Bid Packages

This screen print shows a Memorial Day Sale where DealDash.com put its bids on sale, marked down from 60 cents per bid to only 16 cents per bid. When bids go on sale, that is the time to purchase them and fill up your account.

Cost Versus Value of Bid Packages

Drum roll ... the winner is +DealDash.com

DealDash Bid Packages

When NOT on sale, bids are pricey, and customers have only two bid packages to choose from:

• 160 Bids (at 60 cents each) for $96 and
• 400 bids (at 48 cents each) for $192

As you can see from the photo above, however,DealDash often puts its bids on sale, which includes a much wider selection of bid packages customers can choose to purchase at a greatly reduced price.

DealDash also gives customers a chance to win bid packages (from 25 to 5,000) in auctions.

All bidders also earn FREE bids for time on the clock whenever we are the highest bidder in any auction. See the green line at the bottom right-hand side of your computer screen. Whenever that green line gets to the end, we collect our free bids and move up to the next level. For each level we go up, the number of free bids we collect also goes up.

That is why it is so important to allow the clock to run. When we cut the clock before it gets down to the last few seconds, we are, in fact, stealing free bids from other bidders.

Although ZBiddy had the least expensive bid packages of the four online penny-auction sites in my study, I also looked at the value of what I could get for my bids. That is why DealDash.com is the winner.

The cost of the bids alone means little to nothing if customers can only get little to nothing with them. The true value of the bid packages we purchase or win actually depends on the quality and value of the products we are able to get in exchange for the bids we win. We can play with our bids, but we cannot eat the bids or wear the bids, so the bids are worthless to us unless we can get something of value with them.

If I take both the cost of the bids and the true value of the bids into consideration, DealDash.com offers the best deal -- the best chance of winning high-quality, high-value auctions in exchange for the bids we buy.

Purchasing 200 bids on sale from DealDash appears to be the best deal because you are almost guaranteed to win something of value with them.

Lots of Bids Drives Winning Price UP

When everyone is able to obtain bid packages for so little it is both good and bad. It is good because (win or lose) it brings customers back and they can play a long time on a little money. It can also be bad because if I have lots of bids, it also means everyone else on the site has lots of bids, so the bidding process could go on for a long time. This also means the closing cost will most likely be driven up to ridiculously high levels. Granted, ZBiddy is now addressing this issue by placing a predetermined "cap" on some auctions, to guarantee the winner gets a bargain price. The price will never go above the "cap" but the bidding continues. Instead of paying a high price when the auction closes, the winner could pay a high price in bids, depending on how much it takes to win.

Bottom Line

Regardless how cheaply bid packages can be obtained, if we cannot use them to win quality products, they are not much good. We can only play with our bids and/or trade our bids for products we can eat, wear or use. Because DealDash.com frequently offers bid-package sales, and usually has a wider selection of quality products up for auction on a regular basis, I would have to say that DealDash offers the best deal, the best value per bid. If we take both the cost of the bids and the value of what we can get for those bids into consideration, DealDash.com is clearlly the winner.

Beezid Bid Packages

Beezid bid packages are rather pricey. They offer three different kinds of bids -- Regular bids, Promo Bids and Bonus Bids. To new customers, it can be very confusing to have three different kinds of bids. Bid packages offered are:

• 30 bids for $27
• $50 bids for $40
• 100 bids for $70
• 200 bids for $120
• 500 bids for $300 and
• 1,000 bids for $550.

BidCactus Bid Packages

BidCactus bid packages are also rather pricey, but cost a little less than Beezid's bids. After your initial bid package purchase, BidCactus offers some bid packages for auction and some of them are free to bid on. Only the winner has to pay for the bids he or she wins. Customers can win free bids by shopping with the site's partners. BidCactus customers also earn points they can shop with at the BidCactus exchange store, but it does not amount to much. For example, I had 1,400 points I was able to exchange for one package of 10 bids. That is a lot of points for only a few bids.

Bid packages offered are:

• 30 bids for $22
• 50 bids for $37
• 100 bids, plus 3 bonus bids for $75
• 150 bids, plus 10 bonus bids for $112.50
• 250 bids, plus 25 bonus bids for $187.50.

ZBiddy Bid Packages

As you can see from this list, ZBiddy's initial bid packages are rather pricey, but after you get on the site, you can get oodles of bids for dirt cheap. I easily won a bid package of 200 for 60 cents.

Although ZBiddy has recently added some Kindle Fires, ipods and Apple iPads up for auction, the chances of winning a valuable product in exchange for our bids is much lower than on DealDash.

• 45 bids for $27
• 75 bids for $45
• 150 bids for $89
• 300 bids for $180
• 600 bids for $360 and
• 800 bids for $480

Customers who initially purchase bid packages from ZBiddy pay about 60 cents per bid, but after that, customers can bid free on bid packages and only pay if they win. ZBiddy continually offers a large number of bid packages for auction, so most customers with any bidding skills could win a lot of bids for very little.

Most customers will bid on the 100- and/or 200-bid-packages, while the 50-bid-packages often go ignored. During the bidding process, the 50-bid-packages often close with a single bid, however, each bid makes "bid for free bid packages" go up more than one penny per bid. Instead the price will usually go up 33 or 66 cents per bid.

That still means if  a customer were to win four packages of 50 bids each, he or she might pay just a few dollars for 200 bids instead of $12 to $40 for one package of 200 bids, which several bidders usually all want. However, I got lucky and won one 200-bid-package for only 66 cents because nobody else happened to be on it.

Bottom line: .I could easily use 400 to 800 bids on ZBiddy without winning anything of great value. 

In my next blog, I will compare the number and quality of products the penny-auction sites put up for auction and total cost of what winners pay for them.

Visit me here:  https://plus.google.com/111941944154930718258/about?rel=author Barbara Sellers