Well .... I happened to find this "Entertainment Shopping" Bidding site called SWOOPO ( www.swoopo.com ) and initially i thought it is something like eBay and got registered to the same. But it did not take much time for me to realize that SWOOPO runs on different concept of Bidding. I did little research and read how it works and to my surprise it is something we need to handle with extra care. Concept sounds simple but weird
"BIDDER PAY TO BID" - Is it confusing ? It is really that confusing ... every item in SWOOPO website is time limited and there are NO reserve prices so catch is users / bidders need to pay $1 for each and every bid which means whether you win or lose you have to pay for the bids. They claim that total price you pay for product inclusive of Bid amount is way less than that of its original market price and of course it all depends on how many have bid for the product .
So suggesting that it is either clever, even legal, money-making scheme on the part of the German parent company, formerly Telebid, or a new way to get gadgets cheap. Interestingly, it could be both. The auction system is considerably different than other sites - EBay included. It works like this, if I understand it correctly: you “buy” blocks of bids for $1 each. Each bid costs $1 and increases the price by 15 cents and the auction time increases to 20 seconds in the last 20 seconds - if the auction time is 10 seconds when you bid, 10 seconds are added to the time. When the clock runs out the final bidder pays the auction price which is essentially the “number of bids” they entered, say 200 bids at $200, and the final price, say $400 for a total of $600. It’s obviously great if the device is worth less than $600 and you win but if you lose the auction, that $200 goes up in smoke.
SO BE CAUTIOUS ABOUT THIS SITE & USE YOUR BRAINS !!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
"BIDDER PAY TO BID" - Is it confusing ? It is really that confusing ... every item in SWOOPO website is time limited and there are NO reserve prices so catch is users / bidders need to pay $1 for each and every bid which means whether you win or lose you have to pay for the bids. They claim that total price you pay for product inclusive of Bid amount is way less than that of its original market price and of course it all depends on how many have bid for the product .
So suggesting that it is either clever, even legal, money-making scheme on the part of the German parent company, formerly Telebid, or a new way to get gadgets cheap. Interestingly, it could be both. The auction system is considerably different than other sites - EBay included. It works like this, if I understand it correctly: you “buy” blocks of bids for $1 each. Each bid costs $1 and increases the price by 15 cents and the auction time increases to 20 seconds in the last 20 seconds - if the auction time is 10 seconds when you bid, 10 seconds are added to the time. When the clock runs out the final bidder pays the auction price which is essentially the “number of bids” they entered, say 200 bids at $200, and the final price, say $400 for a total of $600. It’s obviously great if the device is worth less than $600 and you win but if you lose the auction, that $200 goes up in smoke.
SO BE CAUTIOUS ABOUT THIS SITE & USE YOUR BRAINS !!!!!!!!!!!!! :)
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