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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

You 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!

Welcome!

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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