Other I wish I'd thought of this

Anyone ever heard of swoopo? It's genius, at least for the people who run it, not so much for the suckers that bid.

Here's my understanding of it anyway (I could be wrong, please enlighten me if I am):

It's an online auction site, only each bid adds another 10ish seconds to the end time, each bid raises the price by 1p, but here's the brilliant part, its costs 50p to place a bid.

A good example is this TV I've been watching (out of curisoity, I'm not gonna bid) Its a phillips 42" HD plasma, RRP is apparently £999, and according to the site, they previously sold one for £228.08

Seems too good to be true, until you realise that to get the price to 228.08, there had to have been 22,808 bids, each costing 50p. So actually this site just sold a thousand pound TV for £11,401.... Like I said, wish I'd though of it first.

 

Well, they are all going up by 10p, not 1p.

Have seen a few sites do this, very clever.

 

This has been to death on TV, and it's a great way to make money for them even if we don't know their costs and etc. The sustainability depends on people knowing about the website though!

 

Started watching a view and god it goes on doesn't it!

Im going to resist registering because I imagine its rather addictive

 

When you think about it, really it's not buying, it's gambling. Stay far away me thinks..

 

Yeah the gambling thing came to mind straight away, genius money making idea though

 

You are right, it is a brilliant idea. The iteams probaly only ever go at like 4am when your apposing bidders have all ran out of money/fallen asleep.

 

It is the on-line equivalent of this:



...except that the odds are actually worse.

 

As if a Samsung 52" plasma went for £1.18, that's crazy. I think if you got that and spent less than £500 on the site in general I'd call it quits. lol