Swoopo.com

[cooprules]

Anyone ever try this? It's making no sense to me but I'm looking for a good deal on a MacBook. EDIT: Looking like kind of a scam to me.

[sbrylski]

I don't think it looks like a scam at all. I think it sounds genius, but it can be tricky to make sure you receive a deal.

 

Basically, each bid costs 75 cents, regardless if you win or not. And each bid raises the price 15 cents.

 

So essentially, the losers are helping the winner pay for the product, so the winner gets a big discount.

 

A product starts at 15 cents, say ten people keep outbidding each other, and the auction ends at $60. So the winner pays $60 plus 75 cents per bid - split the total 399 bids equally that would be $30 for the bids and a total price of $90 for the product. But the site also made 75 cents on each of the other 359 bids made by the losers to drive the price up, a total of $269.25. As long as the product cost the website less than $359.25 (total bids + final selling price), they came out ahead.

 

But as a user, for every good deal you win, you'll probably lose money on other products that you don't win. 5 small losses and 1 huge gain and you can still come out ahead, but it would be tricky.

[sbrylski]

So to me its only a scam if you're guaranteed to lose, which I don't think is the case. It's no more a scam than blackjack. If you're smart/good at it, you should win in the long run.

[cooprules]

I guess I was a little harsh with the scam remark. It's definitely a genius idea on the company's part. Just hard to imagine misfiring on your mouse button and not only missing out on your product but losing a bunch of money.

[GoudaBrew]

This is nuts. Someone just bought a Wii for $38. I wonder how many times he/she had to bid...

[RyDogg66]

Reminds of the old trick "I will auction this off this $20.00 bill, starting at a dollar. The winner gets the $20.00 bucks, the next highest bidder owes me half his losing bid." Eventually because nobody wants to lose, people keep bidding it up and someone ends up paying more than $20.00 for the dollar bill and someone else pays a good amount to NOT win the $20.00 bill.

[RyDogg66]

This is not a scam, I do not think, but definitely fishy. I notice a lot of stuff are set up as penny auctions, which means you can only bid it up a penny, rather than say, wanting to pay $500.00 for a $800.00 TV, you have to first bid .01 more than the highest bid. If that bid is $5.00, then you bid $5.01. Sure, the top bid might be at $400 for the TV, but if they make $0.75 per bid between 5 and 400, they will make them about $30,000.00. Wow.

[RyDogg66]

Also beware, it looks like these "auctions" remain in the last 15 seconds for a very, very long time if they increase by mere pennies per bid. There is currently a 42 inch television going for $20.00 or so, if that goes up to about, even $50.00 it might take hours before it ends and you will be sitting in front of the computer for a very long time. You need to time it so you get in at the end.

[cooprules]

It's like a dance marathon it seems. Last person standing wins. It seems like you have no idea how long it could last. I've been watching one for over an hour. It got down to 3 or 4 seconds about 10 times. Then jumped up to 20 minutes a couple times.

[DHonks]

seems like a scam to me because I was watching a Phillips TV that counted from 5 mins down to under 15 secs. It kept repeating based on bidding, but then it wasn't listed under "ended auctions" and it reappeared on top with around 2:30 left. It did this several times

[Team Canada]

Freakonomics blog talked about it: LINK

[RyDogg66]

Well, I studied the game all evening and did some research into the type of product I wanted, a flat screen TV. I extracted the data from the site (Swoopo has every ended auction available to look at since their inception) and put together a spreadsheet of the best chance and method to win a TV for as little as possible. I invested in some bids (Sucker!!) and set up my BidButler (part of my strategy) and went to bed.

 

I woke up this morning the owner of a Samsung ln37 a550 37" HDTV. It cost me $1.87, but $40.00 in bids. In all, with the shipping and handling I will be out about $70.00. Not bad since the TV retails for between $1,000 and $1,200.

 

http://www.swoopo.com/auc...080p-lcd-hdtv/142076.html

[sbrylski]

Nice work RyDogg!

[RyDogg66]

Thanks. I am now turning my attention to a new laptop. It is looking like Monday (morning) is the best time to get one as the data seems to indicate that there is a considerable difference in the ACER brand on Monday than on any other day so I might try snag one tomorrow night.

[jhartzell2]

Congrats Rydogg. I'm looking at the site now and trying to find trends in the Macbook bids, it looks like everyone that won has used the BidButler. You have any tips on winning?

[cooprules]

That is so awesome. At least now I know a real person that won. I'm looking for a Macbook. I watched an auction all day on Friday. I think it lasted about 10 hours and sold for about 50 bucks. I almost got in on it at the end but chickened out. That's been around the average ending price but was worried because one went up to over a hundred. What were you looking for as far as what day they sold on? The cheapest final price or price w/ bids? Did you split up your Bidbutler between different price gaps?

 

You obviously don't have to tell your secrets to the world. I'm just very impressed.

[Gobias Industries]

Consider my mind blown. Rydogg, teach me.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

If I'm not able to make it to Milwaukee tonight because of the weather, this might be my Saturday night. I can't think of anything I really need, but for something with Rydogg's discount I don't think I can go wrong.

[RyDogg66]

I have a lot of messages in my inbox so let me expand a little bit about what I did to win - feel free to ask other questions and if my research indicated anything I will let you know.

 

First off, realize, that what I did was simply minimized my risk - it didnt guarantee anything. I fully expected to wake up and see all 100 of my bids that I bought gone and the TV sold to some other sucker. I was surprised that I won.

 

Second, I initially targeted three things that I wanted. A laptop, a Wii and a flat screen TV. Early on in my research I realized that getting a TV would be the easiest of the three - and provide the biggest savings - so I ended up focusing on that. I then started to chart EVERY tv that sold on the site going back a couple hundred pages worth (about 1,000 sales) and built a grid taking note of the TIME of sale, DAY of week, PRICE, how many BIDS the winner placed and whether the winner was a SINGLE bidder or used BID BUTLER. I also tracked SIZE of the Television but did not notice anything statistically significant, although the 61" might be a bit different but I knew I did not want one so I didnt look into it.

 

Third - My research showed the following.

 

TIME OF DAY - not surprisingly, the best time to bid was at about 2:00 CST until about 3:30 CST. Late enough to get the typical west coast person in bed and earlier enough that folks on the East Coast are long in the sack and not ready to wake up yet. This seemed to be true for the laptops and Wii's as well however like I mentioned above I have not fully gone through that path yet.

 

DAY OF WEEK: There were two days that seemed to stick out. For whatever reason one of them was Saturday, which I could not figure out why since people are home on Saturdays. Then again, most of the good deals were EARLY saturday morning, so I figured many people were either out (and not in front of their computers like they might usually be that time) or sleeping, like they are at 2:00 in the morning every night. Tuesday was the other day that stuck out as a good day to bid. Probably because people like to toy around on the internet on Monday back to work and get down to business on tuesday. So, to my delight I prepared to make a bid Saturday morning

 

SINGLE BIDDER or BID BUTLER: A single bidder is someone who is sitting in front of their computer clicking and bidding as the clock winds down. BID BUTLER is an auto bid program that lets you plug in a bottom amount and top amount for the Bid Butler to protect your bids. You also must enter how many bids you want him to place in that time period.

 

Overwhelmingly 90-95% of the people who won used Bid Butler. So I knew I needed to use that. Part of it is a psychological advantage vs. a single bidder. If that single bidder knows you are away from the computer, in bed or out to eat and he does NOT know how high you are setting your bids he knows he likely CANNOT outlast you and he moves on to another auction.

 

# of BIDS PLACED by winners: I do not know if this is important or not, but you might want to know how many bids people are placing to win. Swoopo doesnt tell you how many the losers place. However, this should tell you how many bids you can expect to place to win an auction if your sample size is big enough.

 

PRICE: Price seemed to be not that bid of a factor and it isnt really a factor in any of these auctions because the idea is to limit the # of bids you place in order to win, as I have never seen an auction go for more than 60% of the retail price on anything, and for the big ticket items even lower. That being said, about $25-$30 seemed to be the going rate for the winning auctions, with a few outliers in the 125-150 range and a few in the $2.00 range.

 

....will continue in next post, dont want to lose everything I have typed so far....

[T B0NE 10]

So basically the price of the item ends up-

 

The price its going for

+

 

How many bids you did X 0.75

 

?

[RyDogg66]

Other tips:

 

The auctions start counting down at about 24 hrs I think. Realistically, from 24hrs until about 1-2 minutes there is little to no action. I found (luckily) a TV that was counting down at the 4 hour mark, set to expire exactly at 2:00 a.m. At that time the high bid was $0.15, no bid butler bids yet (which is important, you want to be the only bid butler if possible). Also that means that nobody had become emotionally invested yet. I believe this is HUGE. I have seen two products sell at the same time, one for 3x what the other goes for. Once people become emotionally invested they focus on one and do not want to cut bait, even when they should.

 

***I also do not know if this is important or not to my success but there was another tV counting down about 2 hours behind me.

 

So I set my bid butler to begin bidding at $0.25 and to continue bidding until $25.00 and to use 100 bids. The Bid Butler will then use the bids up or stop at $25.00, whichever comes first. Also, the bid butler does not match every bid, it only bids if the time drops below 10 seconds, so that saves you some money if you are up against multiple single bidders as they likely spend their bids BEFORe the bid butler does.

 

I also believe one variable was that most people figured this TV would sell for $25.00, $50.00 or more dollars (like the others earlier in the day), and in a penny auction vs. a bid butler at 2:00 in the morning and the price is $1.75, why stay up and keep bidding when there (at least seem to be) at least 2000 more bids (and hours and hours) yet to come?? They dont.

 

Ok, if I can think of more stuff I will let you know. If you have questions about timing and days of week for the laptops (Macbook or ACER or whatever, let me know and I will be happy to share what I have, in fact I will post it in the next reply as I have had some IMs about the macs.)

 

In the end, I just might have gotten lucky, as I said, I fully expected to wake up to pissing away 100 bids (and $75.00). They dont call it entertainment shopping for a reason.

[RyDogg66]

So basically the price of the item ends up-

 

The price its going for

+

 

How many bids you did X 0.75

 

?

Yes, I have seen some people win Nintendo Wii for $100.00 but spend 300 bids to win it and actually spend more than it is worth. Dont do that.

[cooprules]

There was also an 80 dollar cash auction that someone ended up paying about 120 dollars for. Whoops. I think that's the main reason you need to use Bidbutler. I could easily see myself getting way too emotionally attached. It's almost like buying a raffle ticket. Although Rydogg did some awesome (and painstaking if you went 1000 pages back) research and was able to find the raffle with the best odds.

 

I'm seriously addicted to this site. I worship the guys who came up with it (they are making a LOT of money), and am amazed at both the people who end up with great deals and the ones who pay more than the worth of the product. I've only went as far as registering. Haven't bought bids..............yet.

[RyDogg66]

Re: cash auction, I dont think you have to pay the cash you bid, only the cost of your bids. I THINK that is the case, some auctions are 100% off auctions. Read some more of the info on the site. Swoopo gives away a lot of information, and this is like poker. The more information you know about the game your opponent the btter you can do.

[RyDogg66]

For laptops, or Macbooks, generally speaking, I wouldnt bid tonight (Saturday/Sunday) but tomorrow night looks good. The best times to bid are 2:00-3:30 A.M. CST and for whatever reason 7:00-8:00 AM, CST, perhaps because the east coasties are going to work and the left coast is still sleeping.

[Patrick425]

So I set my bid butler to begin bidding at $0.25 and to continue bidding until $25.00 and to use 100 bids. The Bid Butler will then use the bids up or stop at $25.00, whichever comes first. Also, the bid butler does not match every bid, it only bids if the time drops below 10 seconds, so that saves you some money if you are up against multiple single bidders as they likely spend their bids BEFORe the bid butler does.

 

I'm not sure I understand this. So you set it up to start bidding at $0.25. However it only bids if the time drops below 10 seconds. So, if I understand this correctly, If the auction is set to end at 2:00am, it will not make bids until 1:59:50? And then...only if the bids have reached $0.25? Whats the purpose of setting the price to begin bidding at if it's set only to start bidding 10 seconds before the auction ends? I'm sure I'm just not understanding something here.

 

edit: Nevermind. I guess I get it. The clock resets when someone makes a bid.