Types of Swoopo Auctions
From my previous post on Swoopo I generated a small bit of confusion because Swoopo has several types of auctions. Here they are directly from the Swoopo site (though I rearranged them a bit for my comments):
Fixed Price Auction
If you win a Fixed Price Auction, you only pay the price indicated in the heading of the auction (plus delivery costs), regardless of the level the bidding reaches.100% off
Where an auction is marked “100% offâ€, the winning bidder does not have to pay the final price. That’s right: the price is zero! You just need to pay the delivery charges.
These are basically the same thing and makes this site seem a bit more sleazy. Here’s why. With a fixed price auction or a 100% off auction you don’t pay the value of the auction, just the fixed price or nothing, respectively. That seems straight forward until you think about it. If they already know what they are selling it for (or that they are giving it away free) the users are basically just giving them money. They are literally proclaiming “Here is something free, what will you pay me for it.” Can you really even call that an auction if the bidders are not actually impacting the price?
Penny Auction
In a penny auction, the price rises by just one cent with each bid placed (whereas in a normal auction, it rises by 15 cents).
Well this is nice of them. In case you were able to hold off yourself from bidding when the price went up 15 cents with each bid they have auctions where it only goes up a single penny. Thus, you look at the price and want to jump right in not realizing just how much money Swoopo is going to take you and other fools like you for.
NailBiter Auction
During a NailBiter Auction, BidButlers aren’t allowed. Users may only place single bids by manually clicking or calling. Don’t walk away or you miss the next incredible deal!
This would be interesting except that the time goes up with each bid (see below). So instead of a “NailBiter” you have a sit around all freaking day bidding and waiting for the thing to end. Good times I’m sure. Too bad I’ll miss it.
Open Auction
Anyone can bid on an open auction, even if they have already reached their eight auction limit. Open auctions do not count towards your auction limit. See ‘How many auctions can I win a month?’ for more information.
Wait, I can only win so many auctions in a given time period. Doesn’t this sound a lot like what a casino can do if they think you have a gambling problem?
20-Second Auction
All auctions start as 20-second auctions. The countdown increases by a maximum of 20 seconds each time that a bid is placed.15-Second Auction
You guessed it – with these the countdown increases by a maximum of 15 seconds with each bid placed.10-Second Auction
You guessed it – with these the countdown increases by a maximum of 10 seconds with each bid placed.
Wow. What variety. It is like the Jelly Belly of auction sites. Really guys, do we need a different line for each you guessed it – X second auction type.
I hope that clears things up a bit for people. In my original post I did have my math with the winner having to pay for the final price of the auction. While this isn’t always the case, it often times is. I’m not going to waste my time looking around for exact examples, but if you want to Swoopo does feature a list of completed auctions. Please remember what Thomas Tusser said: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”
[…] Please note that while the math in the laptop example assumes that the winner has to pay for the item, Swoopo has different types of auctions which are described in my post on types of Swoopo auctions. […]