Beezid

Last updated
Beezid
TypePrivate
IndustryE-Commerce
FoundedJune 6, 2008 (2008-06-06)
FounderMax Bohbot
DefunctOctober 11, 2016 (2016-10-11)
Headquarters,
Area served
United States, Canada
ProductsOnline Bidding Fee Auction with "Buy It Now" option & Store
Number of employees
50

Beezid was a Canadian online retailer and penny auction website located in Montreal, Quebec.

Contents

History

Beezid CEO Max Bohbot had previously worked on developing other E-commerce websites, and decided on the bidding fee auction model after observing its success in the European market. Following nearly a year and a half of development, Beezid launched in October 2009. [1] The company's name is a play on the word "bid," using a form of slang similar to izzle-speak. [1]

On September 30, 2016 Beezid auction site was placed on standby. [2] Beezid confirms the site is not functional on October 11, 2016 on their Facebook page. [3]

Auctions

Beezid's auctions require the purchase of bids to participate. Members purchase bids in "Bid Packs," with the cost per bid ranging from $0.00125 - $0.90. [4] [5] Bid packs can be purchased in sizes ranging from 30 to 16,000,000 bids at a cost of $27 to $20,000. [6]

Auctions open with several hours on the timer; each bid placed raises the auction price by a penny, and, in the final seconds, additionally resets the timer to a low value, to allow other members to bid. [5] Placing a bid uses up a bid from the pool that a user had purchased, meaning that the cost of placing a bid is relative to the per bid price of the bid pack that you purchased. [7] When the timer reaches 0, the auction closes and the last member to place a bid wins the item. [8] Since there can only be one winner for each auction, participants can end up losing money while bidding without winning an item. [9]

In October 2012, Beezid added a "Buy It Now" function to their auctions where, should a participant not win an auction, they can choose to pay the retail price for the item and have the bids that they used in the auction returned. [10]

Store

In November 2013, the Beezid Store opened as a retail extension of the penny auction site, offering the same merchandise found in their auctions that could be purchased directly rather than having to be won in a bidding fee auction. [11] The Beezid Store additionally allowed the members to sell their auction wins from Beezid directly. Upon winning an item, a user could choose to sell the item instead of claiming it, and other website visitors could then purchase the items in the store. [12]

Critical reception

Beezid has drawn criticism of its business model for requiring the purchase of bids to participate, and for not disclosing the cost of bidding in their advertisements. [5] Only one person can win any given auction, while the website profits from the bids spent by all the losing participants. Even the winner pays the cost in bids needed to win an item over and above the closing auction price. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auction</span> Process of offering goods or services up for bids

An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition exist and are described in the section about different types. The branch of economic theory dealing with auction types and participants' behavior in auctions is called auction theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch auction</span> Type of auction which begins with a high asking price, and lowers it.

A Dutch auction is one of several similar types of auctions for buying or selling goods. Most commonly, it means an auction in which the auctioneer begins with a high asking price in the case of selling, and lowers it until some participant accepts the price, or it reaches a predetermined reserve price. This type of price auction is most commonly used for goods that are required to be sold quickly such as flowers, fresh produce, or tobacco. A Dutch auction has also been called a clock auction or open-outcry descending-price auction. This type of auction shows the advantage of speed since a sale never requires more than one bid. It is strategically similar to a first-price sealed-bid auction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online auction</span> Auction held over the internet

An online auction is an auction held over the internet and accessed by internet connected devices. Similar to in-person auctions, online auctions come in a variety of types, with different bidding and selling rules.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vickrey auction</span> Auction priced by second-highest sealed bid

A Vickrey auction or sealed-bid second-price auction (SBSPA) is a type of sealed-bid auction. Bidders submit written bids without knowing the bid of the other people in the auction. The highest bidder wins but the price paid is the second-highest bid. This type of auction is strategically similar to an English auction and gives bidders an incentive to bid their true value. The auction was first described academically by Columbia University professor William Vickrey in 1961 though it had been used by stamp collectors since 1893. In 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe sold a manuscript using a sealed-bid, second-price auction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English auction</span> Type of dynamic auction

An English auction is an open-outcry ascending dynamic auction. It proceeds as follows.

Shop at Bid was a British television shopping channel that ran daily auctions and later fixed price demonstrations. It was the world's first channel of its kind. It launched as Bid-Up.tv. The channel was owned by Bid Shopping.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bid rigging</span> Form of procurement auction fraud

Bid rigging is a fraudulent scheme in procurement auctions resulting in non-competitive bids and can be performed by corrupt officials, by firms in an orchestrated act of collusion, or between officials and firms. This form of collusion is illegal in most countries. It is a form of price fixing and market allocation, often practiced where contracts are determined by a call for bids, for example in the case of government construction contracts. The typical objective of bid rigging is to enable the "winning" party to obtain contracts at uncompetitive prices. The other parties are compensated in various ways, for example, by cash payments, or by being designated to be the "winning" bidder on other contracts, or by an arrangement where some parts of the successful bidder's contract will be subcontracted to them. In this way, they "share the spoils" among themselves. Bid rigging almost always results in economic harm to the agency which is seeking the bids, and to the public, who ultimately bear the costs as taxpayers or consumers.

A bidding fee auction, also called a penny auction, is a type of all-pay auction in which all participants must pay a non-refundable fee to place each small incremental bid. The auction is extended each time a new bid is placed, typically by 10 to 20 seconds. Once time expires without a new bid being placed, the last bidder wins the auction and pays the amount of that bid. The auctioneer profits from both the fees charged to place bids and the payment for the winning bid; these combined revenues frequently total more than the value of the item being sold. Empirical evidence suggests that revenues from these auctions exceeds theoretical predictions for rational agents. This has been credited to the sunk cost fallacy. Such auctions are typically held over the Internet, rather than in person.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auction sniping</span> Bidding at the last moment as an auction strategy

Auction sniping is the practice, in a timed online auction, of placing a bid likely to exceed the current highest bid as late as possible—usually seconds before the end of the auction—giving other bidders no time to outbid the sniper. This can be done either manually or by software on the bidder's computer, or by an online sniping service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auction theory</span> Branch of applied economics regarding the behavior of bidders in auctions

Auction theory is an applied branch of economics which deals with how bidders act in auction markets and researches how the features of auction markets incentivise predictable outcomes. Auction theory is a tool used to inform the design of real-world auctions. Sellers use auction theory to raise higher revenues while allowing buyers to procure at a lower cost. The conference of the price between the buyer and seller is an economic equilibrium. Auction theorists design rules for auctions to address issues which can lead to market failure. The design of these rulesets encourages optimal bidding strategies among a variety of informational settings. The 2020 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson “for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online travel auction</span>

The term online travel auction is a system of buying and selling travel products and services online by offering them up for auction and then awarding the item to the highest bidder. The need for travel auctions emanated principally due to the high cost of travel. This high cost is also what led to the growth in popularity of low-cost carriers, a concept initially pioneered by Southwest Airlines, and later mimicked by Ryanair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Swoopo</span> Auction website

Swoopo was a bidding fee auction site where purchased credits were used to make bids. Prior to changing its name to Swoopo in 2008, the website was called Telebid. In March 2011, Swoopo's website became inaccessible, and a notice page claimed that Swoopo was experiencing "technical issues." In February 2012, DealDash obtained the domain name for Swoopo.com. The penny auction was invented by Lloyd Liske and William Buckell when the site was first created and known as telebid.com. At that time the site received bids by phone and charged to transfer their bids to the internet site. This is where the format of paying to place a bid started.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reverse auction</span> Auction with one buyer and many potential sellers

A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the traditional roles of buyer and seller are reversed. Thus, there is one buyer and many potential sellers. In an ordinary auction also known as a forward auction, buyers compete to obtain goods or services by offering increasingly higher prices. In contrast, in a reverse auction, the sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer and prices will typically decrease as the sellers underbid each other.

Sixjax is an ecommerce company based in New York City, US. It is a pay-per-bid online shopping website, with gaming features offering discounts on products as prizes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DealDash</span> Auction website

DealDash is a company that operates an online auction and shopping platform. It was founded in 2009, and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The company's platform allows users to bid on and purchase a variety of products, including electronics, home goods, and gift cards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MadBid</span>

MadBid was a Gamified eCommerce and online auction website registered under Marcandi Ltd. in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 2008 by Juha Koski, Madhur Srivastava and Daniel Rovira. The company operates in ten European countries including the UK, Ireland, Spain, France, and Australia. However, in August 2018, Madbid closed up the company and ended all sales.

QuiBids.com is an American online retailer headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. It is a retail website that operates as a bidding fee auction, also known as a penny auction. The company has been sued under allegations that it is a form of illegal gambling and that its advertising is misleading. It advertises the price products are auctioned at in QuiBids cash and compares them to US dollars without disclosing the different currencies being used.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ebidding</span>

An ‘‘‘electronic bidding system ‘‘‘ is an electronic bidding event according to defined negotiation rules (eAgreement). A buyer and two or more suppliers take part in this online event.

<i>Madden NFL Mobile</i> 2014 mobile video game

Madden NFL Mobile is an American football mobile sports game based on the National Football League, developed and published by EA Sports. An entry in the Madden NFL series, the game was released for Android and iOS devices on August 26, 2014.

References

  1. 1 2 Patryk Fournier. "Beezid Online Auction: Easy as 1 2 3". umm.ca. Urban Male Magazine. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  2. generator, metatags. "BEEZID ON STANDBY HOLY CRAP". pennyauctionsforum.com. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
  3. "Beezid - Dear Beeziders, We realize that by now you must... | Facebook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2017-01-21.
  4. Ellis, Blake (June 24, 2011). "House-bound Lindsay backs Lohan Penny Auction Site". CNN Money. Retrieved 19 June 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Steele, Chandra. "Can You Really Buy An iPad for $1.00?". PCMag.com. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  6. Worley, Becky. "Hidden Dangers of Penny Auctions". Yahoo News. Retrieved 19 June 2015.
  7. Worley, Becky. "Hidden Danders of Penny Auctions". Yahoo News. Yahoo News. Retrieved 19 June 2015.
  8. Zimmerman, Ann (17 August 2011). "Penny Auctions Draw Bidders With Bargains, Suspense". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  9. "Penny Auction Sites Could Cost a Chunk of Change". Fox News. Associated Press. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  10. PR Log http://www.prlog.org/11989294-buy-it-now-added-to-beezidcoms-massive-repertoire-of-features-most-in-its-industry.html . Retrieved 28 May 2015.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  11. "Beezid Revolutionizes Online Shopping With New Store". prnewswire.com/. Retrieved 12 February 2015.
  12. Lee, Amanda (November 2013). "Beezid is No Longer JUST a Penny Auction". Penny Auction Watch. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  13. Grant, Kelli B. "The Truth About a $3 iPad". Market Watch. Retrieved 13 April 2015.