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!

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!