Placeholder Bids 102: What Are Placeholder Bids?

In my last post, I explained how closed auctions work and why Swoopo implemented them last year. I also explained why they are a mystery by necessity. Today, I’m going to explain what a Placeholder Bid is and how you can use it to get entry to these exclusive, closed auctions.

A Placeholder Bid is simply a single bid cast in an auction. If you see an auction that you think you’d like to bid on, but based on your Swoopo knowledge decide that you should wait, you can cast a single placeholder bid. You can then continue to follow this auction, and if and when Swoopo closes it, you can return and begin bidding when the time is right.

Because the auction is closed, you no longer need to worry about new bidders Swooping in and outbidding you on the auction. And because no new bidders are welcome, the overall competition in that auction will steadily decline as the auction goes on. You’ll ultimately have a much greater chance of winning the auction and in a shorter amount of time.

Put simply, it’s a small fee to allow you access to the best, most profitable auctions.

Now you know the basics of Placeholder Bids and why you should use them. I explain this strategy much more in-depth in the Swoopo Manual. In the next post, I’m going to explain how Placeholder Bids are skewing our Swoopo Analytics statistics and why that matters to you.