Quibids.com auction site [NA]

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
14,210
Location
Midlothian, TX
Display Name
Display name:
3Green
I got a good look at www.QuiBids.com today after hearing about it from a friend who snagged all kinds of great stuff for pennies on the dollar.

Interesting business model for this site... It's an auction site, like eBay, but all new stuff, sold by the site, and you pay for each bid, rather than "free bids and only the winner pays" like at eBay. Each bid costs you 60 cents, and you buy a block of 100 bids or more to your account, to use. Lots of stuff on the site, much that nobody bids on--I picked up two $15 Walmart gift cards for 1 cent each (plus $1.99 shipping), and a $25 Lowes gift card for 1 cent. Nobody else bid on them, so I won them. Two of the gift cards I bid on not only got me the gift card, but more bid tokens to use in other auctions.

What I was really watching for was a 32GB or 64GB iPad with WiFi and 3G to use with ForeFlight HD. They have lots of iPads for sale, in all different configs. One of the 64GB WiFi + 3G units recently got snagged for $8.21. I was watching and occasionally bidding on this one tonight. Each time somebody bids, it resets the "going, going, gone..." clock back to another 10 or 20 seconds. If nobody bids in that time, you win. This iPad is at $109.08 at the moment I write this. That's a good deal, if you win... they list for $899.

But think about it. What a cool and great business model! The consumers that win items think they got a GREAT deal (and they DID!), but it was subsidized by all those other 60-cent bids. Each bid increments the price 1 cent.

So this iPad, at $109.08, has had 10,908 1-cent increment bids that cost 60 cent each. That means on this one $899 iPad alone, they've raked in $6,544.80 in revenue. And the bidding is still going. And whomever wins also has to pay the "winning price" on top of that, plus shipping.

I have nothing to do with the site, I just think it's cool. I'm going to get an iPad for Foreflight... might or might not end up getting it on QuiBids. I might get one from another retailer when the iPad 2 comes out and prices on the originals drop to clear inventory.

Oh, I can't bid anymore tonight--to prevent abuse of the system, they do have limits on how many auctions you can win in a 24 hour and 28 day period. Those three gift cards I won locked me out til tomorrow. I'll just watch this iPad and see who finally ends up winning it, and for how much.
 
Last edited:
There are a number of such sites, T-Roy, and I agree - the model is genius. It feeds on people who (unlike Troy) are too stupid to plan strategy and recognize that, like Vegas, the House always wins.
 
There's definitely a strategy to effectively participate in a site like this. I see bidder's names just scroll by like they're dropping quarters into a slot machine over and over. Gotta be smarter than that to win.
 
A coworker told me about that site last summer. What a simple and effective business model! We both said "Why didn't WE think of that!?"
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Each bid costs you 60 cents, and you buy a block of 100 bids or more to your account, to use. Lots of stuff on the site, much that nobody bids on--I picked up two $15 Walmart gift cards for 1 cent each (plus $1.99 shipping),..

What I was really watching for was a 32GB or 64GB iPad with WiFi and 3G to use with ForeFlight HD. ... This iPad is at $109.08 at the moment I write this. That's a good deal, if you win... they list for $899.

I'll just watch this iPad and see who finally ends up winning it, and for how much.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, gears turning inside my head....

A quick check shows Wal-Mart sells the 64 GB WiFi+3G iPad for $799 (plus tax). Divide that by $15, and that's around 55. If you can "win" a $15 gift card for $0.60 + $1.99 shipping, then 55 of 'em costs you 142 bucks. Then redeem that pile o' cards at Wal-Mart for your spankin' new iPad. :thumbsup::cheerswine:

Of course, it'll take you 71 days to accumulate that many.
Or am I missing something???
 
sold, $120.04

so, you have to decide what it might sell for, then begin bidding just before it gets there.
dang you could go through a lot of $ trying to guess that correctly....or miss it completely!
 
Very interesting.

So far, I signed up and won twice - I got an extra 15 "free" bids for 4 cents and a 4GB SD card plus 20 bids for 0.01. I also collected the "beginner badge" (worth 1 bid) and the "scrooge badge" (worth 2 bids) - I guess I'll take that as a compliment. This "badge" thing is really designed to play on people's desire to win, though... Yikes. One of them is the "Mor-bid Combat" badge which involves winning an item after placing something like 20 bids in under 3 minutes! :hairraise:

At least with the controls they have in place, it appears that it won't be too overly bad for gambling addicts - Unless all they do is lose.

The other thing that's scary is their "Bid-O-Matic" system. Lets you set a starting price and a number of bids, and it'll pick a random time between 20 and 1 seconds remaining to place a bid. Get a few bid-o-matics going and the price runs up fairly quickly. Looking at some completed auctions, none of them had more than 4 Bid-O-Matic bids out of the last 10. Some did get won by Bid-O-Matic bidders, but the whole brute force thing doesn't do much except cost you money.

Watching, plotting strategy... :devil:
 
Am I missing something, or is there really no point in bidding before it gets down to less than ten seconds?
 
SCCutler said:
Am I missing something, or is there really no point in bidding before it gets down to less than ten seconds?
Click to expand...

I didn't do any of my bids til it got down to 1 second with no previous / recent BidOMatics going... only if "single" bidders were bidding, with less then 2 or 3 people in the last five minutes, would I bid.

The only other time I bid before that was on those "no bid yet" gift cards, with less than 2 minutes to go. Threw in one bid, and won them with no competition.

Rich's idea about winning gift cards to buy a device locally makes a lot of sense... you could do it faster if you bid on higher $$ value gift cards--there are $50, $100 and $200 cards on the site. But there's also more bidding activity on those.

Another strategy is to wait til late night or very early AM, when there are fewer people on the site.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Very interesting.

So far, I signed up and won twice - I got an extra 15 "free" bids for 4 cents and a 4GB SD card plus 20 bids for 0.01. I also collected the "beginner badge" (worth 1 bid) and the "scrooge badge" (worth 2 bids) - I guess I'll take that as a compliment. This "badge" thing is really designed to play on people's desire to win, though... Yikes. One of them is the "Mor-bid Combat" badge which involves winning an item after placing something like 20 bids in under 3 minutes! :hairraise:
Click to expand...

flyingcheesehead said:
Watching, plotting strategy... :devil:
Click to expand...

Imagine doing this with airplane sales. ;-) Only one up on the auction block at a time, during a set window (one per weekend), so you can maximize those who would be online looking. You could lose your shirt, or make a ton of $. $1 bids, penny increments.
 
Someone' going to bid on a bunch of stuff ending in ten minutes and launch a ddos attack on their site.

I watched for a little while, but no auctions have ended yet, they just keep extending.
 
I don't get what you guys are seeing.
The time counts up, many times, from even 2 seconds - how can you say there is only 10 secs left?
 
Everytime someone bids it extends the time again.
This way they get more bids and more money.
But you can win.
$15 gift card
Item Price: $0.08
Item Tax: $0.00
Handling: $1.99
Total Price: $2.07
 
Yes but S & T spoke of bidding with '10secs' remaining, I don't see how its possible. I think you need to guess the end price based upon demand and maybe time of day, start bidding when it is close to that price not time.

PS why does anyone start the bidding at 0.02? Seems like you are wasting a lot of $ by bidding well below what things usually go for.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Yes but S & T spoke of bidding with '10secs' remaining, I don't see how its possible. I think you need to guess the end price based upon demand and maybe time of day, start bidding when it is close to that price not time.

PS why does anyone start the bidding at 0.02? Seems like you are wasting a lot of $ by bidding well below what things usually go for.
Click to expand...

S & T said they WOULDN'T bid with 10 seconds left like so many do, but wait til the clock runs down to one second before placing a bid.

Bidding for all items starts at one cent. Some people do win incredibly expensive items for 2 cents just because nobody else bids at 2 cents, thinking somebody else will "waste" a sixty cent bid so early in the bidding. If nobody else does, though, somebody gets a really good buy.

You're right, it is definitely a psychological game.
 
ron22 said:
Everytime someone bids it extends the time again.
This way they get more bids and more money.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Dave, think of the ten second countdown as the part of a real auction where the auctioneer is saying ' going, going....' and somebody puts in another bid before he says ' gone.'

That new bid resets the 10 or 20 second 'going, going, gone' clock.
 
Don't forget to mention that they require you buy $60.00 worth of bids just to get started.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
PS why does anyone start the bidding at 0.02? Seems like you are wasting a lot of $ by bidding well below what things usually go for.
Click to expand...

You would think...

However, I've been watching one auction since last night for a Canon 5D Mk II body (no lenses - Still, a $2500 camera) that's currently nearing $300... But another one of the same model WITH a lens just came up earlier today and sold for $13.95! :crazy:

I watched about 5 users just pouring bids into the body-only one... Someone's gonna lose some $$$! But the guy who "lucked out" and got the one with the lens did use up 155 "real" (ie paid, not voucher or won) bids to get it. Still, $93.00 in bids plus $13.95 = about $110-$120 (including shipping) for a camera & lens combo that's worth $3750 is quite the deal!
 
BTW, still seeing both "evil" and "nice" aspects of this site.

The "nice" thing is they have a "buy it now" option where they credit you the price of all of the paid bids you used on an item. So, if it's something you want to buy anyway, you can try your luck, pour bids into it, and if you don't "win" you can at least buy the item for the "value price" they have listed minus what you spent on all the bids. So, if the handful of people who were pouring bids into that camera just decided to "buy it now" they won't have lost a bunch of money.

I wonder if they patented this idea? :devil:
 
Beezid does the same thing. Never really understood why people consider it a "scam." You just kind of have to understand that the business makes a LOT of money, and you have a chance to save a LOT of money. Or lose a small amount of money.

Its like the classic auction, except it costs you to bid.
 
They clearly do lose money sometimes. $13.95 = 1395 bids * 0.60 = $837 in revenue on a $3750 camera rig. And that's assuming everyone used purchased bids. No way in hell they made money on that one.

However, the other one is up to about $315.00 now - 31,500 * 0.60 = $18,900 in revenue on a $2500 item. Even if they purchased it at retail, and even if only 20% of the bids are "real" bids as opposed to "voucher" bids, they made money there. I think they made a LOT of money!

It appears that a lot of the small stuff - Gift cards and the like - are probably money-losers. Many of them go for $0.10 or less, so only $6.10 in revenue on a $15+ item. But it keeps people coming back and trying for the big stuff, where they clearly make big bucks most of the time.
 
How do you know that the "bargain winners" you're trying to match aren't shills? In other words no mere civilian ever saw a deal like that? :ihih:
 
Wow.

That camera body went for $349.72.

The winner blew 2311 real bids (158 voucher bids), so the bidding alone cost him $1,386.60. Add it all up, and he still got a pretty good deal - But it will be nearly $1800.

I'm not gonna play that. :no:
 
mikea said:
How do you know that the "bargain winners" you're trying to match aren't shills? In other words no mere civilian ever saw a deal like that? :ihih:
Click to expand...

^^^^^^ this ^^^^^^^
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top