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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