Saturday, July 30, 2011

HappyBidDay Promotions

HappyBidDay is the penny auction site that I am currently using. It is the best alternative to BidRivals. The thing I like the best about this site is that they are relatively new and are looking to make a mark. For this reason, they have put up tons of products on their site and there are not enough bidders.

When such a situation arises, it is very profitable for the bidders. You will get items for very cheap. You should remember that the auctions here start at $1.00 and not $0.00, so the number of bids is lower than what the cost suggests.

Right now, if you register, you get 50 free Happy Bids that you can use on special auctions. And also you get 5 free bids for each day that you log in! These are great promotions that should have you come back again and again.

I contacted the owner and they gave me a special promotion that you can use. If you Register Here, you will get 15% off on your first bid pack. This means even more savings than usual! Now you can spend even less on bids and win even more products. Don't forget to check out the site and register because it gives you very good winning chances. Register before the situation changes though!

BidRivals: 20% Free Bids Coupon Code

Here is a BidRivals coupon code for free BidRivals Bids: NICE20. This will give you 20% additional bids on any bid pack that you purchase at the site.

BidRivals is a penny auction and it regularly has such promotions. You should look for these coupon codes because they help you reduce your overall cost of bids. This in turn translates into higher profits for the bidders.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Best BidRivals Coupon Code: 40% Free Bids!

For some strange reason, BidRivals is celebrating reaching 17,000 likes on Facebook and is giving away 40% free bids on ANY bid pack purchase. Note that this coupon can be used only once, so use it wisely. The BidRivals coupon code is FB40.

That being said, there are a few limitations.
Please Note that the coupon expires on 11th July and can be used once per customer. All free bids expire within 48 hours of purchase and cannot be used on the Buy Now Option.

So if you an avid BidRivals user, you can do well for yourself with this coupon code. Good luck!
By the way, also check out a new, less competitive penny auction HappyBidDay which gives great winning chances along with cool promotions and free bids (you get 50 free happy bids while registering!)

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Beezid 4th July Promotion

Beezid is a big penny auction that isn't as big as BidRivals but is one of the major players in the penny auction industry. Beezid has a major drawback which is most auctions don't offer a Buy Now feature to reduce your losses. However, this gives Beezid more leeway to make auctions more exciting, so you will see lots of Beezid promotions, Beezid coupon codes and free bids.

This week, for the 4th of July, Beezid has a popular promotion that it has used to great success in the past: Get all your bids back! This will run from 9pm EDT on 3rd July to 9pm EDT on 4th of July. Every bid placed in this time period will be returned to your account. This means during this time, Beezid is guaranteed to lose money. So why would it do so?

Let us see what is in it for Beezid (contrary to what you may think, Beezid isn't a charity!) When all bids are returned, there is little risk. This means more and more bidders will buy bids. Remember that the main source of income for any penny auction is bid sales because the selling price is a fraction of the retail price. Thus more and more people will buy bids and in the long run, it is highly profitable.

A lot of smaller penny auctions also try to follow this model of Beezid with mixed results. However, as far as Beezid goes, it seems to do very well with this strategy, especially because it is much bigger and there are lots of bidders on this site.

So if you are a Beezid user, do look forward to this promotion and use it wisely.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

BidRivals Coupon Code for July 4th

Just a quick post: BidRivals has a great coupon code for July 4th: JUL15 You will get 15% additional bids using this coupon. And the good thing is, you can use this coupon twice! That's right, every bidder can use this coupon twice to get 15% additional bids. Please note that you will need to hurry though, because the offer ends on July 4th.


Friday, June 10, 2011

Sites Like BidRivals

What are the sites like BidRivals? What about alternatives to BidRivals?
BidRivals is a penny auction which falls under the category of 'Entertainment Auctions'. These are special auctions in which the cost of bidding rather than the final price determines the profit of the company and the expense to the bidders. BidRivals is just one of these penny auctions.

BidRivals is famous because it works all over the world in many different countries. Most other penny auctions are localized to a particular country. For example, Quibids is the largest penny auction in the US and it works only for US residents.

Sites like BidRivals i.e. penny auctions can be found all over the internet especially if you are in countries like US or UK. However, if you are in countries like India, your choices are limited. Australia and South Africa also have some great penny auctions.

In the US, you can try Quibids which is the largest penny auction. Apart from that, the other well known penny auctions are BidCactus and BidHere, both smaller than Quibids but great penny auctions nonetheless. HappyBidDay is another great penny auction to try if you want cheap electronics and gift cards (it is not yet famous, so you can get good deals).

So if you are looking for sites like BidRivals, these are some options that you have.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

BidRivals Closes in Denmark

Today, BidRivals announced that it will close operations in Denmark. This is because of a new Danish law that aims to protect consumers. According to this law, all the bids towards a lost auction should be refunded to the bidders. Of course this cannot be done if the penny auction, BidRivals in this case, is to make a profit, so they closed down.

According to them, they have only a small presence in Denmark and so it shouldn't affect their business a lot. However, Denmark has created a precedent and more countries might follow suit. BidRivals is especially in a vulnerable position because it doesn't have the Buy Now feature on all auctions - a huge drawback compared to penny auctions like Quibids.

There was a legal statement drawn by BidRivals that showed a legal opinion on why penny auctions are not gambling, but it is hard to rely on.

Europe has historically been ahead in terms of protecting consumers than the US and I think the first signs of trouble for the penny auction industry might come from there with legislatures looking to limit risk. I think penny auctions like Quibids are relatively safer owning to their Buy Now feature, but I am not too sure about sites like BidRivals.

What do you think about penny auctions?

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Top 5 BidRivals Tips and Tricks

These BidRivals tips and tricks will greatly help you to win BidRivals auctions. In addition to these tips, you should also read the BidRivals strategies that I discuss in this blog. These strategies are very important to understand if you want to greatly increase your winning chances.

So here are the most important BidRivals tips and tricks that you will need to make profits and get huge discounts without getting into loss.

BidRivals Tips and Tricks - 1: Know the Penny Auction Model
This may look like a beginner tip but you cannot even imagine the horror of people who foolishly get into bidding without really realizing the penny auction model and how it works. Penny auctions are very different from ordinary auctions like eBay and it is very important to know the differences. Before you invest a single penny in BidRivals, it is very important that you note the following points:

  • The first main difference between penny auctions like BidRivals and auctions like eBay is that in BidRivals, bidding is not free. This means every single time you place a bid, you pay about $0.65. This is in contrast to eBay where bidding is free. Every time you hit the bid button, you are down $0.65. 
  • Timer isn't fixed at penny auctions like BidRivals. What this means is that in traditional auctions like eBay, there is a fixed time when the auction ends. This is not changed during the course of the auction no matter what. However, in penny auctions, each time a bid is placed, the timer is incremented to 10-20 seconds. Thus there is no way of knowing when an auction ends. The auction could show 1 second left now, but it can go on for a day! This is because if people keep placing bids, the timer keeps on increasing. 
  • A placed bid is money lost, forever. Once you place a bid, you can never get back the money for it. However, if you are bidding on a Buy Now auction, then you can use the money spent towards the bids for purchasing the product at its full retail price. 
  • The main cost to the consumer is not from the final retail but from the bids placed in the process. In fact, BidRivals could as well give away all items for free to the winner! This is because the source of revenue for penny auctions is not from the final selling price of the product, which is 90-95% discounted anyway but from all the hundreds or thousands of bids placed in the process. 
So now I hope you know and understand the penny auction model better.

BidRivals Tips and Tricks - 2:Always look for the Buy Now option
BidRivals now has a great Buy Now option. Using this, you can greatly reduce the risk of bidding on BidRivals. Without this option, potentially you can use thousands of dollars on items without ever winning them! What this option does is that it takes the money spent towards all the bids placed on the auction and uses it towards buying the item at full retail.

For example, if there is a computer selling on BidRivals for $800. Suppose that you spent 1000 bids on this auction but still didn't win it. Now you have spent $0.65/bid X 1000 bids = $650 towards the bidding process. Now you can put in an additional $800-$650 = $150 towards the computer and buy it at full retail. Thus after this auction is over and you have lost, you just pay BidRivals an additional $150 and get the computer.

Now you know why bidding on auctions without the Buy Now option is so risky - in the above example, you have lost $650 and have absolutely nothing to show for it!

BidRivals Tips and Tricks - 3: Always Look for BidRivals Coupon Codes
BidRivals gives out many coupon codes to promote its site and provide an incentive to users to buy bids. There are many different offers that you can find on BidRivals, right from free bids on registering to a certain percentage off bids. I would say never buy a bid pack without using a coupon code.

To find BidRivals coupon code, you should check this blog. I keep all the latest information and updates on BidRivals coupon codes and you are sure to find something that is very useful to you. If you really search this blog, you will find a ton of ways to get free BidRivals bids that will really help you in the bidding process.

BidRivals Tips and Tricks - 4: Never Bid Without a Goal and Target
Penny auctions have been compared to gambling many times. Though I don't share this view, there sure are similarities. If you don't know when and where to stop at penny auctions, you stand to lose a lot of money. In this aspect, it is definitely like gambling. The last thing you want is to end up hundreds of dollars in the red without winning enough. Therefore, I would strongly suggest that you limit the amount of money that you spend on an auction. It is easy to get carried away in the heat of the moment but it will never help. In addition, follow the tip above: Always bid on Buy Now auctions so you can at least get something back for your money if you lose auctions after spending a ton of money.

BidRivals Tips and Tricks - 5: Know when to Bid 
It is very important that you know the best time to bid on BidRivals. Timing is very important in penny auctions. You should bid at those times when there are a good number of auctions but not too many bidders. If there are too many people online, then the auctions become very competitive.

I hope you liked these BidRivals tips. If you think I missed something out, don't forget to point it out to me and I'll add it to the list!


Saturday, May 14, 2011

Another BidRivals Coupon

Here is another BidRivals coupon: DAG20. Apparently this is valid only today but I think you can use it even a little later, so do hurry up. This BidRivals coupon code is valid to give you 20 free bids on any bid pack purchase. I advise using this on the smallest bid pack so that your overall bid cost is reduced the most. Good luck!

BidRivals Coupon Codes

Here is a BidRivals coupon code that you can use while registering. This will give you 10 free BidRivals bids.
BidRivals coupon code: brfree10

Coupon codes at penny auctions are a great way to improve the overall profit that you make from the site and as such should always be used whenever possible. Coupon codes effectively reduce your overall price of bids. In addition, with the above you get 10 free BidRivals bids which means you might just as well win something great without investing any money at all! This is rare but certainly possible.

You should also read all my BidRivals Strategies to really know how to win on BidRivals.

Friday, May 13, 2011

BidRivals Buy Now Option

BidRivals buy now option is a wonderful tool for bidders. This is a relatively new feature at BidRivals that was introduced after the recent changes to the site. I think the main reason is that people didn't like to bid on this site as it was getting very competitive and bidders were losing a lot of money. Also, this Buy Now option is a direct copy of the same option by Quibids, the largest penny auction in the US which has this option by default on every single auction.

So why should you care about the Buy Now option? There are several reasons. First, it gives you an excellent BidRivals strategy where you cannot lose. This is especially so for gift cards of places you regularly shop from.

Sample Case Study
Say you are a regular shopper at Amazon. You will find plenty of Amazon gift cards at BidRivals. Now, start bidding on these gift cards. There are two possible scenarios:

1. You win the Auction: Great! Now you can get a good discount on the Amazon gift card. You made a good profit on the overall deal, congratulations!
2. You lose the Auction: No problem! You can simply use the Buy Now option and get the gift card at its full retail. You don't make a profit but you don't money either.

This is a wonderful strategy to use on penny auctions which have the Buy Now option. However, you should be absolutely sure that the auction has this feature. Otherwise, you will simply be wasting bids. At Quibids, every single auction has this feature.

At BidRivals, watch out for this logo:

Otherwise, you are good to go! You can use this BidRivals strategy and get some nice discounts for yourself.

You should also read my BidRivals Strategy 1, BidRivals Strategy 2 and BidRivals Strategy 3 to learn more about how to win on BidRivals. Good luck!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Why Quibids is Better than BidRivals

I don't like to make such blanket statements, but it looks like Quibids is better than BidRivals on almost all counts, if you are in the US.

Quibids is the largest penny auction site out there and has a better product selection than BidRivals. In addition, at BidRivals, it is almost always the bidagent that wins against single bids. However, at Quibids, it is usually the other way round - single bidders win more than the Bidomatic, which is their automatic bidding tool.

In addition, one of the most important features of Quibids is that there is a Buy it Now feature on every single auction, so technically you don't need to lose any money. If you don't win an auction, just buy the product at its full retail price and you are good to go. At BidRivals, however, you can end up losing potentially hundreds of dollars if you are not careful and win nothing in the end.

BidRivals Alternatives

What are some BidRivals alternatives? Probably many of you would like to know. The reasons are not hard to understand: BidRivals is very competitive. They are clever in that they have people from all over the world bid on the same products (and make some good money out of the currency exchange deals as well!) which makes BidRivals competitive all throughout the day. This is a big loss for the bidders who fail to get good deals.

Another reason why you might want to look at BidRivals alternatives is because BidRivals has the BidAgent, the automatic bidding tool, and it wins 90% of the auctions on the site. This is in sharp contrast to other sites where individual single bidders also have a chance. I think there are plenty of penny auctions out there which give a much better chance than BidRivals for winning.

For those of you who don't know, BidRivals follows the penny auction model, which is not new. There have been thousands of websites following this auction model after Swoopoo (which incidentally is out of business now!) and the financial crisis only helped the cause. So let us look at different penny auctions which can be a good substitute for BidRivals.

Established Penny Auctions
There are several established penny auctions which are bigger than BidRivals and therefore offer a much better variety of auctions. You can find literally thousands of products including gift cards at these penny auctions. In this category, I will recommend Quibids.

Quibids is the largest penny auction site today on the internet. It has completed many more than a million auctions in a short span of less than 2 years and is growing fast. It is also up to date on the products that it sells, so you can find the best variety of products.

Visit www.Quibids.com to signup and get more information.

New Penny Auctions
I like new penny auctions as BidRivals alternatives because they are so much less competitive than BidRivals. This is a very important factor to consider especially when you are not looking for a very specific product.

The only drawback with new penny auctions is that they offer a low product variety. Still, you can find all the popular electronics and gift cards even on these penny auctions. They carry a much less risk than BidRivals simply because there are fewer bidders. Being new, these penny auctions have to promote themselves and to do so, they offer great products. But there are not enough experienced bidders, so you have a very good chance of winning.

The list of new penny auctions which are 100% legit (very important!) keeps changing. One site that I personally like is www.HappyBidDay.com. This is a great site because they give you 50 free bids during registration! You don't need any coupon code or anything, just visit the site, sign up and you have your 50 free bids. This is a good start and you can always test the waters before you purchase bids. However, if you are serious about winning high-end electronics at very cheap rates here, you should certainly buy the bigger bid packs.

Visit www.HappyBidDay.com here.

Finally, don't forget to let me know your experience on these sites and BidRivals as well!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

BidRivals Gift Cards: Why the odd prices?

You might wonder why BidRivals has the oddest gift card values around? Established penny auctions like Quibids have a very specific gift card denomination: $25, $50, $100 etc. However, at BidRivals you will see that the gift cards are quite odd: $45, $40 etc. Why is this?

This is because of the exchange rate differences. BidRivals tries to make a profit even out of this exchange rate variation! So a £40 gift card might sell for $45 in the US. Similar is the case with the Euro.

The exchange rate variation is a unique feature at BidRivals because it is a global penny auction that probably operates in more countries than any other penny auction.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Why SuperBidRivals doesn't make much sense

As a preview, read why I think SuperBidRivals Sucks. The reason I write this follow up post is because, well, there are other reasons why it is not really very good for the affiliates.

Any penny auction works through averages. Even Quibids, the largest penny auction site in the US loses money on many auctions. However, the reason Quibids survives and is doing great is because it works through the averages. You can find iPads going for a few cents on Quibids. Now imagine if you were sponsoring this auction! You would lose about 95% of your investment.

Plus, I already wrote about how flawed the sharing program at SuperBidRivals is. This does seem unfair to the affiliates and the site wants to profit at the expense of the people who promote it, which isn't cool.

Monday, February 21, 2011

SuperBidRivals Review: It Sucks

This is my SuperBidRivals review. SuperBidRivals is a great program by BidRivals that sucks. Let me tell you why.

The idea is a really great one. In fact, it is something I had been thinking for many months now and finally someone comes up with it. Naturally I was excited. So what is SuperBidRivals?

The concept is simple: You buy the item on the site and put it up for auction. You take the entire risk. As you know, on some products penny auctions make a profit and on others they make a loss. Thus the risk is entirely on you because you have already paid for the item. Of course you get the money from the auction because you own the risk. The site, BidRivals in this case, takes a cut.

This was the concept I had thought of for a great model that brings many people together: those who like to take the risk and those who want to hunt for bargains.

So why does by SuperBidRivals review say it sucks? Here is why:

SuperBidRivals Review: Commission on Revenue, not Profit
Imagine your stock broker telling you that he'll invest money for you in the market. The deal is, whatever money you make, he'll get percentage of it. That is even if you make a loss! If the company he buys goes bankrupt tomorrow, he has nothing to do with it. If it decreases in value, he will still charge you money. Would you choose such a broker? Of course not! This is totally ridiculous.

That is what SuperBidRivals does. You take on all the risk through your money but it is the company that takes a cut from the revenue, not profits. It is ridiculous because if you would end up in a loss, you go still further into a loss because you have to pay the company. Granted they have a name in the industry but this is preposterous in my opinion.

SuperBidRivals Review: Way too High % Commission
So what is the commission that they get? Flat 50% ! Like mentioned earlier, it is on the revenue that you generate and not profits. So how does it work?

Suppose you buy a gift card for $100. It sells for $2. There were 200 bids generated, so the revenue generated is $130. The fair way of course would be to take a commission on the profit, which is $30 (the loss, if it occurs, can be absorbed by you - after all, you take the risk of profit and loss). However, what SuperBidRivals does is that it takes a 50% commission on the $130, which is $65. So you end up with $65 in your pocket and a loss of $35! This is even though you have generated a profit. And yes, 50% is way too high. I would say 10% is a fair deal because it is you who takes the risk, not BidRivals.

SuperBidRivals Review: Opaque as Hell
When you work with affiliates or partners, the first and foremost rule of business is to be transparent with this people. They need to know what they are getting into and not gambling (unless it is deliberate?) My problem with SuperBidRivals is it is opaque as hell.

As a member of SuperBidRivals, the first thing that you should get access to is a database that lists the products and their selling prices over the past. This will give you an idea of the risk that you are about to take, even with their ridiculous commissions. So do you get this information? NO! And in my opinion, this is totally ridiculous. How on earth am I supposed to know what my risk is and what I am getting into if you want to hide the most critical information for me to make an informed choice? (Oh yeah, you want me to wade through 2000 pages of past auctions on BidRivals? Dream on)

SuperBidRivals Review: Concern with Timing
The least you can do is to control when your auction is going to be scheduled for. Of course the correct way to do is to look at the past historic data and current auctions and traffic and decide for yourself. But you are given access to nothing. So I do some research on my own and come up with a time I wish. Can I do that? No.

There is a time window of 6 hours, which is way way too general and helps little. It is almost like they can put your auction up whenever they want.

SuperBidRivals Review: Competing Products
As a general rule in penny auctions, if there are two similar products auctioning in a short period of time, the second one will generally sell for less than the first. So if you want to place your product, you should make sure that there is no similar auction going on before your product. Can you ensure this? No. There can be a same or similar auction 5 minutes before yours and you lose all the bidders to this auction and there is nothing you can do about it. Does it suck? You bet!

You may still want to use SuperBidRivals: Just because it sucks doesn't mean you cannot get money out of it. Perhaps you can make some profit but it is really a black box which seems unfair and ridiculous to me. I would wait for another penny auction to do the same and then I'll join their program. I am sure someone else will come up with a better plan sooner or later.

By the way, BidRivals is a good penny auction that you can have fun on bidding. But SuperBidRivals is a different ball-game altogether and I would be wary of using it. I hope you at least know what you are getting into before you invest hundreds of dollars of your hard earned money into this program.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

BidRivals Review

This BidRivals review covers the good and bad aspects of BidRivals. For those who are wondering if BidRivals is scam, it is not. BidRivals is legit penny auction site which will ship your product if you win. However, this doesn't mean there are no negative aspects of the site: all it means is that it will not scam you by not shipping you items if you win them.

In my BidRivals review, I wish to cover both the positive and negative aspects. If you have something to add, please leave a comment and I'll try to include your thoughts (with proper citation of course!) So here we go:

BidRivals Review: The Positives
Here are some reasons in favor of investing your time and money in BidRivals:
  • BidRivals is Legitimate Penny Auction: This may sound trivial but you would be surprised to know the number of scams out there. This is why BidRivals is a great penny auction if you are looking for 100% legitimate sites i.e. penny auctions that will never withhold your product if you win. It takes a few days for the product to arrive, but it most certainly will. From the standpoint of the scams out there, BidRivals is certainly a great penny auction site to have fun and earn some great discounts in the process.
  • BidRivals is Global Penny Auction: If you are not from the US and UK, you really have very few legitimate penny auctions to bid on. Both US and UK are filled with a number of good penny auctions, most notably Quibids is US and Swoopoo in UK. However, if you are from Finland or Spain, I am not sure if you have many good options. BidRivals is a good penny auction in such cases.
  • BidRivals has Uniform Competition in a Day: This is actually a big deal and you will know if you are active in the penny auction scene. At BidRivals, there is approximately equal competition throughout the day. If you are at a site like Quibids, you will see that the nights are much more crowded than the days and early morning has almost no items to bid on. The reason BidRivals is much more uniform is because it is global and thus spanning many different time zones. The bidding is therefore much more uniform that you may expect at first.
  • BidRivals has Good Auto-Bidder: This is a two-edged sword so I must mention it in both positive BidRivals review and negative BidRivals review. BidRivals has BidAgent which is a really great auto-bidder. All you need to do is set the number of bids that you want to place and the maximum price up to which you are willing to bid. BidAgent will take care of the bidding for you. Therefore you can buy, say, 1000 bids and put them all in BidAgent for an iPad auction, go to sleep, and wake up the next day to be the winner. This is not possible in many other penny auction sites. For example, Quibids limits the number of bids in its auto-bidder to a maximum of 25. BidRivals has no such limits on BidAgent.
  • BidRivals has Good Customer Service: It is not the best, but it certainly is quite good. I would say a penny auction like Quibids is much more dedicated to customer service, but BidRivals is not far behind the industry leaders in this area. For any penny auction, it is very important to have good customer service as there can be any number of issues arising. I give a positive BidRivals review for customer service because they are better than the industry average. You would be surprised by how pathetic customer service can be at some of the other sites.
BidRivals Review: The Negatives
Here are things that you should know about BidRivals that are not so favorable. It is important to know all aspects of a site before investing your time and money.

  • BidRivals can be Competitive: BidRivals can get really competitive and you might have to spend a ton of bids to win a product. Worse, you might spend a ton of bids and end up not winning the auction. I have seen some of the highest competition for some products in the industry. However, I should mention that BidRivals is not competitive for all auctions - there are many times you will really get 90-95% off retail on this site. However, if bad luck stings you on an auction, it can be bitter. It is therefore important to read my BidRivals strategies to improve your winning chances significantly.
  • BidRivals Auto-Bidder can Suck: BidAgent, the auto-bidder can be a huge pain sometimes. This is especially so when there are two or more BidAgents competing against one another. In such a situation, single bidders seldom stand a chance. This is not good because it results in price escalation and everyone is almost forced to use BidAgent. Don't get me wrong - it can be a good tool but it can result in being very costly for the bidders too.
  • BidRivals can have Inadequate Auctions: There are times when I feel there are just too many bidders and too few items. I think BidRivals should work really hard on putting up more auctions. Otherwise it will lose bidders who will never bother to check back. It is important that people win regularly. Immediate profit cannot be the only driving force for a penny auction.
  • BidRivals has no Search: This is one of the worst features of BidRivals. Most penny auctions want to make it easy for the bidders to find previous winners and the prices of products that were previously sold. BidRivals wants to make this information as hard as possible to get. All auctions are listed in the chronological order, so if you want to know the historic price of say iPads, you have to browse through thousands of pages of crap before you can get what you are looking for. I find this highly annoying and it is high time they allow to search auctions by the name. Reputed sites like Quibids always have this feature, BidRivals doesn't.
  • BidRivals has no Exciting Features: Penny auctions try to attract bidders by offering them different types of auctions, but BidRivals can be dull and boring in that sense. If you look at sites like Beezid for example, you will find a lot of variety and thus more excitement. BidRivals can get incredibly boring at times especially when you have 5 BidAgents bidding against one another and there is nothing really happening for the next 10 hours. You will be surprised how bad it can get.
I hope this BidRivals review has helped you make a decision whether you want to join BidRivals or not. Drop a comment if you have anything to add or anything that I missed.

How does BidRivals Work?

How does BidRivals work? This is a common question that is asked by people who are unfamiliar with the site and want to learn more about it. BidRivals is a penny auction, so that is its basic auction model. What does this mean? BidRivals, like other penny auctions, are different from traditional auctions like eBay. The way BidRivals works is that it gives you a chance to win items for a very cheap price - usually up to 90% off, but with a catch that there is only one winner and everyone, including the people who don't win the auction, must pay for the bids.

The main things to know about how BidRivals works are:
  • Bidding ain't free: This is the first and foremost difference between sites like BidRivals and eBay. At BidRivals, you pay for each and every bid that you place, unlike eBay where the bidding is completely free. You should understand that even if you end up losing the auction, you still have to pay for the bids.
  • You don't decide the Bid Value: The way a traditional auction works is that you name a price for the item and you see if someone outbids you. You are free to bid anything as long as you can afford it, so if it is a million dollar painting, you might as well start with a $500,000 bid. However, in BidRivals and other penny auctions, you don't determine the bid value. Each time you bid, the amount automatically is increased by 1 cent. You will never be allowed to enter a final bid value for the product. This is the way in which BidRivals gathers up more bids and thus more money.
  • No Fixed Timer: At BidRivals, the timer constantly keeps updating when a bid is placed, unlike traditional auctions where you have a fixed time by the end of which the auction ends. For this reason, at BidRivals you can never really know how long an auction runs - this depends on how many bids are placed. There are auctions that now seem to have 2 seconds left but as the timer keeps incrementing after each and every bid, it can extend up to 1 day or more!
These are the 3 main points that you must know in order to understand how does BidRivals work. Only after you understand the auction model should you start bidding. Otherwise, you might end up losing money and winning nothing.

In order to win on BidRivals, you must know BidRivals strategies to win. Read my series on BidRivals strategies to keep yourself informed.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

What is BidRivals

What is BidRivals? Is BidRivals scam? How can BidRivals auctions be so cheap? To answer these questions, you need to look at the auction model for this site. BidRivals is a class of auctions called as penny auctions. Penny auctions are more popularly known as penny auctions, which is a colloquial name for the more technical bidding fee model (read article on Wikipedia).

So what are these penny auctions and how can they give items so cheap? The answer lies in the fact that unlike traditional auctions, penny auctions like BidRivals make money not by actually selling the item but through the bids required in the process. Bidding is not free at BidRivals, you have to pay money each time you bid.

The reason BidRivals is able to auction items at up to 90% or sometimes even 95% off is because it collects money through the bids. This is what BidRivals is - a penny auction. And no, it is not a scam i.e. if you win, you will be shipped the product. However, you should understand the risk as with any other penny auction.

So once again, BidRivals is a penny auction site that makes money through the bidding process, which is why it can auction off items so cheap. The real challenge is to win penny auctions like BidRivals. How do you win BidRivals auctions? Simple, follow my BidRivals strategy series on this blog. You can find about my
BidRivals Strategy-1
BidRivals Strategy-2
BidRivals Strategy-3

Do read them and let me know how cheap you end up winning at this site. Good luck!

Friday, February 18, 2011

BidRivals Strategy-3: Using BidAgent

This BidRivals strategy deals with using BidAgent. I'll discuss how to win against BidAgent in another post. You can also read my previous two BidRivals strategies to improve your winning chances.

BidAgent is the automatic bidding tool that is used by BidRivals. Its use is straightforward: you enter the number of bids that you want placed and the maximum limit up to which you would want to go. The BidAgent will ensure that there are no gaps i.e. you will never lose the auction if you are within this limit and don't run out of bids.

BidAgent is one of the most powerful BidRivals strategy that you can use. On the surface, it seems like a waste of bids because the bidding is random in the last few seconds: you might think that it violates my BidRivals strategy: Wait till the End. That is true in a way, but BidAgent removes the human element from bidding.

So why is this important? BidAgent works as a set-and-forget system. You need no interference and you can bid on multiple items simultaneously.

BidAgent is important because:

  • BidAgent removes the human element from the bidding process.
  • Simple set and forget system.
  • Historic data: Go to the auctions that are finished and you will find that most auctions are won by BidAgent, a majority in fact.
  • No fatigue: If you are bidding for big ticket items like iPads the auctions can go on for a very long time, in many cases for over 24 hours. It would be impossible to keep bidding manually on these auctions forever. Humans have limits!
  • Intimidating: Few people bidding singly win auctions at BidRivals because there are no limits to BidAgent. This is unlike at other penny auctions where the number of bids automatically placed is capped. Therefore BidAgent is obviously intimidating as your opponent has no clue how long it is set to go for.
So owing to these factors, the BidAgent can be a powerful tool to use as BidRivals strategy. Good luck using it!

Monday, February 7, 2011

BidRivals Strategy-2: Right Time to Bid

This is the second part of my series on BidRivals Strategy. For the first part, read the BidRivals Strategy-1. This part has to do with the timing of bidding.
This is true for any penny auction in general. No two times are equal and there is always more competition during some times and less competition during others. The overall competition depends on two major factors:
  • Number of active bidders at a given time.
  • Number of auctions live at a given time.

It is important to remember that it is not enough to know just when there are more or less people because penny auctions like BidRivals change their number of live auctions quite soon. Therefore you also need to know when there are more auctions and less bidders.

For penny auctions in general, this is reasonably easy to do. However, with BidRivals, this is an especially tricky situation, which makes this particular BidRivals Strategy really hard to predict. The reason for this is simple - here you will bid against people from all over the world and not just from your country. This means you will compete with people from different time zones and therefore there is near uniform bidding throughout.

However, there are some general pieces of advice that I can give you.
The worst times to bid on are -
  • Weekends: This includes weekends for both US/UK times. BidRivals is popular in other parts of Europe as well, therefore do some +/- hours in your final consideration. It is not advisable to bid during the weekends because there are just a little more number of auctions than usual but there are a ton of extra bidders as they are free during the weekends. As a general rule, avoid weekends.
  • Evenings/Nights: I would avoid evenings in US/nights in Europe time. This is a dangerous time to bid as you will have immense competition from both Europe and US. This will decrease your winning chances overall.
Just follow the above BidRivals strategy and you should do better than a lot of other people on the site. And don't forget to share your own experiences with others.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

BidRivals Strategy-1: Wait Till the End

This BidRivals Strategy is the first on a multi-part series that I will publish on this blog. Make sure you subscribe to this so you stay informed of all the latest BidRivals Strategies and other news.

This current BidRivals Strategy works best for those auctions where there is no BidAgent and everyone needs to place bids in Single. However, this is certainly not the only application of this wonderful technique. You can use it very well with auctions that have BidAgent but you need to take some special precautions discussed later.

So what is this BidRivals Strategy? Simple, just wait till the last second to place your bid. Here, by last second I don't mean when the counter hits 00:00:01. This site has a rather unusual timing system as compared to other penny auctions. Here, after the timer hits 0, the auction doesn't end. Instead, the auction goes into the mode ... Going Once, Going Twice, Gone! I think they just tried to imitate the actual traditional offline auctions but it looks rather silly to me.

Anyway, so why does this particular work? Simply because you preserve your bids till the end. Note that if anyone else wants to bid, he can do it before you. This way, instead of you spending a bid and stopping a winner, the other person does this. Such a situation can happen multiple times, and the more bids placed before you, the better it is for you as you have saved so many bids for yourself. You only bid when the timer hits Going Twice.

Show me Proof!
Yes of course! Here is the proof: This is a screenshot from an actual auction at BidRivals.

BidRivals strategyYou can see that the winner is bonfire8. How did he win this auction? Look at the timing. He waited, at each step, to bid at the very last moment. He waited 11 seconds for the final bid before he placed his bid. This way he preserved all his bids and lo! he won in the end through perseverance.

Limitations:
This is the most logical BidRivals strategy as you watch out for the last moment to place your bid, thus saving you previous bids. However, this particular technique also has some serious limitations:

1. It is Passive: Not a lot of people like to just sit in front of their computer screens looking at a timer and doing nothing really. It is a very passive BidRivals strategy to win that I am discussing here. A lot of people therefore may not be comfortable doing this as it gets boring soon. I won't lie to you - yes it is boring. Very boring. Especially for slightly larger items that attract at least a few hundred bids. However, if the final win can keep you motivated, this is the right strategy for you.

2. Physical Presence Needed: For this BidRivals strategy, you have to be physically present in front of your computer screen at all times. This is good for smaller auctions but can be a pain for longer auctions. Therefore you need to have patience. You can of course leave the computer screen by using BidAgent temporarily.

3. Non-Aggressive BidRivals Strategy: This strategy is totally non-aggressive. You are waiting till the last moment to place your bid. This means you can never intimidate your competition but can only beat them out through sheer patience. Penny auctions sometimes need a lot of aggression to elbow out competition and in these cases, this technique not work.

Overall, you should remember that this is the most "logical" BidRivals strategy purely from an economic perspective. However, penny auction bidding involves a lot of psychology as well and this strategy fails to take that into consideration. Therefore you should not use this in all auctions.

When to use this BidRivals Strategy?
You should use this BidRivals Strategy only for small items. What do I mean by small items? Typically items costing less than $50. If you have bigger items, there are other better strategies that I will discuss in my subsequent posts. At this stage, you should only worry about when this particular strategy is applicable, which is for small auctions.

Stay tuned for much more to come, and don't forget to subscribe!

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This is a blog dedicated to the penny auction site Bid Rivals. Of course you will find a number of other useful penny auction information on this blog.

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