Soon, I will be writing a post about why I intend to quit Dubli. But first, let me say something to potential dubli customers: You can get really, really good deals on dubli, even after factoring in the cost of the credits, shipping and the annoying foreign exchange fee. (My experience is within the US, I don’t know if my experience is the same for those that live in other countries.)

FOR CUSTOMERS THINKING OF USING DUBLI (info current as of post date)

I have personal experience buying from dubli. Here it is: They are often slow to ship, the credit card transaction must originate in a foreign country because I am always charged a small FX fee, the tracking of shipments is non-existent, and the customer service regarding orders is less than steller. But, I always received what I bought in good condition, packed well and, on average, after all costs included – credits valued at the retail amount of $.80, for 15% below what I could find anywhere else. My purchases included Apple products and Visa and American Express giftcards, which never go on sale anywhere.

A secret: I run (ran, I guess is a better term – haven’t done much lately) a website called biddingtracker.com. I posted all of the prices that I saw on dubli when I checked them. At one time, we had quite a few other participants and we shared the prices we saw. This helped in two ways (really only on the Xpress Auction, more about the Unique Bid, below): 1) If you were interested in an item that was on dubli AND was also posted on biddingtracker, you could know what the last price was; so you knew the highest you would pay. 2) You could (can still, actually) look back over the many items posted and see the rate that items decrease in value. (Visa giftcards drop in price and sell much more quickly than Bose music systems, for instance.)

BUT, you don’t need to run (or use) another website to get the good prices. Just check the price over a day or two on an item you want. (Less than a day, usually, on giftcards.) BE CAREFUL to check the price on the same item. Every item on sale has a unique number that you can see in the URL and only in the URL. For example, there is an American Express $200 giftcard on dubli as I write this. The URL is http://us.dubli.com/American-Express-200-Gift-Card__5_10378?BArefno=7967766 After the description, there is an underscore and then the number 5. The number 5 indicates that the card is in the Xpress Auction (3 for Unique Bid). Then there is another underscore and the number 10378. This is the item number for this item. After this Amex card is sold, another one exactly like it will be put up on the site. BUT, it will have a new item number. If you didn’t know this, you would check this Amex card in the morning, decide not to buy and take your chances that it might come down in price, and then come back in the afternoon, after it had been sold and check the new Amex card, with a new and different item number and wonder why it had gone UP in price. It didn’t, it’s just a new item. (BTW, the info after the ? in the URL, is the information dubli needs to know to assign you to me, as my customer, if you click and look at the Amex card and then decide to sign up for dubli.)

OK. Another secret. I’ve seen some talk on some forums about the fact that people can’t REALLY be getting the prices that dubli posts as sold. “Why would someone bid and then NOT buy an iPod for $15 and then allow someone else to buy it for $10, or for $0.00?” They think it must be a scam for this reason. It’s not. Here’s the thing: dubli will say the reason people are getting the prices that you see is because more and more people are coming to dubli and the prices are going down so quickly that the person who saw the iPod at $15 couldn’t act quickly enough or just took a chance that they could get it for cheaper in a second or two. This is incorrect (but possible in the future, I suppose). Here’s what is actually happening: Dubli Business Associates who still have a lot of credits and who do not plan to renew their licenses are clicking prices down to unbelieveable levels so that they can get SOME value out of their dubli investment. If a former business associate goes in late at night and starts clicking on a $200 giftcard and gets it for $0.00, those credits that she used were worth $200. If she does nothing with them, they are worth $0.00. It is counter intuitive to think that someone would use a credit that has a face value of $0.80 to reduce an item by $0.25, but if you have 5,000 credits that you’ve had a hard time selling, why not use them for that? It would take forever to click on single items once or twice and hope for the best when you have 5,000 unused credits. And, its always possible that there are current business associates that believe it is a good investment for them to lower prices on dubli items before buying them so that they can point to that item as why someone new to dubli should either join as a customer or an associate. In any case, someone really got the items for the prices shown. (They just may have used more credits than a normal customer would.)

As a potential customer without thousands of credits, what does this mean to you? It means that you might get lucky and click on an item that is in the middle of being clicked down by a frustrated business associate and actually be able to get the iPod for $15. (And, if not, with a little record keeping, you can get it for 15% off or so.)
So, potential customer, take a look at when those items that sell for ridiculous prices end. Often, they end in the middle of the night. Maybe you could use that info to your advantage…

Let’s talk about Unique Bid. On biddingtracker, we had a group of people that posted different strategies that could be used to increase the chances of getting an item there. There was some discussion on the public site, but most of the good stuff went on behind the scenes, via private messages among members. And, some of those members were very successful. But I never got a Unique Bid item. I tried for a couple of 24” iMacs and was once $0.25 away from getting one of them. And let me say that just like in the Xpress Auctions, I believe that there are a lot of former business associates trying to make use of their very numerous credits to try out the Unique Bid. The thing is that, unlike in Xpress, a lot of business associates trying for the same item in Unique Bid actually DECREASES the chance of a normal customer getting a good price.

That said, the best strategy for unique bid is to place a lot of single bids at different price points early in the auction and then keep track of when you get notice that someone else has bid that same price point. You can judge the level of interest in the item that way. Then, just before the 5 minute mark, when you can still make large ‘range’ bids – bids that cover a large amount of prices like $1.00 to $10.00 (which I think would use 36 credits) – you use the info you’ve gathered and make a large range bid, or two (or three). You can track the price that the same item went for the last time, or the last 10 times, to get more info that can be used to bid. If you use 200 credits at $0.80 each and get an iMac for $320, you’ve spent $400 for an iMac. Of course, if you use 100 credits and don’t get an iMac, you’ve spent $80 for nothing. You can use information that you get as you bid and as subsequent people bid to modify your next bid and increase your chances. No doubt that there is a lot of risk but try that with a slot machine.

Biddingtracker.com is still there. I won’t be doing much with it right now, but if other people wish to discuss things dubli, especially strategies and bids, it’s there to be used. (I will still be moderating and getting rid of spam.) If any current dubli business associate wishes to advertise there, send a PM to the admin there or comment here and I will get back to you with prices and such. (There are some creative ways you can advertise.) Long term, I am probably going to turn the forum into a discussion about all unusual web sites for purchasing goods – penny auctions, reverse auctions, etc.

As for this site, I will begin posting information about other opportunities and other ventures. I’ve found that I do like to blog, when I have the time.

Please post your comments and questions about dubli…

Stay tuned for my post about my experience as a dubli business associate and why I am quitting.

A week or two ago, the Dubli website changed. The most notable change was the removal of the Zer0 auction.

I’ve not been attending the Webcasts as often as I should, so I don’t know what the official word on why the Zer0 auction was removed is. But I have a guess.

I’ve long believed that the Zer0 auction was vulnerable to webscripts that could automatically check the price and then, when the price was below a certain threshhold, could check the price automatically very quickly until the price was driven to 0. For a good programmer, this would be a piece of cake to do.

I might be wrong, of course. And Zer0 might be coming back for all I know.

And, the new site layout is great, I think.

I got so excited a few weeks ago I when I was checking things out on the dubli auction site. With school starting up at the end of August I decided to start looking for some deals on the gift cards that have been on the auction site. I found a footlocker gift card on the express auction. I clicked on it and saw that it’s start price was 100.00 and it was down to 70.00 thats a great saving for me when I knew I was already going to be shopping there for my son who loves basketball so I loved having an extra 30.00 bucks in my pocket.

Then I checked to see if dubli had footlocker in the shopping portal. And it was! So why not use it? I clicked on it to see if there were any coupons available, There was one that said if I spent $99.00 I would save 15% so this was actually even better for me because that was really off the $70.00 I payed on the auction site. We ended up getting about $130.00 of merchandise for $80.50 plus standard shipping. And this is before I get my 5% back for using the shopping mall. (So, another $6.50 off.) We received our package about 4 days later. I was very excited and called several people to tell them about it.

I really feel like if we tell everyone we know about this, we will begin to accumulate many customers and we’ll be so happy we got into this when we did. (Just ask yourself is this a value to you?) If your answer is yes . You just need to get the word out and help make dubli a household name.

We already have 69 customers 19 have purchased credits and of those several have been repeat customers, We woke up on the 4th of july to see 50 less credits and checked our back office to see $40.00 in our earnings area in our back office. Later that day and another 50 credits gone then another 20. All of this from only one customer. Imagine when you have hundreds and even thousands of customers . If you spend a little time to build a team and customer base things could get pretty interesting.

We are so excited to see how things go in the future, and look forward to getting the cinch program.

Take a look: Dubli is guaranteeing that they will always have the lowest price anywhere. It appears to guarantee their prices not only against other online retailers, but local brick and mortar stores, as well. It says that if you find an advertised price lower than the purchase price on dubli of the same item within two weeks of your purchase, Dubli will refund you the difference plus another 10%.

Pretty good; and worth checking out before you buy somewhere else, don’t you think?

The shopping portal on dubli is now open! Customers can now click on a tab at the top of the dubli webpage to go to a shopping portal with over 800 merchants; each one offering discounts!

If a customer can’t find what they are looking for in the dubli auctions, they can go to the shopping portal and get it cheap anyway.

And you business associates will get a percentage of what your customer’s buy!

I went to the portal and found that they have many merchants that I already use. For instance, I need to buy some new business cards. I’ve always used VistaPrint in the past. Well now, I can get 4% back if I just use the dubli shopping portal. Might as well!

It’ll be fun to see what deals customers can get and the money that associates can make. Stay tuned!

Hi! I run a forum called www.biddingtracker.com. We discuss bidding strategies and post the bids that we see at dubli with the purpose of trying to increase our chances of winning some great stuff at low prices.

I wrote an article there discussing different strategies about winning a Unique Bid Auction. I’m posting it here with ugottadothis permission:

How are people getting Apple iMacs for $170.25? How about Nikon D90 Cameras (with lens kit) for $115.50? They are bidding in Dubli’s Unique Auction and winning. I want to learn how they are doing it and teach all of you. (And as I learn more and we begin to discuss this, there is a good chance that I will close this topic to member’s only. So register now to keep updated.)

If new, first click here to learn about Dubli and the Unique Bid Auction.

There are two messages that I have received as I have bid in the Unique Bid Auctions:

1) “Your bid of $XX.xx is neither unique nor the lowest single offer.”

2) “Your bid of $XXX.xx is unique, but not the lowest unique offer.”

I suppose there is a third, that I have yet to see, that says “Your bid of $XX.xx is the lowest unique offer.” (I’d love to see this message with 2 seconds to go. I hope to soon.)

Make sure that you check your “Current Auction” page after you have bid. It will tell you what your current status is in the acutions that you have bid on. For me on one of the auctions, I got message #2 above until the last 20 minutes, when it changed to message #1. I then bid some more, but never got anything but message #1 after that.

Some lessons:

1) You might assume, as I did, that if you place a fairly low bid that is unique, but not the lowest unique, that once it is no longer unique, the lowest bid MUST be above where you last bid. This is NOT the case. (Example: the iMac that went for $170 – I was bidding in the $400s thinking the lowest unique would be there or above based on my prior bidding. I was wrong.)

2) If you have bid multiple times, your ‘Current Auctions’ tab only shows you the status of one of the bids. I guess, but am not sure, that it will always show you the status of bids in this order: 1) Unique and Lowest, 2) Unique but not lowest (the lowest of these if there are multiple) 3) If all of your bids are not unique, then it shows this status and chooses the lowest of your bids to show. (This all needs to be confirmed.)

3) If you bid a range of bids, you get an e-mail with the status of each bid – check your spam folder if you don’t see it right away. Its important to find out the status ASAP. Then you can see the status change, as it does, in your ‘Current Auction’ page. (In the manner I explained in #2, above.)

Some ideas (but no guarantees):

1) Bid $160 worth of bids in a long range where you think the auction will end. For example, this iMac auction ends on 5/6/2009. You could bid from $165 to $215 and get every bid in that range. (Since the last iMac ended at $170.25, this MIGHT be a good range to try. If you get the iMac for, say $210.25 because that is the lowest unique bid, you’ve spent $370.25 for a brand new iMac. Not bad. THIS PLAN IS VERY RISKY. – You might bid $160 worth of bids and get nothing. But remember, right now, there aren’t that many customers on dubli. If you plan to do something like this, do it before dubli really starts to advertise.

2) Bid a very low range and then a range where you think the item will end up based on previous auctions. Then, as the status of the bids in the low range changes to ‘Your bid is neither unique of lowest’, you can know that the lower bids are filling up. (Of course, its difficult to know if there is a low bid that is still unique.) This will give you some information about where to place new bids (maybe in the middle of the two ranges you started with). Again, there certainly are no guarantees with this plan.

3) Bid $0.75 to $1.75 on every auction. This will change (especially as people read this post) but right now there are a lot of auctions that ended in this range.

(I just love 3 item lists.)

I know that a community working on this can come up with some great ideas to increase our chances of getting really cheap good stuff. Why not join the discussion?
 

Here’s the full link to the original article:

http://biddingtracker.com/unique_auction_bidding_strategies_how_to_win-t11.0.html

Come visit us!

One of my favorite moments at the Arizona Dubli conference was when I learned about the charities that Dubli is partnering with. They talked about two of them – Blessings in a Backpack and On Earth Campaign.

Blessings in a Backpack is a charity that helps feed kids in need over the weekend. They discovered that for many kids, the only time they were eating was during school – so, they were going hungry during the weekend. They have found that when the kids come back to school with food in their tummies, they are more likley to be able to learn and do much better in school (duh!).

Well, Dubli is going to raise money for both of these worthy charities. Today, I noticed that in the Unique Bid auction, there is now a $10,000 Visa Debit card that you can bid on. Take a look. I believe, but am not sure, that all proceeds from the auction will go to Blessings in a Backpack.

To learn more about this worthy charity, see their website, here.

I really liked what I heard about this organization. I intend to contribute directly to them. You should check them out.

I tried to get the Apple iMac that dubli had on the Unique bid auction tonight. I started a few days ago with about 10 bids in the $160s. At that time, the status of all of the bids was “Your bid of $xxx.xx is unique, but not the lowest unique offer.”

I wondered if, when someone else bid one of the bids that I had already, would I get a notice that I no longer had a unique bid at that price?

Well, this morning, I bid some in the $430s. The status of all of those was, “Your bid was neither unique, nor the lowest single offer.”

Then I bid $990, just to see what a bid totally too high would look like. I got the “Your bid was neither unique, nor the lowest single offer.” message again. All of the messages regarding single bids are presented at the time you bid. The status of the range of bids are not shown on the bidding screen. you have to wait for an e-mail. (The single bids are also e-mailed. Check your spam folder, if you don’t find them.)

Then I found that you can see some information about your bid in your account. Click “Current Auctions” in the blue box area. (There is also a “Current Auctions” link above the blue box area – this is for all Unique Bid Auctions – not just yours.) The message I found was for my $990 bid. It didn’t give me info on any of the others.

So, it just ended. Here it is. It went for $170.25. Just a few dollars over one of my bids. I still don’t thing I understands all of the messages. But i will. And I think I’m gonna get something really cheap. I’ll report back.

They’ve put the Harley Davidson that they promised at the conference on dubli.  It’ll be interesting to see how much it goes for. I know I’m going to bid a few on it. I want it.

Its on the Unique Bid Auction. Someone will get it for a fraction of what it really costs. Hope it’s me!

Just read a post on biddingtracker.com (a great site that discusses how customers of DuBli can get good deals) that was very interesting. The post is here: Click for Full Post

Basically, it shows how people can use credits to buy on the Zer0 auction. If no one else is bidding; which is possible right now, but not for long, then a person could buy $100 worth of credits and click down to zero an item they want for $100. This is good for us Business Assocatiates because its a great reason for customers to buy a lot of credits.