What do you think of Cobidder?
As the owner of Cobidder, I would love to have Mahalo members bid on my site. Before you click the back button, realize I'm not asking you to spend any money. When users sign up at Cobidder, they get 5 free bids (equivalent to $3.75). It is my hope that some Mahalo members sign up at Cobidder and try to win auctions with their free bids. If you don't win, you didn't lose anything (except a little time).
After you try out Cobidder, please let me know what you think of it. As a user, did you spot any flaws in the site? Would you like to see any new features?
Also, you don't have to join Cobidder to answer this question. If you'd like, just take a quick glance and report right on back to Mahalo!
The web address for Cobidder is: https://cobidder.com
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M$5 Answers
With this type of "bidding" model you have to pay for each bid so if an item starts out low and each bid increases it incrementally you can bid on an item a hundred times and spend $75 to never get it. This is almost how it has to be done to win the better items. You always have to spend an additional .75 each time in hopes that no one "bids" next.
I use the term "bid" in quotes because it is not a bid but a lottery ticket. With an ebay like model the bids are free so you can bid multiple times on an item and lose at no cost. However, when you bid on cobidder you have to pay .75 and hopes no one bids next and if they do you lost on your lottery ticket.
As a business model this works great for cobidder but what I am worried about is after you have your initial rush of users spend money on items to bid and lose over and over again are they going to have a sour taste in their mouthes?
As far as your website is concerned it does not scream "trustworthy" to me. I cannot put my finger on it but it does not feel like a premium site. I feel like I'm in a back alley buying hot items off the back of a truck.
I've linked to a great article about Swoopo that I remembered reading back in July and all of that applies here.
I hope you have great success and I think that the users will go back to Cobidder if you bill it right... more like gambling and less like auctions.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Thanks for your answer.
Just to clarify....not everybody wins on our site. The people who do win, however, make out like bandits.
Thanks for checking out our site again. As for doing what is best, we strive to offer the best customer service in the entertainment shopping industry.
I just logged into Cobidder right now. I didn't bid on any of them because I'm looking for a particular item that wasn't there. I was watching the last 2 minutes of bidding for a $25 McDonald's gift card. There was two battling out when the countdown went to 30 seconds left. It's just McDonald's. I know people who dislike them. Anyways, that item just went for $.66. It was the highest of all the auctions I saw. Most of the auctions were for about $10-20. It looks like if you bid in the last 5-10 seconds, then the timer is extended to 20 seconds so the other person gets a chance to outbid you. It looks like this website could work out. I just hope you will make good decisions for everyone. I can see myself buy 5 more bids, when my free ones are gone. I am one of the people that can control my own spending.
Big ooops. I logged in again and it shows I have 5 bids left when it should be 4. I think I won a gift card, but my account doesn't have any information on it. I'm sure I'm the only one who bid on it.
Due to launch day technical difficulties, all auction tonight were cancelled. All bids placed were refunded. That is why you have 5 bids instead of 4. I encourage you to come back tomorrow to Cobidder, as we will be running many auctions. It would be great to see you win one!
The business model seems pretty simple- you buy a giftcard for, say, full retail value, and make 75 cents on every bid. With the bid amount incrementing by a penny with every bid, you did pretty well on the McDonald's card - after paying for the card itself, you made in the neighborhood of $20. If you can do that with every auction, I guess you'll be doing pretty well, although I don't know what your overhead looks like.
When I visited, the auction with the least amount of time left had 46 minutes or so, and so I didn't bid. It seems pretty clear that to win an auction, you need to be there right at the end to stand a chance.
I'll look in again from time to time, but as I said, I think that within six months the site will be shut down. You, on the other hand, will be involved in something else just as creative - while I odn't think this site will suceed, I think you will.
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M$You pay money, to get bids. You bid. Most often, you lose. This is great for the dude running the site, because that dude can make a ton of money above and beyond the retail price, regardless of how little it sells for. I'm not into the idea of paying somebody else to aggravate me. I'm not into the idea of spending money, just to lose more of it.
Now, the one pennybid auction site I have used.. Offers the option to pay retail price, even if you lose. With a discount of however much you spent on bids. So you can still get th item, if you lose the auction, by just paying for it.
A few weeks ago, I was trying to find a Wii Fit Plus with a balance board. Now, as many folks know, this item had been sold out everywhere since thanksgiving. You could find them, but they were not being sold at Nintendo's MSRP. I refuse to pay extra "just because". It's not like they were never making more. But I also didn't want to wait.
Enter the pennybid site. They had ONE in stock, and the bidding was FURIOUS.. Up until I hit "Buy it now" and screwed the silly people who were bidding. I got my Wii Fit Plus, for retail, and have not been back to the site since.
I've looked at your site, and to be honest.. it looks like a packaged "Making money online" scam site. The first thing I wondered was how many of the bidders are bots that are there simply to ensure the bid levels are high enough to ensure you lose no money on the products sold. you know.. like Swoopo and every other pennybid site use. If you are not using them.. start. People will whine, complain and all.. but you have to ensure your company doesn't lose money, or you will never be able to put up better products.
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M$
Most of our auctions are currently for gift cards right now as auctioning off expensive items (like TV's) without many users would not make any financial sense. In the future, we do plan to auction products such as TV's.
As for our slogan, "Never Bid Alone", we are not talking about competition. What we are trying to say is that if a user ever has a problem, customer service will be able to fix it. Thus, the bidder is never alone. But now that you mention it, some people may take the slogan the wrong way.
I don't know if bots are unethical, really.. Unless your EULA states that all bidders are humans not employed by your company. Other sites say no such thing in their user agreements. Beyond that, it is simply insuring your monetary investment.
The buy it now option worked for me the one time, because it was a very hard to find item. I couldn't see going through the bother if it is something I could purchase from Amazon for the same price.
Also, I notice that you are selling, almost exclusively, gift cards. This is one reason some folks will see it as a scam. You have no inventory, the items you are currently selling are easily bought after the fact. In addition to this.. The graphic at the top of the page can be construed as an advertisement of items you sell. Yet nothing of the sort is actually for sale.
EDIT: Also.. your slogan.. "Never bid alone"? I kinda wanna be the only one bidding in an auction. When it comes to making or spending money.. I don't want to be reminded that I have competition. It may be better to have a slogan that gives people the illusion of winning, rather than the reality of competition.
Thanks for your answer. I do have to point out that we don't (and never plan to) have bots. That is unethical (and should be illegal). We have a good amount of funding to see us thru many losses. With our customer service, we plan to have plenty of return customers! We are not a scam.
If Cobidder started offering buy-it-now, would you be more compelled to use it or not. Why?
Thanks for your honest answer. I wouldn't say Cobidder is gambling, but it is "entertainment shopping". Would you feel any different if auction losers were able to buy the product for retail - bids placed?