Best Penny Auction Sites Online
Winning gold and silver at a penny auction is one of our favorite pastimes. However, there are very few quality penny bidding sites that offer up precious metals. See which sites have silver and gold penny bidding auctions.
Flat screen TV's are one of the most popular items to win at a penny bid site and virtually all of the sites offer TV's for auction at some point. Find out where your best chance to win a TV in a penny auction depending on what kind of TV you are looking for.
Win an iPad bidding at a penny auction. Be warned. It is not easy to do! iPads are fairly common at penny auction sites and they can be one of the most difficult items to win. Both the power bidders and the casual 'shopper' bidders always seem to be on the lookout for a good deal on an iPad.
Electronics like the laptop computer, notebooks, netbooks and tablet pc's are all up for auction at most of the penny auction sites we list. Find out which penny bidding site offers the type of computer device you are looking for. With patience, timing and timing these items can be won for a great deal.
The most common item for auction across the entire spectrum of penny auction sites is the gift card *possible exception is bid packs. You can win gift cards to your favorite store or you sell it to Plastic Jungle. Which penny auction sites is easiest to win gift cards? Take a look at our guide.
Golf equipment is the most popular sporting good found up for penny auction however there is a growing trend of outdoors gear like camping supplies and survival knives. Depending on what type of sports equipment you want to bid on will help guide you on which penny auction site will be the best fit.
Which penny auction sites offer buy it now? A buy it now program lets you apply the value of the bid placed trying to win an auction towards the purchase price of the item. Not all sites offer a buy it now program and for all bidders, a site offering BIN may not be the best choice. Read our article for more!
We maintain a very short list of penny auction sites in an effort to make sure anyone who visits this site bids on the legitimate penny bidding sites that have proven themselves over the course of time to offer fair and honest penny auctions. Allegations of scams are rampant in the penny auction world so bid wisely!
Top Rated Penny Auction Sites By Real Bidders
What Is A Penny Auction?
Penny auctions are competitive games where players bid against one another trying to win items cheaply. They have been described by Richard Thaler in the New York Times as a devilish and diabolically inventive adaptation of Martin Shubiks dollar auction (1971). The Washington Post referred to penny auctions as the evil stepchild of game theory and behovioral economics.
The truth of the matter is, penny auctions are that and a whole lot more.
In a nutshell, penny auction sites utilize a pay-per bid business model where you as the bidder must purchase bids in order to participate in their auctions.
Auctions start out at $0.00 and each time a bid is place the price goes up only one penny. Hence the name, penny auction.
Important Penny Auction Rules Of The Game
- First – a bidder (you) must pay a small, non-refundable fee in order to place a bid. IE you have to buy bids.
- Items go up for auction starting at $0.00 and a count down timer
- Each time someone bids, the price increases a fixed increment, usually a penny (hence penny auctions) and time is added to the count down clock
- To win, you must be the last bidder when the count down clock reaches zero (ie “SOLD”)
Penny auctions are quite different than a traditional auction like you find on ebay. They involve elements of risk, strategy and psychology. There are effective strategies and techniques available if you take the time to learn them.
How Do Penny Auction Sites Work Really?
Start here: Penny Auctions 101 – Learn the fundamentals of the pay per bid model that penny auction sites use in their business.
Here is a quick example of how penny auction sites work:
Let’s say that a penny auction site runs an auction for a $25 gift card. The bidding starts at one cent($0.01) and a count down timer of 10 minutes.
Each time someone bids four things happen in the auction:
1. The price of the item goes up by 1 penny
2. There is a fixed amount of time added to the clock. 10 seconds or so, usually
3. The bidder who just placed a bid becomes the lead bidder
4. 1 bid is subtracted from the bidders ‘bid-bank’. (if you run out, you can purchase more and continue)
In this example the $25 gift card sells for $1.00. That means there were 100 bids (100 x $.01 = $1.00) placed in this auction that the penny auction website sold. If the bids cost $0.50 each then the penny auction site generated $50 auctioning off this gift card that sold for $1.00. 100 x $0.50 = $50.
Ingenious isn’t it?
The penny auction site doubled their money on the $25 gift card in bids sold. They also charge the ending auction price of $1 and then there is generally a shipping fee of a few dollars. The $50 in bids plus the dollar in auction price plus $3 in shipping means the penny auction site brings in $54 in this auction of a $25 card. This is how they sell high end items for pennies on the dollar in their auctions. They subtract out the price of the gift card ($25) and their other business costs of running the auction and you have the answer as to how does a penny auction site sell items for such cheap prices.
Plus, the winning bidder probably got an incredible deal as well as he waited until the auction was about to close and then aggressively bid 10 times and won the auction. So, if you can be the winning bidder you can win incredible deals if you play the game strategically.
How To Win A Penny Auction – Strategy or Luck
As we mentioned earlier, penny auction sites are competitive games. These games use psychology, aggression, timing, luck, patience and skill to win. Penny auctions and poker go hand in hand as far as the type of person who is successful at poker is very likely to be successful at penny auctions. We are building a selection of penny auction strategy articles that cover more in depth strategies, techniques, tools and resources you can use to give yourself a leg up on the competition. Read our guide on bidding to win to learn what can work and what most importantly what does not work before you place that first bid at a penny auction. You can also start out at one of the easiest to win penny auction sites and go for a smaller auction up for grabs to get that first win under your belt.
Online Penny Auctions vs Ebay
Ebay and penny auction sites are as different as apples and oranges. If you lose an auction at a penny auction site then you still lose money. If you lose an auction on ebay then you just do not get to purchase the item at the price you wanted. While there is bidding strategy on both types of auctions, you should consider penny auctions to be a competitive game that costs money to play. You are not guaranteed to win anything however you can win incredible deals. I compared quibids vs ebay to take a closer look at how these to big auction sites compare.
History of Penny Auctions
Penny Auction sites as we know it first started in 2008 when German based company Entertainment Shopping AG began marketing a penny auction site called Swoopo. They were the pioneer in the new frontier of penny auctions and became one of the largest and most well known penny auction site in the world. What Swoopo did, in a nutshell, is took the dollar bill auction theory popularized by Yale professor Martin Shubik, and turned it into a business model. The dollar bill auction is a game where a dollar bill is auctioned off starting at $.01 between two or more people. The highest bidder wins the dollar but the loser pays as well. Penny auction sites are really a slight variation of this concept where all bidders pay to bid regardless of win or lose and these are known as bidding fee auctions.
- 2008 – First Penny Auction Site Swoopo (aka Telebid.com) enters market
- 2009 – Swoopo finds great success. Competitors begin to arise
- 2010 – Major competition arises in the likes of Quibids and Beezid
- 2011 – Penny Auctions go mainstream – Lindsay Lohan promotes Beezid
Are Penny Auction Sites Scams?
If you understand what you are getting into then NO – the trusted and legit penny auctions are not scams!
There there have been countless sites that have scammed consumers in one way or another. They either employed fake bidders to drive the price up and keep the auction going or they out and out did not ship items that they promised. This is why it is crucial that you only bid at the trustworthy penny bidding sites and avoid those that look too good to be true. Start with the list of sites at the top of this page and read reviews before buying those bids!
As long as you understand that penny auctions are a competitive game and not a discount shopping mall then you can find non-scam penny auction sites. The first time I saw a penny auction site online I immediately thought that it must be a scam. It made no sense to me how any business can sell items for such cheap prices and still make a profit, something shady must be up. After doing a little research and understanding how the pay per bid business model works I understood how the sites made money and how they could offer a legitimate business that sold items for cheap prices while still making a profit themselves.
The fact of the matter is that over the past year or two there have been many penny auction websites come and go. Many were scams and many just failed as a business. This is why you will see the larger and established penny auction sites listed here. We do not deal with unproven sites and the majority of the sites listed here we have personally played at, won items and received them as promised. Also, many people mistakenly think that starting up a new penny auction site is a breeze and an easy gold mine, only to find out that the operating a penny auction site is tough and quickly go out of business often times leaving bidders out in the cold.
If you plan to bid at a penny auction site, choose one listed on PennyAuctionSites.com or one of the other reputable portals that best meets your goals and has the types of auctions you want.
Which is the Best Penny Auction Site Online For 2012?
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Top Choice for New Bidders |
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We like all of the sites listed on PennyAuctionSites.com for one reason or another and any of them could make a good choice to bid at. If you are brand new to penny auctions then we recommend starting out at a smaller to medium sized site like HappyBidDay. The auctions are not quite as competitive as the higher traffic sites and the customer support is friendly and helpful. If you are a more seasoned bidder and are looking to score the high end items then we like Beezid, SkoreIt and Quibids.
- HappyBidDay = #1 site for new bidders – get 20% off first bid pack purchase (get a bigger one as you only get this discount once!
- Quibids = Biggest site and 100% Buy One Now Auctions
See All Of Our Penny Auction Reviews to find more information about these quality penny auction sites or see our list of top penny auction sites to find a place to bid based on what you want to win.
Our Top Penny Auctions - The Ones We Like!- HappyBidDay.com - #1 great choice for new bidders. Fast shipping!
- Quibids.com - Safest & Largest Penny Auction Site
- BidRivals - Competitive & Fun with High End Electronics & Macbooks!
- Beezid.com - Best items for beginners. Choose carefully!
