Six Tips to Win Online Auctions

Online auctions are a great way to score name-brand merchandise at flea-market prices or lower, but you have to know how to play the game. Because make no mistake, online auctions are a game and if you don’t know the rules, you can lose a lot of money chasing after the wrong deals and bidding against the wrong people. Whether you like penny auctions or other types of online auctions, knowing and understanding the rules can help you score big and avoid losses. Try these tips to increase your chances at winning the deals you most want to win.

Pick Your Online Auction Sites Carefully

Penny auctions are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. There’s a lot of money to be made running penny auctions, and a lot of folks are trying to skim out of that pot. That means that there are a lot of scam sites out there. Read websites that give unbiased reviews of auction websites and only bid on auction sites that you can trust.

Read the Rules

Every auction site has its own rules. Understanding those rules is vital – if you don’t you could end up paying a lot of money without much reward, or you could end up bounced out of a profitable site because you inadvertently broke the rules.

Understand How Bidding Works

Before you jump in to start bidding on auction websites, learn how the bidding works. Generally on penny auctions, you pay for a pack of bids. Each bid increases the price of the item on which you’re bidding by one penny – but you’re paying for the privilege of placing the bid. If you win the item, you’ll pay the final winning bid price plus shipping and handling on top of the money you’ve already spent to place your bids. Obviously, the fewer bids you place, the less money you’ll spend on each item. That’s why it’s also important to…

Watch the Bidding Before Jumping In

The biggest mistake new bidders make is jumping in feet first and starting to bid on the big-ticket items. It almost always results in the newbie burning through his initial bid pack and spending more money to buy more bids. Instead, pick a few auctions and watch the rhythm of the bidding to get a feel for how things work. Get to know the heavy hitters on each of the auction websites you frequent so you can devise a bidding strategy that will win more often than you lose.

Start Small

That MacBook Pro going for $16.87? You’ll be facing stiff competition – and a lot of it – if you decide to bid on it. Start out by bidding on smaller items that don’t attract as much interest and you’ll build up a winning profile on most online auction sites. That winning profile won’t go unnoticed – you’ll start scaring off bidders and facing less competition when you’re ready to go for bigger ticket items.

Bid During Off Hours

Watch the online auctions to see when they’re busiest and when there are fewer people bidding. Bidding during the off hours reduces your competition and increases your odds of winning the items you bid on.

Online auctions are a lot of fun when you’re winning. These tips can help you win at penny auctions and other online auction sites for more fun and more profit.

How to Make Money with Online Auctions

Penny auctions and online auctions are among the most popular and growing niche websites on the Internet today. People love the opportunity to pick up big name products for a fraction of the price – but there’s more to the phenomenon than that. The fact is that online auctions are fun – they combine elements of competition and gambling to make the whole online shopping experience a lot more fun.

Several major networks and news shows have reported on the online auction phenomenon – and on penny auctions in particular. All of them concluded that most online auction websites are legitimate and users can certainly score great bargains – if they pay attention to what they’re actually spending. Those low, low prices in the display only represent part of the price on penny auctions, they point out. To figure out the true cost, you also have to count in the cost of the bids you used to win the right to buy the item at that low price and the shipping cost.

What they don’t generally talk about is the best way to make money with online auctions – running or working for auction websites. Consider the money facts and you’ll get a picture of the amount of money you can actually make when you run an online auction site.

In order to bid on products, users must buy packets of bids at $.50 to $1 each. Most auction websites sell bids in packets of 25 to 500, with discount pricing on bulk purchases. They also often run special auctions to purchase bids at a reduced price or promotional auctions that refund all or part of the bids losers spend on their bidding. Those promotional costs mask the huge amount of profit you can make, though. Here’s an actual auction example to give you an idea of the scope of profits from penny auctions.

The Item: KitchenAid Artisan Mixer

MSRP: $459.99

Wholesale Price: $125-$150

Auction Price: $19.98

Now that’s a bargain, right? Even at wholesale prices, the winning bidder got one of the hottest kitchen tools on the market at an 85% discount. How can the auction websites do it?

Simple. They’re crowdsourcing their profits. That $19.98 bid price means that there were 1,998 bids placed at $.50 to $1 each: they raked in at least $999 and up to $1,998 in bids on that mixer for which they probably paid less than $200. In addition, the winning bidder will pay the bid price plus shipping and handling, so the auction site makes anywhere from $700 to $1,700 in profit on that single item. Multiply that sale by dozens of auctions happening every minute and you begin to get an idea of the awesome money-making potential of operating a penny auctions site.

If you’re looking for an incredible earning opportunity without the responsibility of owning an auction website, you can look into an affiliate sales program with one or more of the dozens of online auctions and auction websites operating on the net. Check out other money making opportunities with online auctions today to find out how much you can make.