Category: Auctions

Let’s face it, everyone makes mistakes. However, if you’re a newbie to DealDash maybe I can help you avoid the top three mistakes that beginners tend to make.

Mistake 1 – Not having a plan. Okay, so you found a great item on DealDash that you would like to bid on and win. Excellent! There are many different bidding strategies that you might like to try, but the absolute worst bidding strategy that I can think of is to put every single bid you have into your BidBuddy and walk away. Of course, some people do win and get great deals this way, it’s also possible to spend a lot of money (in bids) on a particular item and still not win. Or, even worse, “win” the item but overbid by more than the BIN (Buy It Now) price. The best thing to do is to calculate how many bids will equal the BIN price, and put that amount into your BidBuddy. Of course, this only works on a day when they are having free auctions, if it’s a regular day and you have to pay the final auction price, then you must also calculate that in with the price of bids. It’s a little difficult to calculate what the final auction price will be, so in my experience it’s smart to check back on the auction occasionally to make sure that if you win the auction you don’t end up paying more in bids + final fee than it would be to just BIN the item when you reach your budget limit.

Mistake 2 – Going for a big ticket item before you’re ready. Most people who are reading this blog have probably seen the DealDash commercial where the ladies show you what awesome items that they won for amazing prices. And yes, those ladies really and truly did win those items, however they are seasoned bidders who have a lot of experience bidding on DealDash and had hundreds of smaller wins under their wings before they tried for “the big score.” Winning anything like a laptop or a big TV takes practice and smart-bidding skills, which need to be honed over time. Start honing your skills by bidding on smaller auctions and especially bidding on items you would buy anyway such as gift cards for Target and Wal-Mart, household items that you use on a regular basis such as laundry detergent, or presents for your kids to hide away for a birthday or holiday. Remember, if you do your math calculations and you have reached the BIN price, use the “Buy it Now” option and pay retail price for the item. DealDash will when refund all of the bids you used on that item, and you can try again another day.

Mistake 3 – Being rude or disrespectful to other bidders. This is a bit of a tricky subject, but I feel that a lot of newbies seem to make the mistake of “jumping” on other people’s bids. Jumping on someone’s bid basically means to bid immediately after someone without letting the first persons “time clock” run down to a couple of seconds. You see, not all newbies know this, but DealDash does a wonderful thing for their bidders – for every second that someone is the highest bidder in an auction they earn “free time” that is shown at a bar on the bottom of the screen. When the bar is filled up then DealDash will give you however many free bids that you are eligible to “claim.” When a bidder “jumps the clock” and bids right away after someone else does it usually makes the other person very annoyed, and depending on the person they may overbid on the auction just to win to spite you. Of course, mistakes happen and sometimes you might accidentally jump someone elses’ bid, but in my experience if you only do it once most people know that it was just an accident. It’s when you do it multiple times in the same auction that makes people upset. Of course, you are free to bid however you like, but in life as in DealDash I personally don’t try to annoy people on purpose, especially if it might cause me to lose money!

So my dear DealDashers, those are just a few mistakes that beginners tend to make. Pay attention to what you’re doing, check out the auctions and see what you would really like to bid on, try some easier auctions to build up knowledge, and you’ll be winning awesome stuff before you know it! See you on DealDash everyone! Good luck and happy bidding.