Patience ❤︎ Patience ❤︎ Patience

You’ve heard it said that “good things come to those who wait”. Nowhere is this more true than in the world of penny auctions.

Now, you may be thinking I’m referring to patiently waiting for the auction to end after you’ve loaded up your BidBuddy with 5000 bids. Actually, that’s not at all what I have in mind. Hopefully, this isn’t your idea of what it takes to win auctions. I call this the “set it and forget it” approach to bidding, and while it can result in a fairly high number of “wins” it rarely results in significant savings.

In “Learn To Swim Before Diving In” we talked about the importance of taking some time to learn how auctions work before getting yourself in over your head. This requires patience.

How about waiting for an item to come up for auction that you really want rather than jumping in and trying to win every item you see. Once again, patience required.

So, what about once we’re involved in an auction? Why is patience so important here? Because, you don’t just want to “win” auctions, you want to win auctions without spending more bids than needed. You don’t have any control over the ending price of an auction, but you can control the number of bids you use to win. There are essentially two ways to win auctions without spending lots of bids. One is to win very early in the auction because of little competition. These wins don’t come often, but when they do come they are very profitable, so you may decide to risk a small number of bids in a large number of auctions and simply play the odds. Using this strategy will result in a very small percentage of very profitable wins and will require something in particular. Yes, you guessed it – patience.

The other way to win auctions without overspending your bids is to outwait your competition. Anyone who has used this strategy will tell you that it requires an extreme amount of patience.  Success with this strategy requires you to wait until all other bidders have exhausted all the bids they’re willing to spend.  Bidders who are willing to Buy It Now routinely bid right up to the point where the cost of their bids plus the auction price equals or even exceeds the retail price of the item. As bidders begin dropping out of an auction, you’re going to feel a strong temptation to jump in. Remember, patience!  Even when an auction comes down to only two bidders, you can’t get too anxious. You’ve got to keep in mind the fact that there are most likely others, just like you, waiting as long as possible to get in.  At this point, you’re engaged in a game of “chicken” with the others waiting in the wings. The waiting can be a nerve-racking experience, to say the least, but success often goes to the bidder who can hold out the longest.

Ask any real estate agent the three most important factors when valuing a property and they are sure to tell your Location, Location, Location. Ask any successful bidder the three biggest factors when it comes to winning auctions, and you’re sure to hear Patience, Patience, Patience.