evan c.

So I got a promo pack at Quibids and was really intrigued by it. I did a little studying and figured out a strategy. I would go for gift cards ( 10,15, and 25 dollar value) that also came with additional bids. I thought that would give me some extra bids to be a little more aggressive with bids.

I ended up winning about 100 dollars worth of cards and still had the same number of bids that I started with, but very important; there is a 2 dollar shipping, but really "handling" fee. I thought that winning the 10 dollar cards was relatively easy, especially since I was getting the bonus bids. I worked out that my unit of opportunity cost was about $2.50 for 10 dollar gift card, and that would translate to about $5.00 for 25 dollar card and so on.

Here is the wildcard. Irrational bidders and very important to note, all bids don't have the same value. Yes each bid costs 60 cents, but some people don't pay 60 cents a bid, they win them by bidding on them in the voucher auctions. I didn't get it until, I started to lose auction after auction and seeing the winners bid 2 and 3 times more than the value of the card. For example, a 10 dollar card should not be bought for more than 8 dollars worth of bids( 13 bids or so) + the 2 dollars fee. But a single bidder could be bidding 30-50 times for a 10 dollar card.

Then it hit me. I saw the winner and they were using voucher bids, ones they won on other auctions. They could have won 100 bids (60 dollar value) for let's say 2 dollars. Those 100 bids are not worth 60 cents each to them, they are only worth 2 cents, so they are willing to bid many times more.

Bottomline: not all bids are created equal and the more people bid with lesser value bids, the more purchased bids lose. My guess is that at some point, only people with lower value bids will be left, but the site is banking on newcomers to wander into the pit. Beware!

PS: I ended up 5 dollars positive. A whole lot of work for 5 dollars.