In order to make sure you will win as many of the beautiful items as possible, I’d like to give you a quick overview what kind of bidding strategies you can apply:

The bargain hunt strategy
In this strategy you are fully in charge of placing the bids yourself. After making sure you have still Bids left (indicated on the right in the red box) you click on the “Place Bid” button in order to increase the price by one penny. Each bid will reset the timer for the auction and decrease your remaining bids by 1. The strategy is best if you like to have full control and you can place a bid whenever you think nobody else will place one after you. The disadvantage is that you will always have to sit in front of the computer, but luckily most auctions will not last for too long.

The Auto-bid Strategy
In activating the auto-bidder you can have the computer bid for you automatically. It works as follows:
The earlier you put in the auto-bidder for an item, the more likely it is that other people, who put in an auto-bidder after you, will have put their bids placed first. This means the earlier you put an auto-bidder, the more likely you are to win the item because it will use up less of your remaining bids. You can even place an auto-bidder on an item where the auction has not started yet.
The auto-bidder will always place your bids between 0 and 10 seconds before the end of the auction until you either run out of remaining nids or your limit, which you set for the auto-bidder, has been reached.
A great advantage of the auto-bidder is that you don’t need to sit in front of the computer all the time. You just need to make sure you always have enough remaining Bids. Generally we recommend to have 15-20 bids left per item to make sure you will not lose it.

Premium membership (Probability Factor and active autobids)
People who have more than 10 bids left and who have purchased more than 10 bids in the last 7 days automatically become premium members. This means they can see how many people have still scheduled autobids for a specific item. The first number indicates the amount of people having scheduled an autobid (excluding the highest bidder) and the second number how many autobids are scheduled in total (including the highest bidder). This can be a great advantage because they can avoid bidding for an item which has scheduled autobids and thus can use their bids much more efficiently.

The probability factor is another great help for premium members to place the bids at the right time. It is calculated on a great variety of factors such as: How many autobids are scheduled, how popular the item is (depending on how many reminders people set for the item) and most important of all, how many people that are currently online. The higher the probability factor, the more likely it is that you win the item if you place a bid.

Deception tactics
But be careful: some people put in autobids and remove them shortly before the auction ends to deceive other people. If you want to win, you need to observe carefully and act quickly.

The probability factor is only constantly visible to premium members. Other members may see it sporadically but only for auctions which are not active yet.

Managing your Bids
Remember that you can always get more Bids by buying more or by inviting other people to the site. Once they have registered and activated their account. Per person you invite you will get 10 free bids, once they have registered. You will be able to claim them on the invitation site. It may be a good investment for you to help your friends opening the account and to explain to them how the system works so they can win as well. That way you can ensure your free bids will be given to you as soon as possible and you can get more items for yourself.
If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact us anytime via email at info@psychoauciton.com and we are more than happy to help you.
And always remember: in for a dime, in for a dollar.

Your PsychoAuction team