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Penny Auction FAQ

What hosting service should I use?

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Written by Administrator | 02 March 2012

Nothing is more important to the proper operations of a penny auction script than its hosting provider.

Penny auction programs require a great deal of server resources to function accurately and correctly. With the amount of connections to databases and continual updating of tables, these programs can exhaust a large amount of server capacity with only a small user base. Many hosting solutions that would normally suite a standard website application will fail when faced with a penny auction script.

Standard penny auction scripts are also unique in that each user may be continually making numerous connections to your database while browsing your site. Each of these connections will expend bandwidth transfer and each user will multiply that transfer.

Cheap hosting solutions with low monthly bandwith allowances, or "cloud" hosting solutions are generally not acceptable for penny auction script operations.

Because the accurate function of your site is so important, we suggest that you budget to provide your site with hosting that will ensure correct operation of your scripting.

Ask your scripting provider for a list of minimum specifications for the program and listen to them! They know the program, and know what it will take to function correctly.


There are literaly hundreds of choices for hosting available to aspiring penny auction owners. In our opinion, the best choice for a new start-up is a managed solution. Among these, we are aware of penny auction sites, including our own, that have operated with sucess using;

WiredTree
Dedicatednow

 

Another solution that is effective, especially for start-up penny auction sites, is a shared hosting environment with other penny auctions. Rabideagle Enterprises has offered shared hosting services to more than 15 penny auction start-ups during our two years in the industry.

What is the best penny auction program?

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Written by Administrator | 02 March 2012

There have been many discussions regarding the best available penny auction program. As the penny auction industry has grown, so too has the availability of penny auction programs. A simple Google search for penny auction programs that used to show 4 results now shows many pages.

PennyAuctionHelp officially endorses two of the many available scripts. It should be noted that our reasons for this endorsement include our current, and past, use of these scripts on other Rabideagle Enterprises owned domains. We are familier with the people behind these scripts and also the ability of these scripts to function properly. Having said that, we take no responsibility for your results, as every penny auction site's requirements, and experience, may differ.

Both of these scripts come from a Telebid Clone background, but each has been fully re-worked or modified to repair many of the known bugs with the usual telebid clones.

Pricing for these scripts is reasonable for small to mid level start up companies that are looking for a secure and reliable program that has been tested and operated by live penny auction sites.

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Are penny auctions scams?

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Written by Administrator | 29 February 2012

The answer to this question is very simple. NO!

All penny auction sites are not a scam. There are many operational penny auction sites that actually provide great saving opportunities for the educated penny auction bidder. Unfortunately, there are at least an equal number of sites that have been, or still are, engaged in activities that make the auction process a scam.

Honest and reliable sites can be found simply by doing your homework before you invest in a site. These sites will have stood the test of time and should have a number of positive reviews and comments in forums throughout the penny auction industry. These sites will have no complaints regarding shipment of items and offer responsive customer service.

There are many ways to help identify the good ones from the bad. We suggest you spend some time reading through our forum posts, or simply starting a thread to ask about other users experiences with a given penny auction site before you jump in!

What is a penny auction?

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Written by Administrator | 29 February 2012

Penny auctions are a sometimes exciting, sometimes frustrating and sometimes great way to shop for retail products on-line. Penny auctions were initially brought to the world by now defunct Swoopo.com. Rather than getting into a lengthy article about the many re-incarnations and different types of penny auctions we will simply explain how standard penny auctions generally work.

Penny auctions offer a retail item up for bid in what appears to be a standard auction style similar to eBay. The similarities end there. Here's a brief look at how penny auctions work....

The price

Items listed for sale on penny auction sites generally start at $0.00 and this price increases with each bid placed for the item in 1 cent increments, thus the term "penny auction". The bidder that is on top when the timer reaches zero wins the right to buy that retail item for the current bid price, and yes that could be at up to 99% off its retail price!

The timers

Timers on a penny auction site do not indicate the time at which an auction will end, but rather a time at which the auction "could" end. When timers on penny auction sites begin to approach the end there is usually a set increment of time added to the auction with each bid that is placed. The theory is that this then gives a bidding opponent a chance to also cast their bid and prevent last second sniping of products. These timer resets can cause auctions to last hours longer than they initially appear.

Bidding

Bidders that wish to participate in standard penny auctions must first buy credits, or bids. These bids can be bought in packs, also know as bidpacks. Each time a user clicks the bid button one of these credits is used to place a bid and make that person the current leader in the auction. If time should run out while your listed as the top bidder, you win. If someone else bids after you then your credit was lost and you must now expend another credit to become the top bidder again. These bids are not returned at the end of an auction.

How sites sell items 

Penny auction sites depend on the bids placed in each auction to account for the sale of the item at the extremely low price. Each bid credit will have a value which can be used to determine how much, or how little, the site actually "sold" the item for. 

An example of how this works

Lets take a simple $25 Giftcard. Retail value is, of course, $25. Bids at this site cost $0.50 on average. The final end price of $0.37 represents that 37 bids were used in this auction. The site collected $0.50 per bid, or $18.50 plus the end sale price of $0.37 for a total of $18.87. In this example the site lost money, but let's now look at an auction for that same $25 card with a final end price of $1.10. This auction could bring the site $56.10 on a $25 gift card!

If you still have questions about penny auctions, visit our penny auction forum to read more, or post your question for our members! 

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