Penny Auction Software
How does a price of $10.85 for a 32 GB iPhone sound to you? Or how about $1.68 for a $150 Amazon gift card? Those prices can’t be right, can they? Those are the actual prices that people have paid at Bidrivals, a “penny auction” site, where buyers bid on items that sell for as much as 98% below retail.
The explosive growth of penny auctions online has inevitably led to the release of a number of penny auction software products. Penny auctions, also known as “bidding fee auctions”, are those where the merchandise is sold at prices starting at a few cents or a dollar per item, even for expensive items such as laptop computers or televisions. Bidders pay a fee of fifty cents to a dollar to place a bid, and when they do so, the sales price increases by a few cents.
While the items offered for sale frequently end up selling for as much as 90% off of retail (a $1000 laptop may sell for $100 or less), many bidders will, using an automated proxy bidding system, place dozens or even hundreds of bids for such an item. The laptop that sells for $100 may generate 10,000 bids for the auction site at fifty cents apiece, providing the site with $5000 in gross sales on an item that retails for $1000. Most sites drop-ship their merchandise, so they carry no inventory and have no need to buy anything unless it actually sells and needs to be shipped.
The popularity of penny auction sites has led to the growth of the penny auction software industry. A quick Google search for “penny auction software” shows a half a million results, with a wide variety of software packages offered for sale that will allow anyone with access to a Web server to set up their own profitable penny auction site like Bid Rivals or Swoopo.
Most penny auction software is designed to run on Unix servers and comes with an easy to use interface that makes setup a breeze. Packages can vary dramatically in price, ranging from $50 or so to as much as $5000. Most packages start at about $1000. Pricing options include the ability to install the software on more than one domain, multi-language support, included Web hosting, or perhaps the ability for bidders to bid via SMS using their cell phones.
Pennyauctionsoft offers a typical package, with a base price of $799, a deluxe version for $1299 and several add-ons that may raise the price to $2000 or so. They also offer a dedicated server for hosting. Anyone considering buying such a package should consider their hosting needs carefully, as running such a site can consume a lot of bandwidth.
Phppennyauction offers three different packages starting at $749; the deluxe version includes some special SEO options, a year’s hosting and priority support.
There is no single “answer” the question of “what kind of penny auction software should I buy” as there are simply hundreds of options out there. If you’re thinking about setting up your own penny auction site, you may simply have to spend some time doing some research. One thing you might consider is looking for software that works like the software at Bid Rivals. Bid Rivals is a penny auction site that allows you to apply the value of your losing bids towards the purchase price of the merchandise. The one thing that people hate about penny auctions is having to pay even when they lose. Bid Rivals does away with that, and that means more happy customers. You might want to consider that feature when shopping for software.
You shouldn’t underestimate the power of running a penny auction site. The prospect of buying a Playstation 3, a Nintendo Wii, an iPhone 4 or an Xbox 360 for just pennies is very appealing to customers, especially at Christmas, when these types of popular electronic items are in short supply. Penny auction software is a great way to take advantage of seasonal shortages of products. You can make money and your customers will be happy.
Additional resources of interest
Bid Rivals – Penny auction site where even losing bidders can win
Get an iPhone or Xbox 360 for pennies on the dollar!
