What does timing have to do with bid counting when shopping on DealDash.com? Perhaps a lot more than we might think it does. If we have an idea how many bids our strongest competitors have already used in the auctions we might be able to come up with an educated guess whether it would be wise for us to continue or move on to another auction.
For example, most shoppers (who are looking for a good deal) will not invest more than the BIN value of the auction product. Therefore, if we are shopping in an auction with a BIN price tag of $300.00 most shoppers will stop bidding before going over that amount.
If we want to place some bids on our home computer on DealDash and then leave to go grocery shopping, we might want to know how many bids we would have to place to keep the auction running until we return home. If we plan to be gone for one hour, we might want to estimate how many bids we could use up in the one hour we would be gone.
Ballpark Figures
Of course, there is probably no way to know this at the beginning of an auction when we might see 30 to 80 shoppers place bids, or when shoppers are jumping in and out of the auction. By watching the three final players near the end (who usually let the clock run), however, it’s a lot easier to come up with an educated ballpark figure just by watching. We can also run our mouse over the final bidder’s icon to see at what point each player first joined the auction. If the player joined the auction in the very beginning they might have used a lot more bids than a shopper who joined the auction right before it hit $5.00.
With three active players, I figured it would take about 15 minutes to use 30 bids. That would mean all three players would stay in the game that long and no additional players would join in. Of course, if a player dropped out or additional players joined in, that would all change. But to cover myself for an hour away from my computer, I figured I would need to place at least 120 bids but to be more on the safe side I would need to place about 200 bids before leaving.
Counting
Am I kidding? No, I’m not. Some truly serious shoppers on DealDash have indicated that they actually “count” the exact number of bids their competitors place. I would never have the patience to do that myself, but some players might actually get a pen and paper, write down the screen names of other players in an auction and make a mark for each player each time they place a bid so they know exactly how many bids each player has already used. Then they use that information to decide at what point in the auction they should play the rest of their bids. These players wait until they believe all of their top competitors might be running out of bids and then they “pounce” on the other shoppers near the end and go in for the win.
The “Count” might tick off other players when he or she wins with just a few bids at the end, but we cannot be too upset with them. After all, it’s not against the rules and any of us could do the same thing if we wanted to go through all that work.
Leaderboard Features
Whenever DealDash has a Leaderboard Feature they make it a lot easier for us to figure out how many bids other players might have invested. The more bids we place the higher we go up on the Leaderboard. Therefore, we automatically know the shoppers at the top of the Leaderboard have placed the most bids.
We must also understand that the shoppers at the top of the Leaderboard might not want to lose their place to win the free bids when the auction closes, so they could be all the more determined to stay to the bitter end.
Bottom Line
Are you a bid counter? It might be worth thinking about because it could make a winning difference.
This sponsored blog post was submitted by: Barbara L. Sellers. Barbara was compensated by DealDash for this blog post. Blog posts are written by real DealDash customers. The opinions and advice here represent our customers’ views and not those of the company.
