Swoopo - anybody tried it?

dave_hill

As the title says - anybody tried Swoopo? Is it for real or is it a gimmick?

Hercule Q

What the feck it that?

BlackSpur

A very intersting auction site. I admire the concept, I think its brilliant! The owners of Swoope must be absolutely raking it in.

thekickingmule

Read this, it might help you:

moneysupermarket wrote:

This from a post someone left on another forum the site is worth a look, but make sure you read the rest of this first.

"Basically, swoopo.co.uk is a live auction website. I sat and watched it for a while, obviously cautious of it due to the shockingly cheap prices that it sells things at. I sussed it and am now the happy owner of a new 80gig PS3 which cost me all of £50.

First, if you don't want to be conned, you need to figure out how they make their money. You buy "bids" that enable you to physically bid on an item. This is where the website makes their money. Each "bid" is equal to 50p in value.

When bidding on an item, each bid (unless it's a special auction, read up on them on the site to see the different kinds) will increase the price of the item by 7p. Now, it doesn't take a genious to do the math, they make 50p from someone clicking "bid" and also increase the price of the item by 7p. So every time someone clicks bid, they make 57p.

Now, I got mine quite cheap (though not as cheap as the £14 that was sold this morning). But still, at £50 they had at least 700 bids. For those who don't understand this, each bid increases the price by 7p. 7p x 100 = £7. Then £7 x 7 = £49, so 700 bids. So by selling the PS3 to me for £50 they actually made £350 off people bidding, and then £50 off me purchasing the item, so they made £400 off it, while I got a PS3 for £50.

The trick is not to hammer away your bids as each time you click "bid" you essentially throw 50p away, there are things called "bid butlers". They will bid (normally) when the timer gets below 5 seconds. So save your bids until it hits the 2 or 3 seconds remaining mark.

At any rate, if you can figure out this site you can get things incredibly incredibly cheap. My friend also just purchased an Acer laptop in a "fixed price" auction, it cost him a total of £170 (including bid costs) and the laptop is RRP at around £1000.

Just a heads up for anyone who fancies a couple of new TV's or a new console, or laptop, or whatever."

So you buy buy bids, i got 20 for a 10 so that 50p each, just dont go bidding away sit and watch a few things to see how it works and you will figurte out. Some things go at an ok price so go at daft prices. The site obviously makes a fortune the more people that bid so, have a good read first.

Daz555

I saw it a few years back before it was rebranded Swoopo. One of the best business ideas I've ever seen.

It's basically gambling dressed up as an auction. Pure genuis.

Sometimes they have items where the winner gets the item for free or a very low fixed price ragardless of the final 'wnning' price. This encourages ever more bidding. I recall a laptop being sold on there last year like that - it fetched the Swoopo guys over 25 GRAND!

Like I said. Pure genius.

Stay well away of course!

dave_hill

thekickingmule wrote:

Read this, it might help you:

moneysupermarket wrote:

Now, I got mine quite cheap (though not as cheap as the £14 that was sold this morning). But still, at £50 they had at least 700 bids. For those who don't understand this, each bid increases the price by 7p. 7p x 100 = £7. Then £7 x 7 = £49, so 700 bids. So by selling the PS3 to me for £50 they actually made £350 off people bidding, and then £50 off me purchasing the item, so they made £400 off it, while I got a PS3 for £50.

The trick is not to hammer away your bids as each time you click "bid" you essentially throw 50p away, there are things called "bid butlers". They will bid (normally) when the timer gets below 5 seconds. So save your bids until it hits the 2 or 3 seconds remaining mark.

Yeah but basically, say you buy 20 bids for a tenner, and you manage to get your item (I've been looking at a digital SLR camera which seem to be goign for about £60 instead of nearly £300), you've only paid for you bids, plus the item. Right?

I don't give a stuff about how much the owners make, it's a free market economy so fair play to them as long as I get my goods at a knockdown price.

thekickingmule

True, what the explanation is though, is that you may spend £10 to place 20 bids, and you could get nothing. If you win, it's actually brilliant, and you can get some great things for chep prices, you could however, lose money and gain nothing.

Daz555

dave_hill wrote:

Yeah but basically, say you buy 20 bids for a tenner, and you manage to get your item (I've been looking at a digital SLR camera which seem to be goign for about £60 instead of nearly £300), you've only paid for you bids, plus the item. Right?.

Chances are, you won't get your camera and Swoopo will get your tenner. Nice for them. It is a complete lottery. There is no trick or technique to it, despite what the forums say.

Each bid is a 50p long-shot bet. Simple as that.