Friday, 1 January 2010

Briatore turns to online auction for next manager


QPR's playboy owner Flavio Briatore plans to bid for his next manager on an online auction site.

Flavio Briatore, QPR's gregarious owner, parted ways with his sixth manager in two-and-a-half years this week with Paul Hart the latest coach to join the dole queue. The playboy Italian, who recently overturned a lifetime ban from the Formula 1 authorities, will now scour online auction sites in search of a replacement.

A source close to the former Renault F1 boss said he had commandeered the QPR youth team, who are now manning PCs in the basement of his mansion, monitoring online auction sites and waiting for someone with top level coaching experience to be auctioned off.

Briatore has heard that online auctions are offering all kinds of top prizes these days from DVD players to dates with underwear models and he is confident that it will only be a matter of time before bids open on the right candidate.

One lucky punter on the online auction site MadBid picked up a brand new Mini for £6.83 recently, which has convinced Briatore that he can avoid expensive compensation payments and agent fees by putting his steely nerve to the test against the online auction community.

The next time an out-of-work football manager is up for grabs, Briatore plans to get bidding. He is confident that he has the staying power, the patience and the bravado it takes to win even the most competitive online auction.

There's no sign of QPR's next manager among the live auctions currently running on MadBid. However, if Briatore fancies flexing his bidding muscles he could land himself a Phillips Wake Up Light, a Nintendo Wii or a Samsung 46" Ultra Slim TV for up to 90 per cent off their retail value. Briatore isn't short a bob or two, but you don't get rich by spending all your money so some of these treats might just tempt him and will provide some useful bidding practice.

Monday, 21 December 2009

Patience - Strategy to win on Penny auction

Penny auction sites are more than just gambling. Winning is very likely in Penny Auctions with the right choice of site and strategy. Penny auction sites generally put up items for auction for zero pound/dollar and every time a bidder bids the price goes up by one penny. So you end up getting things which are above $500 also for few dollars!! A Penny Auction is where an auction item's bid price goes up by one penny each time someone bids. So for example, if a big screen T.V. is up for auction, it starts at $0.00. The first person to bid makes the bid price $0.01. The next person to bid can only raise the price by one cent so it goes up to $0.02, and so on...

So how does this work? How can we really buy items for pennies? Well, if you are aware of Penny auction sites you need to own a bid first to place a bid! That's right...you buy bids and then place bids on the item of your choice. Like any auction penny auctions are also time-bound. But the duration for Penny auction is in minutes unlike the normal auctions. It would generally be five minutes or so. Once a bid is placed the countdown begins and the clock is reset for every new bid. That way the newcomer has a chance to bid. But if none bids then the bid is won at a good deal!!

So now, here comes the strategy. In penny auction if you would like to win instead of placing a bid, waiting is the best strategy is Patience!! Yes, you need to first monitor the items you like. After sometime you will be able to judge the dynamic on the sites. For e.g.: if the site is having less interest on your favourite item then you should bid. Then you have a high chance of winning a great deal. On the contrary if you see more activity then it maybe difficult to win unless you want to end up spending more money.

Strategies to win on Penny Auction

Self help

Penny auction is a new concept which has intrigued me for a while now, I have followed this concept quite closely and I want to be one of the thought leader in this business.

This was my first post I want to think of Penny Auctions akin Stock Trading -

Penny auction is in many ways similar to say trading on stocks:

- You need to take the risks to earn the return - Users who buy more bids have the staying power. They wear out the competitors and win the product. You have to be very lucky to win a product with your first 5-10 bids.

- It pays to adopt a different strategy - You can fairly guess at what points during the day the traffic on the website will be high or which products are more likely to attract more bidders. Not following crowd always helps.

- You should know when to hold and when to fold - Cutting your losses is the key to trading on stocks. Same applies here, if you see that you are being carried away by a strong bidder, you can't let your emotions get in the way. You have to be aware of your exit points. You obviously don't want to spend 100 pounds on bids to secure an ipod worth the same price!

In the next post I will be talking about various Penny auction websites in the UK.

ONLINE AUCTIONS FEED WORLD CUP FEVER

As the countdown to South Africa enters the final 6 months, online auction fans are getting football fever.

David Beckham was hobnobbing with football's fat cats in Cape Town this week to promote England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup. At a media event, a group of children were left wondering why they were being asked to play keepy-ups with a hillbilly, only to realise that it was in fact their beloved Becks, sporting a Brokeback Mountain shirt and his latest in a long line of absurd haircuts. Let's hope he tidied himself up before he met Sepp Blater, the Fifa president.

But while Becks was dressing up as an extra from Grant Theft Auto: The Milan Years, the main order of business was the draw for next summer's tournament. This is when serious football fans really start getting excited about the prospect of a solid month of football. The colour, the passion, the atmosphere, all the best players in the world in the one tournament money can't buy. Add to that a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that World Cups are always a massive disappointment and will never, ever be as good as the one you watched when you were 11 and you have everything you need.

Well, almost everything. How about a Samsung 42" plasma TV to bring the big match atmosphere right into your living room? Or Fifa 10 on the PS3 to show them how it's done afterwards? If you sign up to an online auction website like MadBid now you could win yourself a World Cup cornucopia of goodies (look it up, it means lots) before the big kick-off.

MadBid also auctions off piles of cash, which will help pay for a few afternoons in the pub watching the action and a few evenings in the pub debating endlessly where it all went wrong. Auctions have also been running for a DVD box set containing the complete collection of Lost, which will provide a bit of respite when you're all footballed out. Or how about a brand new car? That's got to beat most pick-me-ups for when the tournament comes to a close.

ONLINE AUCTION SITES ARE LIKE DIGITAL SANTAS

How online auction sites like Madbid.com could make your Christmas dreams come true

It is very nearly that time of year again when we all forget how much we earn and how much we already owe. The recession is for wimps. Downturn, upturn or about turn, when it comes to Christmas we'll be spending money like drunken sailors. Lavish gifts for relatives we won't see again for a year, new outfits for each one of the many parties we'll be attending and food fit for a medieval court – Christmas is no time to be frugal.

Of course, there will be some who decide to boycott the festive gluttony, drunkenness and inappropriate dancing. Plenty of people don't celebrate Christmas on religious grounds, while others will be busy working while the rest of us are arguing about the best way to cook the turkey. You also get the odd killjoy who thinks Christmas is too commercial these days – an opinion arrived at shortly after deciding they're too tight to buy presents.

But this year a fair few of us are likely to fall somewhere between the modern-day Mr Scrooge and the office moron who's been wearing a tie made from tinsel since late November. We want to be merry, we want to celebrate, we want to take a break from our worldly woes, but we're also looking for opportunities to save a bit of cash.

One potential means of cutting the cloth this Christmas is to hit the online auction circuit. Sites like Madbid.com give you a chance to get your hands on the kind of Christmas presents that get you a "wow, that's worth much more than I spent on you, just wait until your birthday" instead of a "I hope this smile looks genuine, let's see if mum still thinks he's marriage material after this debacle". What's more, you can pick up these festive nuggets of gold for a fraction of their retail value.

A flatscreen television and home cinema system is just what you need to do justice to Zulu or Escape to Victory. Not a fan of the Queen's speech? Well, you're a traitor and you should be ashamed of yourself, but once her Majesty has said her piece how about 4-player Mario Kart on your new Nintendo Wii? You can even win a pile of cash to blow on whatever manner of festive tat takes your fancy or Tesco vouchers to take the edge of that eye-watering big Christmas shop.

Now, online auctions are not a license to print money. You must be sharp of wit and steely-eyed, with patience, focus, determination and expert timing to boot. But if you have what it takes to succeed on sites like Madbid.com you could have a very merry Christmas and an overdraft free New Year.