A quick note on how 'The Times Newspaper' has made a habit of getting it wrong. It didn't expose the MP's fraud that has marred the UK politics recently and it has always got it wrong about Penny auction concept.
A times article - Save Thousands on Auction Sites talks about new breed of sites where one can save up to 90%. It sent hundreds and thousands of unsuspecting customers to a game strategy site www.MadBid.com. I am sure many customers loved the concept (ones who were quick learners) but many were disappointed.
MadBid even though got a great coverage couldn't have benefited much because of high customer attrition rate, as most people who went to the website failed to win a bargain.
After BBC coverage on Penny Auction sites I thought 'The Times' would keep away from writing about Penny Auction concept and will leave this to bloggers and smart press. But NO ... like Brittney 'they did it again'. They wrote another article Ten Best Auction Websites and I quote an excerpt "MadBid may be better known, but at just 50p per bid Swoopo is more than twice as cheap." They got it wrong again!!
Funny enough Swoopo has at least 10 times* more customers than MadBid, mainly through Swoopo's mega online PR reach. MadBid is David in the David and Goliath battle for supremacy in the Penny auction arena. It’s not MadBid but Swoopo that is better known.
As for 50p one of my very learned German lawyer friends informed me the Swoopo is forced to keep the price at 50p because they are a German company and by law in Germany you cannot have a bid priced more than 50p in games which involve bidding or participation.
Also because of the liquidity on Swoopo it is very difficult to win on Swoopo. With millions of customers and thousands of them bidding at any one time on the 8-10 auctions running on Swoopo at anytime it’s very difficult to win. So I would say the 50p which seems so cheap in real terms is very costly when compared to the ease with which one can win auction on MadBid.
Note - Since I have no access to Swoopo and MadBid data I used Alexa ranking for MadBid.com and compared it with Alexa ranking for Swoopo.com, Swoopo.de, Swoopo.co.uk etc.
