Quibids.com

[brvheart 1,752]

this is the scam

That's a ridiculous assertion and Speedz knows it. If they got caught, they are out of business, and why would they need to do that on big items? It just doesn't make sense.If they sell a 17" MacBook Pro with 4gb RAM, which is the standard MacBook they sell. It retails for $2499.If the price gets to $41.65 they break even. (assuming that they purchase the MacBook at retail price, which is also ridiculous.)I have yet to see a MacBook sell for less than $140 bucks, although it does happen. They sold one on the 15th for $7.47.At $140 they are making $8400. They don't need to employ people to jack up the price.

[NellaKreb 0]

That's a ridiculous assertion and Speedz knows it. If they got caught, they are out of business, and why would they need to do that on big items? It just doesn't make sense.If they sell a 17" MacBook Pro with 4gb RAM, which is the standard MacBook they sell. It retails for $2499.If the price gets to $41.65 they break even. (assuming that they purchase the MacBook at retail price, which is also ridiculous.)I have yet to see a MacBook sell for less than $140 bucks, although it does happen. They sold one on the 15th for $7.47.At $140 they are making $8400. They don't need to employ people to jack up the price.

Touche.Mathematics ftwBtw, your new avatar is great.

[dna4ever 2]

Ps. That TV will probably end at around $100. MacBook Pro's usually end at about $150.

Good call, $93.66 with the winner making 488 bids and getting this $2100 TV for $1700

[digitalmonkey 929]

That's a ridiculous assertion and Speedz knows it. If they got caught, they are out of business, and why would they need to do that on big items? It just doesn't make sense.If they sell a 17" MacBook Pro with 4gb RAM, which is the standard MacBook they sell. It retails for $2499.If the price gets to $41.65 they break even. (assuming that they purchase the MacBook at retail price, which is also ridiculous.)I have yet to see a MacBook sell for less than $140 bucks, although it does happen. They sold one on the 15th for $7.47.At $140 they are making $8400. They don't need to employ people to jack up the price.

So you're using jacked-up prices to support your argument that they don't jack-up prices?

[dna4ever 2]

So you're using jacked-up prices to support your argument that they don't jack-up prices?

[Governator 54]

Good call, $93.66 with the winner making 488 bids and getting this $2100 TV for $1700

Didn't he get the TV for $386? He saved approx. $1700

[dna4ever 2]

Didn't he get the TV for $386? He saved approx. $1700

yes, typo, meant saved $1700

[Dubey 1,035]

seems like the optimal strategy is:1. bid late at night2. pick a big $ item that you want, and are willing to spend a lot of money on. perhaps even full retail in the worst case scenario3. focus on this one item, do not bid on multiple auctions4. never stop bidding5. watch the other auctions to see when similar items are ending. ie. if 50" TV's usually go for around $200, start bidding around $190, if it sells cheaper, good for the winner, there will always be another.even if you bid 1000 times, it cost you $600, which should still be a good deal on the item you are bidding on, you just have to stick with it. the big losers are the ones that try to cherry pick good deals all over the place and end up spending $50-$100 on bids, never winning anything, and then give up.

[dna4ever 2]

seems like the optimal strategy is:1. bid late at night2. pick a big $ item that you want, and are willing to spend a lot of money on. perhaps even full retail in the worst case scenario3. focus on this one item, do not bid on multiple auctions4. never stop bidding5. watch the other auctions to see when similar items are ending. ie. if 50" TV's usually go for around $200, start bidding around $190, if it sells cheaper, good for the winner, there will always be another.even if you bid 1000 times, it cost you $600, which should still be a good deal on the item you are bidding on, you just have to stick with it. the big losers are the ones that try to cherry pick good deals all over the place and end up spending $50-$100 on bids, never winning anything, and then give up.

agree, wonder if there is a way to search similar items to see what they have been selling for and graph that into times of day/days of the week etc to help determine when the best time to start bidding on a particular item would be.50" 3D LCD TV for $300-$400 is a pretty damn good deal

[brvheart 1,752]

So you're using jacked-up prices to support your argument that they don't jack-up prices?

Well sure, but I'm simply saying that it's not the company doing the jacking. They make money at such a low amount and they don't need to do it.

agree, wonder if there is a way to search similar items to see what they have been selling for and graph that into times of day/days of the week etc to help determine when the best time to start bidding on a particular item would be.50" 3D LCD TV for $300-$400 is a pretty damn good deal

Yes, you can. When you type on an item, near the top right is a search box, and you can enter a description. It will pull up every auction for that item in the last, like, 21 days.Graphing would help, because some big item, like a TV or MacBook sold for just a few cents on Saturday at 6pm. It didn't make any sense to me and I figured that I should get SJ to make me a graph to see if it was just a huge outlier. A spreadsheet would be a good idea. I've won 2 items now with only 6 bids. I'm mainly focusing on gift card auctions that are ending and that are on the 2nd page, so there is less traffic.

[mrdannyg 274]

Well sure, but I'm simply saying that it's not the company doing the jacking. They make money at such a low amount and they don't need to do it.Yes, you can. When you type on an item, near the top right is a search box, and you can enter a description. It will pull up every auction for that item in the last, like, 21 days.Graphing would help, because some big item, like a TV or MacBook sold for just a few cents on Saturday at 6pm. It didn't make any sense to me and I figured that I should get SJ to make me a graph to see if it was just a huge outlier. A spreadsheet would be a good idea. I've won 2 items now with only 6 bids. I'm mainly focusing on gift card auctions that are ending and that are on the 2nd page, so there is less traffic.

If you can put your bids towards the total, the only additional cost of "buy it now" for a gift card would be shipping, right?Do they include a 'real' value for winning additional bids?Since paying retail for a gift card is not bad business (for a gift card you'll use), seems like there is some potential value in these.

[Skeleton Jelly 2]

This is savings on TV's over the last five days by time of day.I don't know how to do statistical analysis, but there doesn't seem to be any correlation.Savings is just retail price less selling price; it doesn't factor in bidding cost. I didn't see any easy way to get that information.

[brvheart 1,752]

If you can put your bids towards the total, the only additional cost of "buy it now" for a gift card would be shipping, right?Do they include a 'real' value for winning additional bids?Since paying retail for a gift card is not bad business (for a gift card you'll use), seems like there is some potential value in these.

Correct.

[brvheart 1,752]

This is savings on TV's over the last five days by time of day.I don't know how to do statistical analysis, but there doesn't seem to be any correlation.Savings is just retail price less selling price; it doesn't factor in bidding cost. I didn't see any easy way to get that information.

You can only get it from clicking on each individual item. And it only shows the total bids of the winner. Although the total bids overall is easy to compute from the final selling price. It doesn't however, show a list of bids by bidder or anything like that.

[vbnautilus 48]

You can only get it from clicking on each individual item. And it only shows the total bids of the winner. Although the total bids overall is easy to compute from the final selling price. It doesn't however, show a list of bids by bidder or anything like that.

I'd actually like to see a Fourier transform of that data. Looks like there is some cyclical activity in there with a strangely high frequency.

[Dubey 1,035]

I've been thinking about this today, and it's made me kinda want to test out a 'strategy' for this site.1. Start with maybe 500 bids = $3002. Start bidding on the 'bid packs'. ie, the auction for 50 bids. I've been watching it a bit, and the average person is bidding 10-15 times to win a 50 bid pack. The site is making money because there are 10 or 15 people each bidding that amount.3. using my above strategy, focus on one auction at a time. if you end up bidding 50 times on a 50 bid pack, just use the 'credit' to buy the pack, nothing is lost.4. continue doing this until you have turned your initial 500 bids into x amount of bids.Seems like a failsafe strategy, given that the site allows you to contribute the amount spent on bids towards purchasing the item at retail price. Since you are bidding on 'bids', there is no shipping and handling to get screwed over by. Even if you only make a 'profit' on 1/3 of your auctions (I think the number would be much higher), you are still always turning a profit. you just need to spend the time to see the auctions through to the finish.

[Spademan 94]

Scram Zuckerburg, make sure to pay attention to these guys to see if and how they can beat the system.That way we can find ways to morally and legally subvert winning strategy (if necessary) to increase our profit margin when we start up our site. - Spade Gates

[JubilantLankyLad 1,957]

I've been thinking about this today, and it's made me kinda want to test out a 'strategy' for this site.1. Start with maybe 500 bids = $3002. Start bidding on the 'bid packs'. ie, the auction for 50 bids. I've been watching it a bit, and the average person is bidding 10-15 times to win a 50 bid pack. The site is making money because there are 10 or 15 people each bidding that amount.3. using my above strategy, focus on one auction at a time. if you end up bidding 50 times on a 50 bid pack, just use the 'credit' to buy the pack, nothing is lost.4. continue doing this until you have turned your initial 500 bids into x amount of bids.Seems like a failsafe strategy, given that the site allows you to contribute the amount spent on bids towards purchasing the item at retail price. Since you are bidding on 'bids', there is no shipping and handling to get screwed over by. Even if you only make a 'profit' on 1/3 of your auctions (I think the number would be much higher), you are still always turning a profit. you just need to spend the time to see the auctions through to the finish.

Sounds like you'd have to eat a lot of pudding for this to be worth it.

[Dubey 1,035]

I think the best 'end game' item for this, once you have built up a lot of bids, is to buy the 32gb ipads. Just from browsing the most recent finished auctions, people have been winning the ipads with anywhere between 7 to 500 bids. These should be pretty easy to sell on Ebay for $400 each.I think the key to beating the system, is to never give up once you've started bidding on an item, until you've reached the retail value in amount invested.can anyone poke holes in this theory to save me the time and investment of just trying this for myself?

[CobaltBlue 662]

Sounds like you'd have to eat a lot of pudding for this to be worth it.

Such a good movie (and real story).

[vbnautilus 48]

can anyone poke holes in this theory to save me the time and investment of just trying this for myself?

I think what you are missing is

I've been watching it a bit, and the average person is bidding 10-15 times to win a 50 bid pack. The site is making money because there are 10 or 15 people each bidding that amount.

The average person is bidding 10-15 times to lose on the 50 bid pack. If only 1 in 10 people wins after making this amount of bids, it means you need to spend 10 x 10 or 100 bids for every 50 bid pack you win.

[AmScray 355]

Scram Zuckerburg, make sure to pay attention to these guys to see if and how they can beat the system.That way we can find ways to morally and legally subvert winning strategy (if necessary) to increase our profit margin when we start up our site. - Spade Gates

I just checked and there are a few penny auction scripts out there for reasonable prices. My guys could tweak it into whatever, including adding certain 'fun things' to assist in shearing the sheep from the admin side. As with any knock-off idea, it's all about clever marketing and gathering up the crumbs. On the internet, there's absolutely no overcoming the inertia of being first, unless its a supernova scenario ala the mass abandonment of Myspace.

[AmScray 355]

Also, as far as strategy, the only possible exploit would be to isolate some kind of 'diminished interest probability' in auctions offering 50 bid packages that are also closing at statistically favorable end times, to see if there's any way to get exploit a +ev cost/bid ratio. If so, it would be like the end stairway on level 3-1 of Super Mario Brothers, where as long as your attention span held out and you kept jumping on the bouncing turtle shell, you could get unlimited lives.Calculate an average bid/success ratio for certain items or categories of items, then use an autobidder to exploit the listings that have the most favorable percentage break in terms of acquisition success relative to gross bid expenditure, relative to what they could be resold for on ebay. It would be a pretty basic formula. That would be the way to maximize profit margin, if a bid enrichment exploit could be established.

[brvheart 1,752]

Sounds like you'd have to eat a lot of pudding for this to be worth it.

hahahahaha

[brvheart 1,752]

the mass abandonment of Myspace.

Myspace was just so poorly designed. I never had a page, and going to people's pages really annoyed me. I hated the background pictures and how the words floated on top of everything and it was hard to read. Terrible design, plain and simple. The free market destroyed them.