Sunday 10 October 2010

Pay-to-bid auction sites...are they worth it?

Thousands of people a day in the UK are registering with penny auction sites in the hope of making a huge saving on top brand products. However, unlike traditional auction sites such as eBay penny auction site use a pay-to-bid model where you will have to purchase your bids in advance in order to be able to bid in one of their online auctions.
The best penny auction sites in the UK have a wide range of products available each day from electronics, kitchenware, jewellery, cars and much more. However the question is once you have purchased the bids placed them on the auctions and pay the final closing price is it worth it? Well with some site yes it is.

Sites such as the UK’s leading penny auction site MadBid.com has over 100 different products a day up for auction and charge only £0.50 per bid. In fact on average users save up to 80% on RRP, this fact was even backed up by The Sunday Times.

The best way to ensure you make a saving is to focus on the product you want to win. Firstly do a bit of research, look in the closed auction section of the site and see how much the product you want has sold for previously, this will help you get an idea of how much it could potentially go for. Then purchase your bids, only buy as many bids as you are prepared to use and set yourself a limit and stick to it.

How do they work? Penny auctions are a form of auction which are designed to be fun and entertaining. Basically an auction will start at £0.00 and will only increase in penny increments every time someone places a bid, each auction will have a timer which can range anywhere from 2 minutes to 30 seconds. When the first bid is place the timer will count down and when another user places a bid the timer will re-set to its original time and start counting down again. This process will continue until no-one else places a bid within the time and the auction will then close. The highest (last bidder) will win the right to purchase the product for the final closing price of an auction.

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