, a tiny functional camera that can shoot both stills and video for less than $5.00 (I put in one bid for 60 cents and the bid was 1 cent and shipping was 2.99) so you can see why I am hooked on penny auctions.

I have tried some of the other penny auction sites and they are more expensive with bids  in the 75 cent range. One of the major problems with any auction site, but particularly with the penny auctions is that you tend to forget how much each bid costs amid the fervor of the bidding. Quibids lets you see how much you have spent in bids, and how much you have bid so that you can see if you are still getting a bargain. I have watched some auctions where the bidders spend more than the item is worth just in bids and still think that they have gotten a bargain because they only look at the final cost of the item. For instance, one bidder got a $200 gift certificate for $14.75. Sounds good, huh? Bids cost 75 cents each and he used 249  bids for a total cost of $186.75. Now on top of that, there was a shipping charge of $4.99. So what did he actually pay out for this $200 card? $206.49!!! One of the problems I found is that the sites do not tell you what someone actually spent in bids and final costs so newbies only see that wonderful price of $14.75 for a $200 gift card.

Some of the bargains truly are bargains. Those are more luck and timing and they are what keep us coming back again and again. Timing plays a big role in bidding. Like real auctions, penny auctions practice the "going, going, gone" principle. What this means is that an auction can wind down to the final seconds and another bidder can come in and the timer starts all over again. If, by chance, your bid does not get in there in that final second, you lose BUT if you can time it right you win. One of the best ways to do this and save money is to let others do most of the bidding and you jump in at the last moment. It is a chance you take that someone else will bid and sometimes, well more than sometimes, it does not work out. Just remember that each bid costs money and use them sparingly. Keep track of how many bids you have used so that you don't overpay for an item and don't keep bidding to overpower some other bidder just because you have the chance. That is one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they are bidding in any auction. We all want to win but please remember that unless you have unlimited funds, each time you bid a penny or two pennies, you are spending the cost of each bid which can range from 50 cents to a dollar. If you can take that into account, you can and will get some real bargains.

Good luck!