PS3 Move and Xbox Kinect - Wii watch out

Wii, Xbox or PS3 - it's your MOVE!

Just in time for Christmas 2010, the competition for the family's game playing wallet is hotting up big time!

Both Xbox and PS3  are attempting to break Nintendo's stranglehold on interactive video games with their latest accessories, the Move and Kinect...but are they good enough to knock the dominant, cheaper Wii off its pedestal? What's your preference: the hands free simplicity of Kinect, the gandalf-like experience of waving your wand-like Move or the familiar Wii-mote and nunchuk.

With retail prices for complete systems from xbox and PS3  approaching £200, you need to choose carefully...or maybe not!

Penny Auction Sites, like flutteroo, are featuring loads of cheap auctions for these game systems as the festive holiday season approaches. Check out the latest auctions tonight, and pick up a cheap Wii, a cheap PS3 or a cheap Xbox for free or even pennies in time for Christmas - now you really can have your cake and eat it!

Happy Bidding!

Have Amazon beaten Apple? Kindle vs iPad

OK, so initially, like most people, I was green-eyed over anyone that I saw with an iPad. Built only the way Apple know how: smooth, elegant and slick.

I wanted one... and was close to forking out some cash on a cheap ipad auction.

But then Amazon bought out the kindle, and whilst ugly compared to it's glamourous rival, it gradually won me over. So now my auction of choice is a brand new Wifi Kindle. 

Here's my top 5 list of reasons to buy a Kindle instead of an iPad

1. You won't be worried about the overgrown slippery bar of soap that's the iPad slipping out of your hands and smashing on the floor! The Kindle is very robust
   
2. Battery life - with a month of charge you can backpack round Europe and still have enough juice left to read war and peace (if you can be bothered). The iPad would bearly do a day's commute on the tube
   
3. A book any time you want from the world's biggest book seller - Amazon. Even iTunes can't compete with that! Not to mention the many freebies they're sending out!
   
4. Free 3G in most countries you go to... blinder, take that Mr. Jobs! Even a bit of basic internet surfing thrown in!
   
5. Finally, price - at just over £100 vs £429 for the iPad (unless you win your iPad on a lowest unique bid auction), it's well worth the beer money!
   
   That's my two-penneth, but maybe you don't have to decide - you could get a cheap iPad and a cheap Kindle on a penny auction right now at flutteroo and still have change from £10. The best of both worlds ;-)

Buy it Now and Price Drop Auctions - what's the idea?

The buy it now auction is ideal for all bargain hunters who want a simple, cheap deal with no fuss and no competing with other bidders.

The ideal is simple:

• A brand new ipad, wii, LCD TV is put up for auction just below the retail price
• The price is then hidden
• Bidders pay to see the price - if they like the price, they buy, if not they put the item back to auction
• Every time the item goes back into the auction, the price falls
• The next bidder sees a lower price... this keeps happening until someone buys

Amazingly, most electronic goods go for between 20% and 25% discount off the retail price - why the person before didn't buy, who knows, but works for me. No pressure, no competition, just great bargains.

Tips on playing price drop auctions

• The longer an item has been on auction, the more people that have looked and the cheaper the price
  
• Popular and  in demand products, such as the iPad and the new Kindle  go quickly - 15% discounts are more common. A Kindle may only be on auction for a couple of hours. Auctions for electronic goods, like TomTom SatNavs and LCD TVs, which are more mature - discounts are more 20%+, but the item may be on for a week or two.
  
• Check out recently sold for prices on the auction site, and get a feel for the discounts by item. 

Interested and want to find out more? Here's a good simple guide to how it works for buy it now, reverse or price drop auctions. Want to jump straight in? Checkout flutteroo.com for some great products.

Lowest Unique Bid - top tips on how to win!

This week I'll be covering a few hints and tips on Lowest Unique Bid - a very different style of pay per bid auction to penny auction,  but results are the same: you get a brand new cheap Wii, iPad, or iPhone for next to nothing. A number of UK radio stations run lowest unique bid competitions: for example, Absolute Radio's lowest unique bid runs 3 to 4 auctions per week and there are reasonable number of lowest unique bid sites - see flutteroo.co.uk

So, this is how to play a lowest unique bid auction.

The Basics 

• Auctions end at a fixed time
• The person with the lowest bid that no one else has is (unique) at the end of the auction, wins
• The picture above shows some results for a finished auction - £0.04 won because only 1 person bid on it, and it was the lowest.

Lowest Unique Bids, Tips and Watchouts

• Whether you have the lowest unique bid at any time can change through out the auction as other players bid
  
• If you start with the  lowest unique bid and someone else bids on that, you're both out
  
• You can have a high unique bid, but end up winning as other unique bids below it are bid on by other  players
  
• Sites often tell you where the current lowest unique bid roughly is (lower or higher), but remember if you find it and bid on it, it will stop being the lowest unique bid.
  
• The real art is to find a space, bid on it, keep it, and remove any lowest unique bids below you by bidding on them or hoping others will bid on them.

What stuff can you win on Lowest Unique Bid?

Like Penny Auctions, Lowest Unique Auctions are a great place to pick up Bargain New Products -  TVs, Kindles, iPads and iPhone or even free cash! When you start playing, look for sites where you can play lowest unique bid auctions for free, so you can practise and develop your own technique. Click here for more information on how lowest unique bid auctions work.

How to Win a Penny Auction and get a bargain

Penny Auctions have been around for a long time now, but how to play them is still a mystery to most people. Here's a quick guide on how to play and win a penny auction.
Penny Auctions have been around for some time now, but how to play them is still a mystery to most people. Here's a quick guide on how to play and win a penny auction.

The Basics

All penny auction sites operate with the same basics:

• The price of the item starts at either nothing or a penny.
  
  
• Unlike ebay, customers pay to bid - bids are bought in advance and then used on the auction. (This allows the auction sites to fund incredibly cheap final prices)
  
  
• Every time someone bids, the price goes up by a set amount - mostly a penny but depends on the auction.
  
  
• When the clock gets to zero, the last person to bid wins (their name will be on the auction).
  
  
• However, every time there is a bid, the clock resets back to 30s or so, to allow other people to decide to bid... that's the twist!

How to Win a penny auction

For this, we're using a UK auction site, flutteroo, as an example:

• Practise, Practise, Practise...
  
  
• Pick a site with a good selection of product, has been around for while and has a strong reputation for customer service. In this example, flutteroo started in early 2009, has over 2000 fans on facebook and a good range of cheap ipads, cheap iphones, cheap wiis, cheap LCD TVs and lots of other cheap top branded electronic goods.
  
  
• Sign-up, buy some bids, then, before you jump in, watch some auctions close, and, if you can, practise before you go for the item you really want. Flutteroo provides free to play auctions for all members that have made a purchase. No bids are used and the player can buy the item when they win. You can practise your skills on these auctions as many times as you want without using bids. A great way to learn.
  
  
• When you are ready to bid for the item you want, pick your auction and time. Check out previous closed auctions for prices. Stick to the auction, don't play across too many auctions at the same time - you may be lucky to win with 1 or two bids, but you're likely to need to bid more than that.
  
  
• Look at the other customer 'tells', style and bluffs. Some customers always bid when the clock gets to zero, some always bid immediately after someone else has bid to try and put them off. Everyone has their own style of bidding.
  
  
• Penny auctions are fun, exciting and can be a great way to pick up some amazing bargains. Pick a good site, with a good reputation that's been around for while and have some fun.

If you decide penny auctions are not for you, but still like the idea of buying brand new items at low prices, then lowest unique bid (e.g. run on absolute radio) or buy it now / reverse auctions maybe more your cup of tea. Watch out for a posting next week on these other types of bargain auctions.

Mark