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.
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