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.
Calculating BidButler Activity
There’s a new blog written by Roy Melvin, a Swoopo pro. He’s been posting just for the past few weeks…but it’s started to generate some commotion in our Swoopers forum.
This particular piece from early January is probably Roy’s best article (in my opinion) and I thought it very worth sharing for our members. Roy calculated a formula to get a sense of past BidButler history for an auction. You can read his post for the math, but the short version of it is:
Take the auction start time and subtract 24 hours (24 being the initial clock time). Now take the remaining time and divide by the current auction price.
If your total is close to $2.50, the auction has been very active with BidButlers.
If however, the total is above $6 or $7, the auction has been relatively free of BidButlers.
It might be better understood with a formula:
T = Total auction time elapsed
C = Current auction price
DH = Dollars per hour
( T – 24 ) / C = DH
Thanks Roy for that great post. Keep ‘em coming!
Reader Email: Swoopo Manual Valuable For Beginners
Sometimes I get emails from people that say “I don’t want to become a Swoopo pro, I just want to win XYZ.” Of course, they don’t tell me they want to win those specific letters…they all have different requests, from a TV to a Macbook Pro to a digital camera.
These emails are always troubling for me to get because while I do think the Swoopo Manual & Swoopo Analytics is a great tool for Swoopo “pros,” I’ve tried hard to maintain the language and understanding of what it’s like to not know a single thing about Swoopo.
So when I got this email from Anthony, it was great to hear him say that Swoopo Manual is a great tool for beginners too. And he has a great suggestion for a possible new chapter. In his own words:
I can’t imagine trying to understand and bid in an environment like swoopo without having a playbook like yours.
I specifically was searching Google for this type of product. Something that would give me a basic understanding of this type of auction and how I might be able to gain a slight edge on the competition by having better or more accurate information.
Your manual focuses is mostly on the technical aspects, basic understanding of the auction process, how to bid and win early, how to bid and win late, when not to bid, what days are best, what times are best, when to use BidButler etc..
One area the manual does not explore in any depth is the psychological aspects of why people bid the way they do and how to potentially exploit their behavior.
I’m sure you could devote an entire chapter to the subject. I myself almost fell victim to the urge to bid before finding your manual and swoopo analytics.. I actually had to pull myself away from the computer and force myself to do some research before bidding. I’m very glad I did or I would probably be sitting here several hundred dollars lighter.
To sum up, I believe your manual is an extremely valuable tool for beginners. Everyone should read your manual that wants to bid on swoopo. I just hope they don’t…:)
Kind Regards,
Anthony
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