An Entertaining Experience on DealDash.com

 

This screen print shows the DealDash home page, featuring a special event for Valentine's Day. Cost of bids for this event were as low as 11 cents each.

What is DealDash?

DealDash is the first and longest-running online penny-auction site in America, where customers have the opportunity to win brand new products for as much as 90 percent or more off retail price.

Registration is free, however, before you can participate in an auction, you must purchase a package of bids. Full price of bids are 60 cents each, but bids often go on sale for as little as 11 cents per bid.

DealDash offers a huge variety of popular products for auction. Every time you place a bid, the winning cost of the auction item goes up one penny. Each bidder starts out getting 30 seconds on the clock, which later goes down to 20 seconds, then 10 seconds, as the auction progresses. When you are the highest bidder, a green line at the bottom right of the page will move. When the green line gets to the end, all you have to do is click your mouse on it and you will win free bids. That's why you should let the clock run, so you do not deprive other bidders from earning their free bids. If you put your bids into BidBuddy, the automated bidder that will place your bids for you, your bids will not be used until the clock gets down to zero. If the clock gets down to zero before anyone places another bid, you are declared the winner of the aution. The cost of the product is the winning cost, plus whatever it cost for the number of bids used to win. Handling, shipping and postage are always FREE.

DealDash will celebrate its 4th anniversary on Feb. 23, 2013, and they are sure to have a special event that you will NOT want to miss.



If you double-click on an auction item from the DealDash home page, this inside page will open up. This is where BidBuddy, the automated bidder is hiding. You can place your bids into BidBuddy (white box in the bottom middle of this page). To the left, you see how many bidders are participating in this auction.  In the bottom right, you can also see the green line that moves when you are the highest bidder. When it gets to the end, you collect free bids and move up to the next level. The higher the level, the more free bids you will receive.



 

Purpose of this blog

The purpose of this blog is to create one-stop-shop resource for DealDash customers who enjoy the convenience of shopping online and having fun at the same time.  

Questions and comments about your DealDash experiences are welcome, as long as you write with respect for others who might have different opinions. The use of profanity or name-calling will not be tolerated. I reserve the right to delete any and all inappropriate comments.

I encourage visitors to focus on the positive, not the negative; solutions, not problems and resolutions, not complaints. This will be a blog where customers get answers to questions and guidance from other experienced DealDash players in a supportive environment.

I became a DealDash customer Feb. 8, 2012. This blog is written from my own first-hand customer experience, information posted on the DealDash website, as well as information provided by DealDash team members if I do not know the answers.

This blog will also provide helpful tips and strategies, guidelines on how to have a happy online shopping experience and the latest customer reactions and reviews of various DealDash special events and features. I  will also highlight some of the most fantastic DealDash bargains -- my own,  as well as others I see.

DealDash -- An Entertaining Experience

Barbara Sellers (screen name: SorryMyTurn) with some of the auction items won on DealDash in 2012 for outstanding bargain prices. I won more than 200 auctions in 2012 and all items are brand new. Shipping, postage & handling are always free.

Since I started bidding and winning auctions, DealDash has featured many fun and entertaining special events. 

Some special events I remember are:

• FREE auctions --  Regardless of how much the closing auction price might be, DD gave the auction items to the winning bidders FREE. All the winner payed is a $1 transaction fee (which DD does not get) and the cost of the bids it took to win it. This is one of my favorite events because it usually means winning customers get a great bargain, even if they have to use an extra lot of bids to win.
• 50 Percent off -- When the auctions closed, winning customers got 50 percent off the closing price of the auction, so this also helped to keep the overall cost to the winning customers down. It appeared customers did not run the closing cost up as high as they did on the FREE auctions.
• Mystery auctions -- DealDash had Easter eggs and a mystery auction item hidden behind each egg. Customers knew the item's retail value but the actual auction product was not revealed until after the auction ended. This event was fun and reminded me of "grab bags" when I was a kid.
• No Jumper auctions -- DealDash has continued this one. Once the auction price reaches $5.00 no new bidders are allowed to join the auction. At this point, if you got at least one bid in before the auction price reached the $5 mark, you know how many competitors you have to win that auction. Evidently, most customers liked the "no jumper" auctions, so DD has continued to have them. However, DD has changed it a bit, too. One event lowered the "$5 no jumper" auctions to only "$3 no jumper" auctions. When no new jumpers were allowed to join the auction after the auction reached $3 I did not notice much difference than the  $5 "no jumper auctions" because it appeared that just about the same number of bidders managed to get into the auction under the $3 mark. Did you notice a difference?  What did you think of it?
• Win One, Get Two -- For Mother's Day, DD gave all auction winners, not one, but two of the auction items won -- one for yourself and one for your mother. I loved this special. I thought it was a wonderful way to honor our mothers.
• FREE bids back to second-highest bidder -- Each auction winner would pay the winning cost and win the auction, while the second highest bidder would get their bids back FREE. I think this event gave customers more hope that they could either come in first or second and, in a sense, still be a winner. I liked this event, too, because in many cases the one who ended up coming in as the second-to-the-last bidder ended up better off. In fact, when the bidding got down to the last two, and I was one of them, I purposely cancelled all of my remaining bids to let the other bidder win. Because the closing cost was so high, I figured I was better off just getting all my bids back, so I stuck the other bidder with paying the closing cost.
• Bid Limit of 100 Bids Placed in BidBuddy -- One of the recent events only allowed each customer to place a limit of 100 bids into the automated bidding system, BidBuddy. I had mixed feelings about this event. On the one hand, for most auctions, it appeared to lower the winning cost (which was a good thing). On the other hand, it meant I had to be glued to my computer and watch what was happening if I wanted to have a prayer of a chance to win (which was a bad thing). I think busy people like me prefer being able to put any number of bids into BidBuddy so we are free to mow my lawn, do my housework or laundry and attend meetings.

I thought it might be interesting if DD would limit the number of total bids each customer could use to win any auction. To make it really interesting, perhaps DD could limit each customer to a total of 25 bids (for small items, like $25 gift cards) or 50 to 200 bids per customer to try to win high-value items. To make things really interesting and to give customers a fantastic bargain (and keep the cost down), I wonder what would happen if DD had a special event where all customers could only use 10 bids to try to win an auction. Wouldn't that be fun?

If you have any ideas on what DD could do to keep the winning costs down or create a special event everyone might enjoy, please feel free to make comments and tell us which special event you enjoyed most and why.

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