New stuff for 10-15% of the new-price? SCAM? Probably!

[RealBlackStuff]

Just stumbled upon this most interesting website: http://www.swoopo.com/
It's an auction-side with a bit of a gambling twist, very interesting!

[killer]

I'd rather waste my money on a pint.
At least you have a chance.


P.S. Ireland did well to win the grand slam. Congratulations, RBS, it is 61 years since they last managed it in 1948.

[rkawakami]

Never heard of this site until now but there's been some postings about it:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001196.html
http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/09/24/sw ... g-or-scam/
http://technologizer.com/2008/09/17/is- ... d-gimmick/

[RealBlackStuff]

P.S. Ireland did well to win the grand slam. Congratulations, RBS, it is 61 years since they last managed it in 1948.

I should have been able to watch that! <blinks away a tear of joy>
I knew it, I knew it! (to be sure, to be sure!)

@Ray:
I had been doing the maths, just watching the auctioning of a 40" telly, and was astounded by the bidding frenzy!
I have not, and will not register at this or similar sites, as I can't see any reason to throw money out the window.
If I had done my homework like you (coming up with those links) I would not even have posted this!

So folks, have a look there, but NO more than that!

[Troels]

Uh... that's just crazy - paying to bid
I mean... they're selling mainly items of a decent value. It seems you cannot bid more than $0.15 at a time, and it will cost you alot to even win an "auction" no matter if you win or not, if each bid costs $0.75.
For example: If there are three bidders on a camera selling for $333, the most fair case would be if the three biddders has submitted 740 bids each - that is 2200 each increasing the price by $0.15.
740 bids would cost you $555 to buy - for each of the bidders. So if you won, you have actually just paid $888. Or?

The real profit margin seems to made when more and more people bid on the item. Demand drives prices up.

EDIT: Ok, and how will they prove that they don't just use their own bidbuttlers to drive prices up?

[killer]

It is scam. Just spend your money elsewhere.

[rkawakami]

It's not really a scam, by the strict definition of the word. What it is is a (brilliant?) marketing scheme which feeds on the base instincts of "getting something for (close to) nothing" along with the gambler's sense of trying to "recoup or protect your investments" . If one reads the posted rules and bidding examples on the web site, there is enough of an explanation of what it costs a bidder to participate ($0.75 per bid). What is not so evident, however, is the potential for the owners of the site to reap fantastic profits on each "auction". The links that I posted earlier have several examples on what the company "earns" for each sale. Assume that an item's price starts out at 1 cent. Each time a bid is made on the item it costs that bidder 75 cents and increases the item's price by 15 cents. Now let's assume that the final sale price ends up at $15.01. That means that a total of 100 bids were made. Let's also assume that everyone who is bidding on this item knows that the true normal retail price for this item is $15. Why would you bid any more than that if you could just simply go down to Best Buy and get one? That's $75.00 (100 bids @ $0.75 apiece) that the company has taken in on an item which cost them $15; probably less than that if they are paying wholesale prices. Even if bidders were to stop at half the retail price of the item ($7.50), that still means that 50 bids were made and a total of $45 ($37.50 for the 50 bids, plus the $7.50 "sale price") that the company rakes in.

Also note that auctions for the "big ticket" items have $0.01 bid increments! That means for the $255.00 laptop win currently being displayed for an Apple Macbook, 25,500 bids were made. I don't have any reason to believe that the company is lying about that sale. At 75 cents for each one of those bids.... $19,125, minus the $1300 that it could have cost them to buy one at the Apple Store, is quite a profit margin.

Lucky is the person who made the final (and let's assume for the moment, his/her only) bid on that $255 Macbook auction. They spent 75 cents, plus the $255 for a $1300 laptop. That's quite a good deal in anyone's book. However, human nature being what it is, if they started bidding early (and often, since the ending time keeps getting pushed back) and they ended up making 1,500 bids during the course of that sale, only about 6% of the total, then they spent $1380 (1500 x $0.75 + $255). Not a good deal at all. This is what that site is preying on; the compulsion to participate in a bidding frenzy, along with the fear of losing your investment (all of those bids) if you don't "win".