My 3 cents worth advice on how to win at penny auction sites

Penny auctions are one of the latest trends on the internet, popular because the winners often win fantastic products at 95%+ off the MSRP. However penny auctions are not just a game of luck – although luck plays a part, skill and analysis must be used if you want to win on a regular basis and ensure you get the most for your money.

Value of the Products
The first thing to consider is the value of the product you are bidding on. Things you need to consider are:
- What are the shipping and processing fees for the auction (these should be clearly labeled on the auction itself)?
- What is the true MSRP of the product, i.e. what is the cheapest that you could buy it for if you weren’t bidding for it?
- Are there any PayPal fees to pay?

Once you have assessed the true value of the product you know what your bid limit should be. Don’t forget that you will also need to factor in the price of the bids (which you will need to purchase in advance) to the true value of the product too. It is really important to work out this ceiling price ahead of bidding on any auctions to ensure that you don’t end up losing money for a “win”.

Popularity
When looking through penny auctions, take a look at the penny auction site’s history. Usually, penny auction websites will show how much some of their previous penny auction products have been sold for. From here, you can see what the most popular products are. The more popular a product is, the more people and bids the product is likely to attract. Therefore it makes sense to target the less popular products as you will have a better chance of winning the penny auction for a much better price.

Times of Day
If you can, study when the most popular times of day are for people bidding. If a penny auction website is offering the same product in two different auctions at two different times of day, it is better to choose the auction which is at the less popular time of day as this means there is less competition and you have a better chance of winning for a lower price.

Automated Bidding
Most penny auction sites now offer automated bidding services where you can enter automated bids for the auction. Automated bid systems are a great strategy because it means you can bid on auctions at times of the day when you don’t have internet access and it also means you don’t have to continuously keep an eye on your favorite penny auctions.

Bidding Tactics
There are also various tactics to use to try and be successful. There is the infamous bid sniping tactic, which essentially means waiting until the last second to bid. This is a good tactic to conserve bids, although you will find that most people use this. There is also the aggressive “bull” bidding method, which involves bidding on top of another bidder as soon as another bid is placed. This is used to intimidate others, and only works when you have a serious bank roll. “Random” bidding is another good tactic, which essentially involves placing a bid once every few minutes at random intervals, just to let others know that you are still watching the item, and are a force to be reckoned with.