How does BidRivals work?

BidRivals is a real money maker on the internet, both for the company, and for those that promote it. Ads are all over the shop. Today is just an assessment of whether it offers real value to punters who bid for these miraculously cheap items, or is more of a rip off.

Looking at the site, even though it fails to be categorised as a gambling site, it has the feel of a one armed bandit. The only things missing are the cherries, and flashing jackpot signs.

So how does it work?

From a fairly cursory analysis – and logging on to get one free bid, the way the site works is this:
There are a range of desirable products available at amazingly low prices, going through a type of auction process, described below:

1. All items start at 1 cent, and then go up in very small increments, such as 2 cents a bid.

2. Each bid costs the bidder around 50 cents (depending where in the world he or she is bidding from).

3. There is a clock running at fifteen seconds after each bid placed.

4. If no one else places a bid after fifteen seconds, bingo: you have the product at a fantastic price!

5. If someone else places a bid, the clock restarts, and they then keep their fingers crossed…

6. Looking at the math, if a product has reached a price of 10 dollars, then BidRivals will have received 250 dollars in bid money. (500 bids at two cent increment gets it up to 1000 cents or 10 dollars, and BidRivals will have received 500 times fifty cents, or 250 dollars).

Guessing how BidRivals manage their Algorithm so that they always make money is something else.

A shrewd guess would say that at least some of the time there is a ‘bot’ or artificial bidder, that kicks in to stop products selling until BidVertiser is making a profit on the product concerned.

BidVertiser probably also allow products to go for a few cents, without a bot bidding, in order that people will bid for products at the low low prices.
On average though, a product will be sold once it has created a revenue for BidVertiser that makes a decent profit over all their costs.

If you can guess this price point, there is a chance that you can get back more than you spend with BidVertiser.

E.g. if it is a 100 dollar product, BidVertiser probably buy it in for 40 dollars, and you could expect it to be ‘allowed’ to go to a random bidder at around the 10 dollar mark, which would create a gross profit of 210 dollars for BidVertiser. After delivery, and all their IT costs, who knows what their net profit would be.

It will be difficult though to get the average price point right – so will be difficult to consistently win. The above is an idea for the gamblers out there.

However, the site states that it is not a gambling site. I would say that it is, to all intents and purposes – if not a one armed bandit, it is perhaps more like the psychology of the push penny cabins in gaming arcades. You always expect to get an avalanche sooner or later – but net net, you always spend more than you earn.

So out of the grades below, what does it get:

1=totally legit

2=heavy sales push, but still legit