“Dan just won this Ford Mustang for $735.42, and you too can get deals like these, on Beezid” or something like that, so says Beezid’s ad. With a claim like that I had to check it out.

So, how could Beezid offer such high ticket items for so little money? I thought at first they got their inventory as seconds, refurbs, ding or dent, clearance, product discontinued stock and so on so. After looking at their inventory there was not a word about any of this (although the one computer they were auctioning was using older technology but it was still a good computer) so I am assuming it is all new in the box, as it were. I guess I need to dig deeper…

It seemed to me that selling products at 90% below retail would cut margin to 0 and in fact the cost would be more than what is paid for the item. No one is in business to loose money; there must be a trick to it, that’s when I noticed the “Bid Packs” they were auctioning. “Bid Packs”? Yeah “Bid Packs”.

This isn’t eBay, this is Beezid and every time you hit the bid button you have to pay for a bid. What you do is spend a few hundred dollars on “Bid Packs” or you can bid for “Bid Packs”. Then you take your bids and bid on items you want. But don’t think you are going to wait until the last second then bid and think you are going to win… when you hit the bid button you add an additional 10, 20 or 30 seconds to the clock. “Huh” I hear you say? Yeah, you can’t snipe the low price at the last second, the additional seconds give some other would be sniper the chance to snipe at your bid… and on and on… This of course encourages more bids and really, what is Beezid selling? Yeah, bids.

So, let’s look at that Ford Mustang deal Dan won:

Price of the Mustang: About $34,000
Price Dan paid to Beezid: About $750
Number of Bids: about 75,000 (in penny increments remember)

How did Dan do:
New Mustang for $34,000 (about)
His cost: $750.00 (about)
Number of Bids by Dan: Unknown but at least one, probably many more.
Net for Dan: $34,000 - $750 – (bids) = +$33,249 (about)

How did Beezid do:
New Mustang (at cost): maybe $23,000
Income on bids: about $56,000 = (75,000 * $.75)
Net Profit: $33,000 (Cha Ching)

This is all ballpark numbers, but I would be willing to say it is pretty close for government work. This is basically a high tech raffle, everyone pays money for their tickets (bids) and one lucky winner takes they prize. But then again, everyone else is SOL, you know, “Sorry, Outta Luck”. Of course for the charity holding the raffle they get a nice donation when it is all over and someone walks away happy but we don’t care it is all for a good cause. Here it is all for Beezid’s profit margin.

In an auction like the one for the Mustang it is very likely that some people spent thousands in bids and walked away empty handed. Of course the people bidding at the start were looking at a pie-in-the-sky price for it the win, hoping against hope that everyone sort of fell asleep and their bid would be the last. There were 75,000 bids on that car, it was a lottery when all was said and done.

Now I am scratching my head because I thought that when eBay first came online they also had a pay for bids system and that was their hook on making money. Further I thought there was like a law suit against them and the pay per bid system went away because it was illegal. In any case it seems to me that Beezid is a more expensive site than you will ever get back unless you get lucky. They can spice it up all they want, but it is going to get expensive real fast.

Another thing… they limit the number of auctions thereby enticing more people to bid on the few items available. While this still means you may pick up a $1200 TV for $400 they are making more bids and paying for less items. Also, the more people who start buying in the higher the prices will get and Beezid is going to make out like a bandit. In fact, bandit may be the exact word for it since I am pretty sure this is all illegal.

Good idea, I for one will not be lining Beezid’s pockets.