Before I begin, I must make one small confession … I have  O.C.D. – Obsessive Christmas Disorder!

I do believe I was born with the condition (Christmas-in-July birthday), and it has progressed through the years to the point where all hope for a cure has been abandoned! All that being disclosed, let me share a Deal Dash experience that has evolved into a Christmas memory I will cherish forever …

Deal Dash has been very good to me … I have more gadgets and gift cards than I could ever imagine.  And many friends and family members have benefitted from my winnings and BIN’s (Buy It Now and get your bids back).

I never paid much attention to the ‘TOYS’ category on Deal Dash – I don’t have any Wee-Ones or Grand Wee-Ones myself … but, every now and then, I would toss a few bids on some neat items for urchins in the family or my circle of friends – and I had quite a few NICE items to show for those efforts.  Well … one September morning, I had a ‘Pay It Forward’ moment.  It dawned on me that, since Deal Dash has afforded me SO many great deals, why not share a little of the wealth and the luck with some needy children during the Christmas Holiday Season??!!!

What started out as a casual effort to ‘get a few nice toys’ for those less fortunate transformed me into a Woman on a Mission (do you think they could make a Transformer Flip Toy for this???!!!).  Before I knew it, my very large living room was filled with boxes – it was starting to look like one of those forts we built as kids.  I thought I could free up some space by taking toys out of the shipping boxes, and that worked for a little while.  But, like a woman’s purse, I just kept filling up my living room by adding even MORE toys to the stash of goodies.  I am now on a first-name basis with my carriers from the Postal Service, UPS, and FedEx, and I am convinced that they think I’m running some nefarious business in my basement!

Thanks to Deal Dash, I have garnered almost 100 Toys for Angel Soldiers!  It is a local ‘Toys For Tots’ campaign for Military Children.  And there will be MANY smiling faces this Christmas, thanks to ‘DASH-er’!  (Hey … the Military has code names for EVERYTHING … ‘DASH-er’  is  MY code name for this wonderful journey of gratitude and love!)

You MIGHT think the children are the beneficiaries of these great toys, but, truth be told, I am the one who has received more FUN and pure JOY over the past few months!  Deal Dash has made ALL this possible! And it has started a tradition that I hope to continue in the future!  The only change I will make for 2015 is that I will start MUCH earlier!  Getting all these toys in 3 months has been exhaustive … NEXT year, I will spread my DASH-er mission throughout the year – and, who knows?  Maybe I’ll have 200 toys next year!!!

If you would like to take on a task like this yourself (TRUST ME – you will feel SO uplifted!), here are a few recommendations:

1. KNOW your limits.  Winning auctions are almost always below retail, but you must include the cost of your bids!
2. TRACK your winnings!  I actually created a spreadsheet to track my winnings, BIN’s and Deliveries.  This keeps you in line with your budgeting, and you won’t lose track of your toys!  It also gives you a great way of communicating your purchases to the charity of your choice!
3. Get Bids at the lowest cost possible (Winning Bid Packs and buying them on sale helps!) … and allocate what you can afford towards gift items.
4. Don’t be afraid of the ‘Buy-It-Now’ option!  I typically placed enough bids on items I could afford so that if I didn’t win the item, I was STILL able to buy the toy and get my bids back!
5. Start your ‘shopping spree’ early in the year!  I condensed my efforts into 3 months – and it has taken a little bit of a toll, financially and mentally!  Spreading your efforts over the year will be less stressful, and it might also make the BIN option more affordable!
6. Be PATIENT and TIMELY!  Some of the highest-priced toys I won were in the ‘off-peak’ hours.
7. SHARE your efforts with Friends and Family members!  They might be so inspired, that they will add even MORE toys to your stash!!!
8. Be JOYFUL!  Once you’ve decided on an organization for your donations, BELIEVE that your efforts will benefit so many needy children!  It will inspire you, and bring you a Christmas Joy that you probably haven’t felt since your own childhood!  LET IT GO!!!!

To all my fellow DEAL DASH-ers … have a Blessed Christmas, and a VERY Happy New Year!

To all of the wonderful folks at Deal Dash … THANK YOU … for the many smiles we will see this Christmas … for allowing me to share some Gratitude and Love this Holiday Season … for bringing back the Child in ME!

Jomama4111

I’ve been shopping on DealDash since summer of 2013 and have won nearly 300 auctions. 

If you love shopping on DealDash and want to be a guest blogger please email [email protected] for a chance to have your story featured!

 

How low can you go?  That is what we all want to know.

All DealDash.com customers want to know how we can win auctions at the lowest possible closing cost, while using the fewest number of bids.

If you look at the list of customers who already won the $500 Amazon gift card, you will see that one lucky customer won it for as little as 69 cents, while the same card closed for as much as $713.26. The highest closing cost of the $500 Amazon gift card was on a “free to the winner” special, so it does not mean the winner actually paid that much. It does mean, however, that there was a huge difference in the number of bids placed to win the same gift card.

Everything is fair in love and war, and everything is fair on DealDash.com, too. Regardless of the huge differences in the lowest and highest closing costs of auctions, the most important thing to remember is that we, the customers, are in charge of what happens. Nobody makes us bid or tells us how to bid or how much to bid. Nobody tells us when to start bidding or when to stop bidding. That is entirely up to us—the DealDash.com customers.

I know firsthand how easy it is to get caught up in the excitement of the bidding process because it happened to me when I first discovered the site. However, we customers are expected to be responsible bidders and we must each control our own bidding habits. One of the best ways to do that is by learning how the site works and by knowing how to play smart. As long as we do that, we can all enjoy a fun bidding experience.

Note: Written by Barbara  Sellers, resident of Tacoma, Wash., who has been shopping on DealDash.com since Feb. 8, 2012.  Barbara is on Level 48 and has won over 560 auctions.

Stand Up for Trust – DealDash joins the Better Business Bureau as an accredited business which helps set standards for ethical business behavior and monitors compliance.

Earlier this month, on November 4, 2014, DealDash confirmed it’s business accreditation with the BBB of Minnesota and North Dakota in a unified effort to bring trust and compliance to the pay to play penny auction industry. Since DealDash launched back in 2009, the new and emerging Online Auction / Penny Auction industry has seen more than a thousand online auctions launch, but after more than five years, the market has started to mature and only the companies that are consistently providing a good experience remain.

Since DealDash’s inception it has grown into the most trusted and longest running online pay-to-play auction site in the United States and immediately differentiated itself from all other auction services with it’s tremendously popular Buy it Now option (BIN). BIN allows consumers to purchase the item at fair market retail price and get their bid credits back when they lost the auction.

The recreational shopping space is a multi billion dollar industry. With millions and millions of people continuing to try new online auction services, DealDash believes joining the BBB will help consumers find trustworthy companies and choose them over bad operators. DealDash believes it’s especially important in new emerging industries like this for a trusted authority like the BBB to assure consumers of companies that have a proven track record of delivering on their promises.

On average DealDash customers rate their service experience a 4.5 out of 5. DealDash believes much of this attributes to prompt response times consumers receive to their support inquiries (average 15 hrs to first reply) compared to the retail industry average of 26.6 hrs.

DealDash.com is a first of its kind online pay to play auction that allows customers to shop thousands of unique items daily from the comfort of their home. DealDash is making shopping more fun by turning it into a game with a mission to be the most exciting way to get a deal on the planet!

www.dealdash.com

 

 

 

As we begin our holiday preparations and think of ways we can celebrate the season, DealDash has offered us many ways to enjoy the bidding , winning and/or buying it now we are able to do.  So, I was thinking about what the DealDash penny auction site offers all of the customers who participate in the auctions every day.  How can we use the winnings on DealDash to help improve our thanks?  For starters, we can spell out Thanksgiving with items we can win on DeadDash.

T = Trampoline or Texaco Gift Card

H = HP laser jet printers

A = Aeropostale gift card for the younger generation

N = Nintendo DS, a great gift for kids of all ages

K = Kmart Gift Cards, sometimes with bids

S = Shell Gift Cards to get you to Grandma’s

G = Gift Cards Galore for all kinds of place

I =  iHop, love those pancakes

V = Vtech toys for your children or grandchildren

I = iTunes gift cards, my grandson loves them!

N = NBA2K15, game for PS4 or Xbox One

G = GRATEFUL!

We celebrate the season with our families and friends and we are so fortunate to have an opportunity to share with others.  While we are bidding during the holidays we need to keep in mind there are less fortunate people in our communities.  Let’s share our good will with each other, bid fair, and enjoy the fact we have found the most fair bidding penny auction site there is.

Remember with free shipping, fast shipping, excellent customer service and the opportunity to win or buy it now when the auction does not go in your favor,  DealDash offers us all equal opportunities to get the items we want either by winning or buying.   Happy Thanksgiving fellow bidders!

By Joan Vith