What I Learned From Being A Bid Stomper

While I will never fully condone bid stomping I do feel like it is a valuable tool to keep in your bag of bidding tricks when bidding on DealDash.

Many people feel that most bid stompers are just trying to annoy them and keep them from holding time on the clock and to them I say, you are probably right.

While I see nothing, at all, wrong with trying to maximize your chances of winning by limiting others from getting free bids there is a bit of weighing that must be done. People that you stomp and/or people that are watching you stomp tend to view it as bullying and nobody likes a bully. In fact, I caught someone blatantly bid stomping another player a few weeks ago and I hammered them hard in defense of the other player.  So, while your bid stomping may be targeted at a single person it can also put a target on your back! This may not be a smart thing when you consider a future auction that you actually want to win. As you all know, some names are not easily forgotten.

There is another technique I like to call bid shaving. Bid shaving is where a person lets the clock run for 6 or 7 seconds before stomping. This is a bit sneakier approach to accomplish the goal of limiting peoples time on the clock. Again, doing this too much or too often can draw unwanted attention from the users with a trained eye.

I hear people say in their comments all the time “Let the clock run so we can all get free bids!”. Really?!?!? If I’m being honest I really don’t want people getting free bids. In fact I want to slow them down as much as possible. For this reason I like the bid shaving technique.

So you may ask, how is bid stomping good? Well, I see a few instances where it is a GREAT tool. The first is near the end of an auction. When an auction is past the “no new bidder” mark and it appears to be down to 2 people I feel like a bid stomp is perfectly legal. In fact, I’d say you aren’t very smart if you are not doing this. Why? Because at that point you want the auction end. You want to win right? And, you don’t want another user who may have walked away to come back and see the auction is nearly over only to jump in and create more competition.

Another place where I see the bid stomp as being a valuable tool is early in an auction. Sometimes people will set up a bid buddy and not monitor their bids. The reasons for doing this are obvious. It’s time consuming. But consider the alternative. While you are away someone starts bid stomping you. Now, you are not accumulating time on the clock and you are being set up to win an item and lose a lot of bids. To the bid stomper, it’s important to know who is active and who isn’t. While the goal is to win items for less than face value, I see another goal… Stick people with items for little to no profit while sucking out as many of their bids as possible.  Some people would say this is mean but do you really appreciate the person that logs 200-500 bids on a $25 gift card and then walks away? I say stick it to them if you can.

Now, I’m not all bad. When I bid shave or bid stomp I will typically stop if the other person stomps me back. Remember, I want to balance my negative perception with one of good will. But, I want to identify these people who log bids and walk away. I want to find them and monitor them so I can better determine when to jump them in future auctions. The bid stomp helps to identify them.

One last comment, I think bid stomping is acceptable within 50-25 cents of the “no new bidder” limit. Why? Simply put, you want to hurry up and hit that mark to prevent new jumpers from getting into the auction at the last possible second. I think, under these conditions the use of a bid stomp outweighs the negativity of how people view them. You are trying to help the group as a whole by eliminating potential last second jumpers. After the “no new bidder” limit I think it’s poor etiquette.

Persistent, unprovoked bid stomping is always bad unless you are trying to end an auction or get past the “no new bidder” limit. But as I’ve shown there are some good uses for the bid stomp if done properly.

Please comment and let me know your thoughts.