Swoopo on Multiple Devices
A Swoopo Manual owner noticed something about the Swoopo system that bears mentioning. I’ll let him tell the tale:
Hi Matt,
Thanks so much for the information, which is very helpful. I’ve encountered one weird problem twice when bidding on an auction from both my laptop and my iPhone at the same time. Attached please see a screenshot of the weird error message. “Sorry – Swoopo has had a problem. We’re letting our techies know right now, who’ll work on getting this fixed”. At this point, I couldn’t even log on to my account or purchase any bids.
Is this because I bid from two different IPs? The reason I’m use both laptop and iPhone is that sometimes our wireless network connection is not very stable. Would this be a trigger that Swoopo blocks my account temporarily for a review or something? Have any other members ever got this error message? Please let me know your thoughts on this.
Thanks so much,
[name redacted]
I tried to replicate this user’s experience but wasn’t able to. However, I think it might not cause problems unless you’re casting bids from one or both devices. It’s also unclear at this point if Swoopo’s system genuinely has technical issues with multiple sign-ins or if they’re preventing them intentionally in a passive agressive manner.
If you’re bidding on Swoopo and need to switch computers, or if you have a secondary device you’re using to track other auctions, I’d suggest you sign in to only one at a time to avoid any possible IP address conflicts.
Note: This advice pertains only to signing into Swoopo’s website. This does not affect your ability to sign-in or use Swoopo Analytics.
If you have any more information on this issue, let us hear about it in the comments.
Update (5.17.10): This same user writes in again to note that this is not an issue of IP address conflict. Swoopo will block simultaneous log-ins from bidding even on the same device. Just stick to a single log-in and you’ll be fine!
Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts
Imitation, Flattery Etc.
Swoopo has launched a new marketing campaign called “Swoopo Naked,” complete with partially nude models to illustrate the point. This new marketing campaign is aimed to dispel any myths about “entertainment shopping” and Swoopo specifically.
Along with this marketing campaign, they rolled out a short guide on their site titled “The Swoopo Guide.” The Swoopo Guide is essentially a watered down version of the Swoopo Manual with most of the useful bits left out. They even went so far as to borrow concepts and terms that I created and have been using for over a year, such as BidButler Layering. (For those who haven’t yet read the Manual, that’s a method of placing BidButler bids that reduces the chances of losing big).
They’ve also created a new section on the site titled “Meet the Swoopers.” This is the first time I’ve ever seen Swoopo use the term Swoopers. It should be obvious, of course, that this site is named Swoopers dot org and has existed for nearly a year now.
Of course I’m not upset with Swoopo for seeking inspiration in my work – it just reinforces the impact our community has made. I just wish Swoopo would start paying me a proper consulting fee for all the groundwork we’ve done on their behalf!
Thoughts on Swoopo Changes from a Winner
I got an email from Nige, who’s a valuable member of our forum. Nige has won 6 of the 8 Swoopo auctions he’s participated in…so his win percentage is great. He’s also been on Swoopo since fall of 2009, so obviously he’s not a “Swoopo Pro.” He just plays and wins when he has time and when he sees a great auction to jump into. This should ring true for most of our Swoopo bidders who just want to win a few auctions. Nige writes:
Can i just say i’m disappointed reading on the forum that so many people seem to have forgotten all your advice on how to win and have been relying on [Swoop It Now]…now they think it’s all over.
I have had a good time and they are all missing out. [I won an] LG plasma last week for £3.07 + 124 free bids. I have started passing my knowledge on to 2 family members, who now have had some good wins without having the [Swoopo Analytics] tool to help. [They're bidding] blind so to speak.
Cheers Nige
Nige is of course referring to the recent Swoopo changes. What he meant was that those users who are complaining that Swoop It Now no longer allows 100% discounts should reconsider their complaints. Swoopo didn’t have Swoop It Now until fall of 2009, so this is a relatively new tool for the Swoopo bidder. What the changes do is democratize the bidding a bit more. Swoopo Pros can no longer dominate the auction and rely on Swoop It Now as a backstop. This means more opportunity for more bidders and in Nige’s case – more auction wins.
New Data on Swoopo Changes
There have been a few changes at Swoopo over the past few weeks. These were controversial changes for our members in the forum, who were torn about whether or not the changes were good for users.
I waited to make up my mind until I had data firmly in hand about what effect it would have. And thankfully, my data mastermind Jason was able to get me stats quickly.
Here is the average savings on Swoopo over the first 10 weeks of 2010.
So it would appear that the changes are good for users on Swoopo. Now, the techniques of the Swoopo pro will definitely change because they can no longer heavily rely on Swoop It Now to save them from a big loss. It’s also made it easier for new bidders to jump in and start winning auctions.
With the shift from Swoopo Pros to every bidder on the site, hopefully Swoopo can continue to improve their customer satisfaction and keep bidders coming back again and again.
There have also been concerned voiced that Swoopo’s traffic is down. Here’s a glimpse at the number of closed auctions by week:
It should be noted, however, that their current traffic levels are similar to those about 5-6 months ago. They’re not growing at this point, but it’s not unprecedented for them to have this many finished auctions per week.
It’ll be interesting to see what they tweak in the model going forward and how it affects everyone in the forums and at home who’re bidding and winning on Swoopo.
Two Major Swoopo Changes
Swoopo has made two fairly large changes to the way auctions work on the site. The first applies to the way time is added to the clock after a BidButler Battle. The second deals with how used bids are applied to the Swoop It Now price.
I’m going to let Swoopo’s words take the lead here in explaining these changes:
BidButler Battle Change
All auctions will count down from 24 hours with no time added to the counter for bids placed before the timer has reached 2 minutes. Once the timer has reached below 2 minutes the counter will extend to a maximum of 20 seconds per bid placed and will not increase the timer beyond 2 minutes regardless of how many bids are placed. This means that once an auction has gone below 2 minutes, further bids placed will never increase the counter over 2 minutes.
Swoop It Now Change
Your Swoop it Now price will vary according to the percentage discount rate that is set on each auction, purchased bids will reduce the Swoop it Now price by 60c for each bid placed until the maximum discount for the auction has been reached.
The Swoop it Now price is only reduced by bidding with ‘Compensation Bids’ or ‘Purchased Bids’ obtained using the ‘Buy Bids’ section of your account. Bid bundles attached to an auctioned item, ‘FreeBids’, auctioned bid bundles or bids placed by telephone do not reduce the Swoop it Now price.
What Do These Changes Mean?
I bolded the important phrase in the Swoop It Now change. That is, there is now a maximum Swoop It Now discount for many items. So you can’t get items for 100% off regardless of how many bids you place.
At face value, this change may seem to be a negative for Swoopo bidders, but I don’t think it was meant that way. Having a Swoop It Now discount of 100% had unintended consequences for Swoopo auctions. The Swoopo Pros were able to come into an auction with a ton of bids and use BidButler with abandon. Now, they cannot bully an auction and win. They’ll be forced to use more finesse and fewer bids.
The BidButler Battle change should result in more exciting auctions for everyone involved, because you will no longer see the auction clock soar to 15 or 20 minutes after a Battle. Unfortunately, as someone in the forums pointed out, this makes bathroom trips and food breaks more difficult. However, since the auctions won’t last as long…this may not become an issue.
Will I Get Better Discounts?
I can’t say yet how these changes will affect the discounts on Swoopo, but I’m going to start evaluating the data and update soon with an answer.
Swoopo Forum
Many of my most recent posts on Swoopers dot org have been inspired from discussions we’ve had in our Members-Only Swoopo Forum. The great part about having a small group of people discussing strategy (without the distraction of letting any stranger post whatever they want) is that we get really high-quality posts and lots of great sharing back and forth about how to win on Swoopo.
Swoopers dot org members are also often the first to know about changes to Swoopo’s auction formats or rules. Here are just a few examples of stuff I’ve written after getting excellent feedback from our forum members:
If you’re interested in joining Swoopers dot org, visit the Swoopo Manual site and sign up. If you’re already a member, keep being awesome and sharing your great advice with our community and we’ll promise to do the same.
Are Swoopo Bids Created Equal?
I recently jumped into a discussion in the forums about Swoopo Free Bids. My forum friends were talking about how bids aren’t necessary worth the same amount to bidders or to Swoopo. If you pay $0.65 per bid upon sign-up, that’s probably the value you assign these bids initially. And that’s the last time you’ll be able to easily value your Swoopo bids.
If you win an auction and receive Free Bids as a result, you may value these bids differently. You didn’t pay for them after all, but more importantly, they cannot be used toward a Swoop It Now purchase.
Or what if you’re participating in an auction where you get “bids back.” These are infrequent Swoopo promotions where the winning bidder gets has all of the bids they cast returned to them at the end of the auction. What it does is essentially put the entire Swoopo model on steriods. Not only is it easy for users to ignore the concept of sunk costs, but now they’re financially incentivized to do so.
So How Much Is A Bid Worth?
I think a bid is still ultimately worth as much as you can consistently win with it. If you have a sound Swoopo strategy or a history of winning – a free bid will be just as valuable to you as a bid you paid for with cold hard cash. But knowing that Swoop It Now isn’t available for free bids, you’ll need to adjust your bid to price and understand that others may do the same.
Swoopo BidButler Changes
Swoopo recently made a change to how a BidButler Battle resets the auction clock. In the past, when two BidButlers were activated simultaneously, time was added to the clock instantaneously for every BidButler bid depleted. This often sent the clock soaring to 10 minutes or more.
Now, however, the auction clock will never increase beyond two minutes no matter how epic the BidButler Battle.
So What Does This Mean For You?
You can no longer set up a BidButler and leave the computer for a period of time. You’ll want to make sure you’re keeping close watch on every auction you’re participating in. On the other hand, however, auctions will now be MUCH shorter in total and you’ll be able to win more auctions in a shorter period of time.
Because the auction times are shorter, more auctions should be cycled through the Swoopo site in a 24 hour period. I haven’t verified this with the data yet, but I have Jason working on it as you read this. If this is indeed the case, now is a great time to bid on Swoopo. More auctions and the same number of participants means even better deals all around.
The BidButler math that I was so excited to share only a few days ago will no longer be valid for calculating how much BidButler activity has occurred in a given auction. As a result, Swoopo Analytics will need to be used now more than ever.
Overall, I think the rule change is a good one. It de-emphasizes the BidButler (granted, only in a small way) and it makes auctions more exciting and faster-paced. This is good for everyone.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments or in the continued discussion in our forums.
Winning X on Swoopo
I got a reader email the other day that was similar to ones I’ve gotten many times. Dan writes:
I am in the market for a new laptop. I came across Swoopo while researching discounted laptops. It obviously seemed too good to be true. After further evaluation it seems you can actually win a top of the line laptop for anywhere between $100-$300 (final price and bid cost).
Would you say this is true? Should I go down this route to buy a new laptop or save the aggravation and just buy it from Amazon or something.
If my chance of success is high I think I will buy your manual and give it a ago since I can get a great laptop for a fraction of the price.
Thanks.
Dan
I love getting reader email, but I love it even more when they have great punctuation and capitalization. So I responded to Dan as candidly as he wrote me and I hope it’s instructional:
Dan -
Great to hear from you!
I’ll tell you you’re at an advantage and a disadvantage in knowing specifically what you want.
The con is that you are limited to only the auctions for the laptop you want. That means you can’t fully scout all the auctions for the best bidding environment.
But on the pro side, you can invest heavily and use Swoop It Now if you’re not successful. The Swoop It Now feature, if you’re not aware, allows you to take all the money you invested in an auction and put it toward the purchase price.
So I would recommend you do this:
1) Compare the “retail price” on Swoopo vs the price you’d pay on Amazon or in the free market – it’ll likely be a few hundred dollars.
This is essentially your “gamble” on the auction – and you’ll only lose that in comparison to buying it retail.
Then
2) Get the Manual & Analytics…pick a good auction and the right time to bid and come into the auction at the best time you decide. When you come in – just come in HEAVY. Be prepared to spend up to the amount of the laptop retail price on Swoopo in bids….
Using this strategy, the most Dan can stand to lose is the difference between Swoopo’s retail price and Amazon’s retail price. And if Dan wins, he will likely get the laptop for 75% off or more.
I hope this helps if you too are looking for something specific on Swoopo.
Cheat Swoopo?
Interestingly enough, I get a fair amount of traffic to this site and to the Swoopo Manual site for Google searches related to “cheat Swoopo” or “cheating Swoopo.” Perhaps these searches are done using language common in video games, where you can use cheat codes to get super powers or skip levels… but I wonder too if people are genuinely looking for a way to cheat the system.
I’ve done the research, and can safely say there’s no way to cheat Swoopo. Programmers and opportunists have tried to create auto-bidding devices for Swoopo and none have succeeded. Swoopo hasn’t endured a high-profile “hack” since it launched in the United States. There aren’t any glitches or loopholes in the system that would allow you to win every single time. And there aren’t any set formulas for bidding that guarantee victory.
And after doing this for over a year, I can safely say that for those looking to win on Swoopo, there is no better resource than the 1-2 punch of Swoopo Manual + Swoopo Analytics. I know that’s shameless self-promotion…but it’s quite true.
So if you came to this article looking for a cheat, I hope you’re not disappointed. Instead, sign-up for the Swoopo Manual 5-day course (you can find it in the right-hand sidebar) and start learning how you can win the right way.