Jeff W.

This site is essentially a gambling site to see who wins the item. It is slightly better than that, as any "bids" spent on an item that you did not win are credited toward a purchase at the retail price of the item.

The basics of how it works have already been described, but essentially each bid costs $0.75, and each bid on an item typically raises the price of the item $0.15, however depending on the item each bid may raise the item price by less, down to as little as $0.01 for each bid.

For example, I just watched a bidding war on a Kindle DX Graphite. Each bid was worth $0.01, and the final price was $7.94. That sounds like a really good deal, until you realize how much money was spent to get the price to that point. $7.94 at $0.01 per bid means there were 794 bids made. Each bid cost $0.75, which means a total of $595.50 was spent on the item, well above the $379.00 retail price, but it is not actually as bad as it sounds.

In a worst case scenario, there were only two bidders and each bidder spent $297.75 bidding on the item. Whichever bidder won gets to buy the item for an additional $7.94, for a total cost of $305.69, or about $73 less than the retail price.

In all practicality it's not the 90+% off they claim by a long shot (closer to 20% off), and I believe it is a very dishonest tactic, but it is still a good discount for the winner. I think it is ok as long as you fully understand the rules.

For the loser, they get the opportunity to recover their loss by buying the item at retail minus the cost of their bids. That means the person who spent $297.75 in bids and lost can purchase the item for an additional $81.25.

There is a catch though - not all items allow for a retail buy. If an item does not have a "buy it now" option, STAY AWAY! You will not be able to purchase the item at retail, and you will lose your money if you do not win the bid. The chances that you will be the one who actually wins on a bid on a popular item are very low, so you will almost certainly be giving your money away to bigdeal.com.

I think the site can be useful if you cannot find anyone who sells the particular item for any cheaper than retail, AND you are absolutely sure you want to buy the item, even at retail prices. In that case you have a chance to get a big discount. I frankly think you would need to be daft to bid on an item on bigdeal.com that did not have a "buy it now" option. There is no way to recoup your losses in that case, it is sheer foolishness.

If you did not understand what I wrote above DO NOT USE THIS SITE! You will in all likelihood lose a lot more money than you save if you do not understand what is going on. If you did understand what I wrote, then good luck to you.