TheCheapestBid.com conducts reverse blind auctions with a little twist – the Cheapest unique bidder is the successful bidder who walks away with the merchandise. In other words, it’s not the highest bidder that is the successful bidder – it’s the Cheapest Unique Bidder (CHUB) that is the successful bidder. Read on to see how it works.
Every Auction has a pre-set number of bids allowed.
Once this number of bids has been reached, the auction is automatically over.
There is no limit to the number of bids you may place in any of the auctions.
The Cheapest Unique Bidder is the successful bidder.
What do you mean by the Cheapest unique bidder? We’re glad you asked. We’re going to describe the Cheapest unique bidder with words and then we’re going to provide a few actual examples.
Example: let’s say that TheCheapestBid.com is auctioning off a $1,000.00 Visa Gift Card (which is good at all retail locations). First of all, TheCheapestBid.com cuts the top allowed bid to one-tenth (or 10%) of the value of the merchandise being auctioned – in this case, the top bid allowed would be $100.00 – so, even if the top bid of $100 happened to be the Cheapest unique bid, you would get a $1,000.00 gift card for only $100.00. And here’s where it gets interesting… you can place a bid for one cent, two cents, three cents, eleven dollars and ninety seven cents, etc. In other words, bids can be placed at every increment of a penny all the way up to the top bid price of $100.00. Now, it’s the Cheapest unique bidder that is the successful bidder so, for sake of this example, let’s presume that 10 people bid 1 cent and 10 people bid 2 cents and 10 people bid 3 cents and 10 people bid on every penny increment all the way to the top allowed bid of $100.00 with the exception of a bid placed at $9.67 where only one bidder bid at the $9.67 price point – it would be the bidder at the $9.67 bid price that would become the successful bidder because she/he was the only person bidding at that particular price point. That’s what makes her/him the Cheapest unique bidder.
Let’s use a much less expensive product to show how this works. Let’s presume that TheCheapestBid.com is auctioning off a $1 Gift Certificate – yes, we know that’s ridiculous, but we’ll use it for purposes of example. There are a total of 10 possible unique bids, all the way from 1˘ (one cent) to 10˘ (ten cents). Now, let’s presume that 19 people place bids on this gift certificate and 2 bids are placed at each one penny increment, except one, and that one increment becomes the Cheapest unique bidder. In other words, only one person placed a bid at that one price and 2 bidders placed bids at all the other prices. Let’s show this using real numbers:
Bid Price
Number of Bids
1˘
2
2˘
2
3˘
2
4˘
2
5˘
2
6˘
2
7˘
1
8˘
2
9˘
2
10˘
2
19 Total Bids
7˘ is the Cheapest unique bid because there is only one bidder at that price. In this example, the person who bid 7˘ would be the successful bidder. In this example, the bidder would have placed their bid with the site maintenance fee of 99˘ per bid and then their account would be debited for the additional 7˘ because they were the successful bidder at that price of 7˘. And, for even more benefit, TheCheapestBid.com pays the sales tax and shipping on all merchandise. Successful bidders in TheCheapestBid.com auctions will NEVER pay shipping or sales tax.
Let’s look at another example:
Price of Bid
Number of Bids
1˘
3
2˘
0
3˘
1
4˘
0
5˘
2
6˘
3
7˘
4
8˘
2
9˘
2
10˘
2
19 Total Bids
3˘ is the Cheapest unique bid because there is only one bidder at that price. In this example, the person who bid 3˘ would be the successful bidder.
Now remember, at thecheapestbid.com, the maximum bid on any auction is only 10% of the actual retail value of the merchandise, so even if you bid the top allowable bid, if you are the successful bidder, you just got the merchandise for 10% of it’s retail value – that’s 90% off the retail price – now that’s a good deal.
What if there is more than one bidder at the Cheapest Unique Bid? If there is more than one bidder at the Cheapest Unique Bid, the account that placed the bid at that Cheapest Unique Bid FIRST, shall be the successful bidder of that auction. In other words, if you are one of multiple Cheapest unique bidders, you will be the successful bidder if you were the FIRST person to place a bid at that Cheapest Unique Bid amount.
