Sign up for an account and buy bids

First you have to sign up with a penny auction site in order to start bidding. Signing up is free for most penny auction sites and only takes a few minutes. You’ll receive a confirmation email when you’re done. Just follow the link in the email to confirm your account. 

 

Bids cost less than 1 dollar and can also be bought in packs. The packs range from 5, 10, 20 50, 100, 200 and 300 bids usually. It’s advisable to have enough bids before getting into an auction because running out of bids in an auction can be costly and painful.

Find an auction

Penny auction sites have incredible deals from the latest electronics and home appliances to gift cards, bid packs and leisure items. You can choose the items you want to bid on but note that the big ticket items tend to draw more bidders than the cheaper items.

Place bids

Click the ‘Bid Now’ button to place a bid. Every time you place a bid, one bid will be deducted from your account and time will be added to the auction clock. This allows other members a chance to bid on the item because that is how penny auctions work.

You do not have to stay at your computer the whole time. Penny auction sites include an automatic bidding system that lets you place bids automatically while you’re away. So if you need to leave your computer in the middle of an auction, you can use the auto bidding system to bid for you.

Winning an auction

If your name is displayed as the highest bidder when the auction time runs out then you win the auction. You get to buy the item at it’s current price.

But if you don’t win the auction, most penny auction sites have have the ‘Buy Now’ option that allows you to buy the same item immediately without bidding. And with auction sites like Pricebenders, you still win even if you loose the auction. You get 5 member reward points for every bid placed which can be redeemed for other popular products at the Tripleclicks store. If you want to get started with penny auctions then click here to sign up with Pricebenders. 
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A penny auction is a type of auction where participants pay a non refundable fee to place a small incremental bid usually 1 cent. In a penny auction, bids represent the number of times a participant can make a price offer in an auction. They cost about 10 to 15 times less than the incremental bid.

Bidding on an item means spending the bid just like spending money.

Penny auctions have a clock that counts down the time remaining for the auction to end. Every time a participant places a bid, the price of the auction increases by 1 cent and a little more time is added to the clock. This allows other people who are interested in the auction to join.

An auction ends when the time on the clock hits zero and but since more time is added with each bid, there is no way of knowing how long an auction will last. An auction will go on until only one bidder remains who then wins the auction.

When you win an auction, you get to pay the final auction price and any shipping costs.

If you don’t win an auction, most sites have the option to ‘Buy Now’. This allows you to buy the item at any time during and after the auction. Some auctions site like Pricebenders give you points that can be redeemed for other products and services that are available on the site.

But you don’t get any of your bids back. The money spent on bids is what makes the penny auctions work by making the prices so low, usually just a fraction of the retail price. The bids pay for the products that are auctioned. A number of people don’t like this but it’s not like the auction sites give away brand new items for just a few dollars and pay the difference themselves. There may be huge profits but that is how penny auctions work.

If you are not comfortable with this type of auction, then don’t try it. Or at least use the ‘Buy Now’ option, or spend your bids on other products and services that some auction sites list for sale outside the auction.
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