What are the best penny auctions for beginners?
If you haven’t bid often or at all in online auctions, this post is for you! Bidding on penny auctions online are a fun style of online shopping but as a beginner, you’re at a disadvantage. Here’s why- Experienced bidders know when and what to bid on. Let’s face it, there are some auction formats like some penny auctions that are virtually unwinnable without investing a lot of time and sometimes money. So let’s review some great options that are ideal for a beginner in the world of online auctions.
List of Top Beginner Penny Auctions
| Website | Editor's Rating | Type | Best Features | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  Read Review | Penny Auction | Many auctions available from TV's to home appliances, featuring beginner auctions, free shipping, great reputation. | @dealdash | |
 |  Review Coming Soon | E-commerce | Huge online marketplace, many perks with prime membership including 2-day free shipping | @amazon | |
 | Read Review | Free Auction | Largest marketplace to find online auctions, with many categories, offers buy it now and promotions | @ebay | |
 | Read Review | Free Auction, E-commerce | Offers products across all categories, similar to eBay, less expensive for sellers so slightly lower prices. | @bonanza | |
 |  Read Review | Penny Auction | Always free shipping. You can earn free bids by referring friends and family. | @centbids | |
 |  Read Review | Free Auction | Many auctions are available in all categories, unique product offering. | @ebid | |
 | Read Review | Free Auction, E-commerce | Offers vacation & travel auctions, excellent Deal of the Day section with unique buy it now offers. | @ubid | |
 | Read Review | Free Auction | Steal of the Day section, various categories with authentic police seized, stolen, abandoned and surplus goods. | @propertyroom | |
 | Read Review | Penny Auction | Special events to win extra bids, prizes, or other incentives, shipping is free, refer-a-friend program to earn free bids. | @orangebidz | |
 | Read Review | Penny Auction, E-commerce | Free shipping on almost everything, auctions available in many categories laptops and tablets to purses and jewelry. | @quibids | |
 | Read Review | Free Auction, E-commerce | Various product categories from jewelry to electronics featuring high paced auctions, with Buy It Now options. | @tophatter | |
 | Read Review | Penny Auction, E-commerce | Primabids store where you can buy it now, winners can re-sell products which they’ve won, gift cards, games, and many other products. | @primabids | |
 | Read Review | Penny Auction | Beginner Auctions, buy it auctions, offers auctions in many categories and discounts for new bidders. | @wellbid | |
 | Read Review | Free Auction | Offers government Auction information for thousands of yearly government auctions, bank foreclosure, car, truck, and other automobile auctions | @policeauctions |
Beginner Auction Rating Criteria
Free Auction Style
So let’s address this one quickly, eBay is pretty good for beginners as the learning curve is not too steep you can go from setting up an account to actually bidding and shopping rather fast. We actually give you a good overview of this in our review of eBay, and if you feel that you are up to speed and want to try something a bit more exciting you can take a look at TopHatter which is a bit more fast paced but still not a bad start to learn the auction game. There are some others as you can see on our table above you can reference as well, but for free auction format eBay does hold the title.
Penny Auctions
Some penny auction websites offer special auctions reserved for new bidders. The main reason for this is that beginners have trouble competing with more-experienced bidders. The beginner auctions provide ‘training wheels’ for new bidders who learning the ropes, developing strategies, etc. in penny auction bidding. While most penny auctions offer some type of beginner auctions, BidCactus actually provides a few different levels so that bidders can slowly work their way into the more-competitive penny auctions. Other online penny auctions such as Quibids and HappyBidDay go so far as to guarantee your first win (or your money back).
Penny auction size
Yeuuup, size matters. Very large and very small penny auctions tend to be troublesome for new bidders. Large penny auction websites (aka DealDash) tend to be insanely competitive and distracting for new bidders. Time and time again, new bidders will participate in these auctions and will do one of two things.
- They’ll spread their bids among too many auctions at once. Since the bigger penny auctions tend to have lots of auctions running, it’s easy for new bidders to spread their bidding power too far, making it very hard to win any one auction.
- Competition on the large sites tends to be too much for new bidders. TV ads and hefty marketing campaigns make these penny auction sites very crowded.
The only exception to the rule is Quibids because we’ve always found that new bidders tend to win their first auction very easily. We’re not exactly sure why (but have suspicions). We do recommend that new bidders jump into Quibids auctions for a win or two, but winning future auctions seems to get much more difficult.
Penny auction competition
The other side of the equation is competition. New penny auction bidders should avoid high-competitive penny auctions as well as penny auctions known to support power bidding (aggressive bidding). In general, the biggest penny auction website has higher competition, and the smallest tend to have power bidding problems. We recommend mid-sized penny auctions such as Orangebidz.
As bad as it may sound, penny auctions with poor product selection also tend to attract the fewest bidders. If you can find a penny auction with a low selection, but still products you’re interested in, it may be a good fit. Again, we always recommend that beginners start small so don’t fret if an auction doesn’t carry the high-end computers, tablets, etc.
Leave A Comment