Bidso Going for Penny Auctions

Bidso launched recently with a reveal price auction (similar to Circuspop, and one of Dubli's auctions) but according to a post on the business networking site ScriptLance, they are looking to make a foray into penny auctions.

This post shows that they are willing to pay up to $150 for a penny auction feature, and have gotten several bids. I'm surprised that the cost of implementing this feature is so low.
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Checking Circuspop Prices

Earlier today I received an email from Circuspop (reverse auction site) saying they would give me 3 free bids to be used "as I see fit" during a special Apple product sale they are having today from 12 - 5pm EST. Circuspop says their Apple products will be 20% off or more.

I just looked at the site and used my free bids to check the price on a MacBook Pro and iPod Nano (twice). The MacBook had a starting price of $1168, a little cheaper than the Apple Store price of $1199 and the same as the Amazon price. When I looked, the price on the MacBook was $1070.5, about $100 cheaper than Amazon which would be a great deal if I liked Macs.

I used my other two bids to look at the price of the iPod Nano. It has a starting price of $179, the same as the Apple Store and higher than the Amazon price of $169.99. When I checked the first time the iPod was $165.50 and when I checked a few minutes later it was $164. This price is a little better than the Amazon price (by about $6).

The site has sold out of a few of the iPods and the Nike+iPod Sport Kit but not the laptops.
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The Expanding Penny Auction Universe: Part 2

So earlier I blogged about how the penny auction universe is expanding. We went from 1 (Swoopo) to 95 penny auction sites in about a year. Whoa! Actually, Swoopo was in the EU for a few years before it came to the US, but like most things, this blog is US-centric.

However, not only is the penny auction universe getting larger, it's also diversifying. There is now a wide range of sites and products, you can go for sites with or without bidbutlers, true penny auctions, or alternatives like the 12 cent-step variety at Swoopo. Penny auction sites are selling a wide variety of products and even a few cars.

Now, entrepreneurs are taking entertainment shopping in new directions. We blogged about SevenSnap, a bid-fee app for the iPhone and Penny Auction Watch recently blogged about Rackup and CircusPop.

Rackup was featured at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco earlier this week and TechCrunch blogged about them here. Rackup seems like a great way to get gift cards on the cheap. Users enter a virtual room and when the auction starts they can click to buy the featured gift card. The first 10 people get the card with a varying bonus from between 3% and 100% of additional money on the card for free depending on when they clicked "buy." The earlier they click, the higher the bonus. However, if more than 10 people buy then the earlier people get kicked out and must enter again at the beginning of the list (lowest bonus). It's a little confusing, but the TechCrunch video explains it all clearly. The most important point is that if you want to buy a gift card anyway, you might as well do it on Rackup - the worst you can do is a 3% bonus and the best you can do is a 100% bonus. It costs nothing to play but companies that feature their gift cards are charged an 8% transaction fee. No wonder the TC50 conference-goers loved this one, we do!

Another interesting concept in online bargain hunting is CircusPop. This company charges users for bids ($0.75 - in bidpacks) which can then be used to "check" the price of an item for sale, until then prices are hidden. If users like the price, they can buy the item from CircusPop the same way they would at at traditional e-tailor like Amazon. CircusPop says that their prices only go down because every time someone views the price of an item, that price drops by $0.25. The site guarantees that users will find the lowest prices or their bids will be refunded. Like with Rackup for giftcards, the worst a user can do on CircusPop is get the product for the retail price, and it seems there is an opportunity to get the item for a substantial discount. CircusPop launched a few days ago and seems to have generated a fair amount of buzz (they have 700+ facebook members, as Penny Auction Watch pointed out).
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