The Finer Points of Internet Auctions

WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?

Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.

The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.

The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.

The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.

HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!

The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.

There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.

Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.

HOW TO WIN!

Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.

The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.

The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.

The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.

HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!

Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.

Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.

Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.

CONCLUSION!

New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.

There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.

It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.

Home Based Business – Hard Work Involved in Working From Home

When many think about home based business, primarily over the Internet, they tend to think of get rich quick schemes. This is probably due to the overwhelming number of infomercials that are found on television late at night. When I mention to my friends and family about my home based business, that’s what they always think of.The truth is that, although there are many gurus and false programs out there, which claim that following there method would make you rich in a matter of days, this is no where close to reality.There are several kinds of home based businesses out there. Take day care as an example. That’s can be home-based, right? Although this is true, those kinds of businesses are not what most people are looking for when they are trying to achieve financial freedom.Running a business from home is one thing, but running one over the Internet is another. Over the Internet is where you’ll run into the gurus and false programs who sell you products that simply don’t deliver. Like I said before, they promise an a easy method that will earn you an unbelievable amount of money in a short time frame.What you need to do is forget everything you think about making thousands of dollars in a short time over the Internet. The truth is that it’s not that simple. There is no magic. If you want to get rich quick, purchase lottery tickets and hope for the best.Starting a Home based business, one that is over the Internet, takes time for it to grow. It also that a lot of work. This is not a business you can just through something up on the Internet and the money will just be pouring in. It takes time to do this work.Is it hard to do? To make this answer as short as possible. No, it’s really not a hard thing to do, however it does require proper education on the business. Internet Marketing is not something everyone knows all ready. There are plenty of resources on the Internet that will guide you to building your successful online business.How hard is the work involved in working from home?The work is not so much “hard” to do, but time consuming. There are methods to speeding up the process, however those do take some investment on your part. Whereas, if you wanted to build a business without spending any money at first, it takes more time because you have to do the work yourself.

The Top 7 Techniques That Lead To Catastrophic Failure When Marketing Your MLM Home Based Business

So before we get started, do you know what the leading top 7 techniques being taught are? The most common of them all is to build a list of family and friends. Then pass out business cards, brochures, audio’s and DVD’s. Once you have established a few new associates you’re invited to 3-way calls, hotel meetings, product promotions, and launch your own MLM affiliate website to share with potential prospects. Last is inviting people to your home party.Now I am not saying you will can all these techniques when given perspective, it’s just over the course of experience most MLM home based business owners find these strategies out dated, costly, with a minimal return, why? These techniques are primarily benefiting the company and secondary the builder.Let’s start with building a list of family and friends. On a whole you start with a list of about 50 to 100 potential buyers, that you are trying to sell. They are not truly looking, yet some will get excited about the product, service, or the opportunity. For every 10 that register, 2 will want to build their own MLM business. Reality is the average consumer will only buy products for about 3 to 6 months and new associates need to profit within the first 1 to 3 months before throwing in the towel. As for your MLM company if they have over 100,000 associates and everyone builds a list, the company is growing.Next, passing out business cards, brochures, DVD’s, etc. Let’s be honest the average American watches DVD’s for pleasure, brochures for the pictures, and business cards land in the trash. Yet your MLM companies still promote these techniques due to high volume return. We buy their promotional products and even at a 1% conversion rate they’re still making money.The 3-way call is one of the most counter active methods to grow a business existing. Simply said, you are telling your audience that you are not an expert, but your leader is. Who would you prefer to do business with?Who does not like the concept of “home based business”? Yet, where does hotel meetings, driving all over town, and picking up meal tabs fit into this picture?This defies the reason for starting a home based business? Your goal was to earn money while working in your PJ’s and not leave home.The myth behind the product. If the product sold itself your MLM companies would not even think twice about advertising expenditures. The truth remains it is not cost worthy and that is where you and I come in, word of mouth.Websites are necessary in today’s business building arena, yet most MLM websites base the construction for the masses, they sell. They are not designed to target your leading audience through proven marketing techniques. Yet MLM companies offer this promotional product knowing you will pay the monthly fee to have a fabricated website with the ability to attach that site information to your business card.Last, but not least is the traditional home parties. These has given MLM home based businesses a bad taste for many audiences. Your friends and family are expecting to have a nice social hour accompanied with some food, idle chit chat, not a sales pitch. It’s pretty black and white.I hope these 7 “Do Not” business building techniques leave you dismayed or nor discouraged. Each MLM home based business builder must find the coordinating techniques that work for their perspective market.