Living in SIN

I've been following Swoopo's new feature "Swoop It Now" (SIN) with considerable interest. This is a feature that allows non-winning bidders to apply the cost of their expended bids toward the outright purchase of the merchandise. My prediction was that it would drive the bid levels way up, as a bidder who was interested in buying the merchandise would have no reason to stop bidding once he had invested enough bids to make buying the item a good deal.

This has not happened. At all. At least, it hasn't happened yet. And I want to know why not.

Right now, Swoopo is selling a Nikon D90, a very nice camera, I happen to have one myself. Amazon sells it for $1,139.95 and by what is certainly not a coincidence, Swoopo shows $1,139 as its list price. So if you want the Nikon, instead of going to Amazon, go to Swoopo, buy 1900 tokens at 60¢ each, $1140.00 bucks works, and load them into the BidButler.

You might win and get the camera for something around $76.00 (1900 of your 2¢ bids plus the same number of 2¢ bids from whoever is foolish enough to bid against you). In fact, you'll probably win, because you have the huge war-chest to discourage rivals.

And if you don't win? You buy the camera for the same price you'd pay on Amazon.

Somebody should try this. I'll wait here.
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