in which I am a shameless capitalist
Jun. 15th, 2011 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelSo I am a member of a couple of sites that might be relevant to y'all's interests.
I also get a benefit out of referring people. That's not the only reason why I'm sharing - I like these sites for what they are. Even if you sign up through my referral, please don't feel obligated to buy anything -- and obviously no one is obligated to even sign up!
So.
Groupon
What it is: Group coupons, more or less. Available internationally.
How it works: You sign up with the site, and among other things put your location. You then have access to local deals (for some definition of local; I don't know how well it does for rural or non-US locations).
The deals are offered by area businesses, and usually involve a decent discount. Recent purchases I have made through Groupon are $8 worth of frozen yogurt (at a specific froyo place) for $4; two pizzas and crazy bread from Little Caesars for $6; and (co-purchased with one of my roommates) a 4-person beading party, including a small amount of supplies and the attention/assistance of one of the employees, for $40 (usually $80). Other recent deals here have been a ticket to a baseball game plus souvenir hat for $16 ($54 value), $35 worth of makeup for $15, $8 for a year subscription to Cosmopolitan magazine (usually $15); half off golf; 88% off photography course; 63% off oil change; etc.
What makes the deals work is that a certain number of people have to buy the deal. The business gets to set the lower limit; for example, 20 people. Or 50. Or 5. Whatever they feel is a breaking-even point. If they don't get enough nibbles, the deal doesn't go through. If they do, then people can continue buying it. The business also (I think) can choose to set an upper limit; for example, 1000 people. Once a deal is sold out, you can't buy it.
If you do choose to go for a deal, you will pay the money (in advance) to Groupon, and will get a voucher for it. (In the frozen yogurt case, you would pay $4 to Groupon, and get a voucher that shows the deal, so you go in and give them the voucher as part of paying, and it counts for up to $8 worth of stuff.) If you go for a deal before it hits the threshold, you will not be charged until/unless enough people buy it.
What it costs:
There are no registration fees, and it doesn't cost anything to be on the mailing list. You will, if you are subscribed to said list, get a daily email with the local offers, but this does not obligate you to anything.
If you purchase one of the deals (which is something you have to make a conscious decision, and is a multi-step process so next to impossible to do accidentally), you pay the value to Groupon, and get a voucher that you can print out. Obviously, if you forget to use the voucher by the time it expires, that money is lost, so don't do that.
What I get for referring you:
Initially, nothing, except for the warm fuzzy feeling of introducing other people to the awesomeness of Groupon.
If you sign up via my referral link, and then purchase one of the deals, I get $10 in Groupon Bucks. (If you sign up but don't ever get anything, I don't get anything either.)
Referral link: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu24521981
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QuiBids
What it is: Sort of a cross between eBay and gambling, with the possibility of some really good deals. Especially if you're patient. Only available in US.
How it works:
You purchase bids in advance, for $.60 each. You can then use bids on auctions; each time a bid is placed, the price for that item goes up $.01. If you win an item, you pay the bid price plus shipping and handling. If you have bid on an item, you can also 'buy it now' for full value less however many real-money bids you've put in.
Items available range from intangible -- bid vouchers (e.g. 25 bids), gift cards (varying prices between $10 and $200, varying locations like restaurants and department stores and things like Shell or iTunes or whatever), gift cards plus bids (e.g. $10 Starbucks gift card plus 10 bids) -- to tangible -- jewelry (earrings, necklaces, watches), electronics (laptops, iPads, TVs, speaker systems, cameras), and oddball shit (golf clubs, waffle makers, even remote-control tarantulas).
Like eBay, the price you end up paying depends on how many other people are bidding, and how ferociously. Unlike eBay, you pay for the bids as well as (if you win) the final price. Also unlike eBay, anyone who has bid in the auction can use a "Buy it Now" function to purchase it for the value price (e.g. $10 gift card plus 10 bids can be purchased for $16), less the cost of the bids you put in (so if you bid ten times on a $16-value item, and then buy it now, you pay $10 for it). And the buy-it-now option is available to multiple people, so if one person chooses to buy it for full price while the auction's still going, the auction continues. Also unlike eBay, the end time is not fixed: when someone places a bid with less than 20 seconds, the time remaining bumps up to 20, and does that for every bid; if there are a lot of bidders the bump time drops to 15 and then to 10, but there isn't ever a situation where someone bids at the last second without giving you time to react. (They can, and do, bid at the last second, but that gives you at least 10 seconds to choose whether or not to re-bid.)
It is a little seductive to careless thinking: both in the "wow I'm getting a good deal" sense (a Sony 3D camcorder just went for $4.33, when it's a $1500 value item; even factoring in the amount that person spent on bids, $29.40, that's $35 for a freaking camcorder) and in the gambling sense (especially ego bidding, even when it's above and beyond the value price; there was a bidding war for a $10 gift card + 10 bids ($16 total value) between people with usernames like ItWillBeMine and hotbidz and the like, and it ended up going for $2.11 ... plus $1.99 shipping ... plus they probably threw at least 75 bids at it, which is $45, which means they basically paid $49 for a $16 item)
(...granted, especially for people who really know how to work the system, some bids are more or less "free". There are auctions for bid vouchers, where even if you spend 10 bids to get 25 bids you still more or less come out ahead; there are also other ways of getting bid vouchers. I like to factor in bid cost regardless of what type of bid it is, but not everyone does.)
But it really can get you some good deals, especially for things you definitely-and/or-probably would have bought anyway. At the worst, assuming you don't get suckered into ego bidding, you pay full price for an item; at best, if you happen to be the only bidder, you can get it for $.61 (bid + auction value) plus shipping. We happen to really like Sonic as an occasional treat, and I was able to get a $10 gift card, plus 10 bids, for $2.60 (bid + auction value + shipping), which is pretty damn good.
It has a few more gotchas than Groupon does; for example, it's very easy to accidentally bid on something, with no confirmation (and there is no undo button, which means that you've spent that bid whether you wanted to or not), and it's also very easy to bid on something without checking the shipping (gift cards tend to be $1.99, other items vary, and there are some pretty jewelry pieces that go for low amounts but have like $8 shipping; the main page that shows current close-to-expiring auctions gives the current bid price but not the shipping).
But if you're careful, and sensible, and don't have pie-in-the-sky expectations of getting a Macbook Air for $.01, and stuff? It can be kind of awesome.
(My personal rule of thumb is to not go for things that I wouldn't be willing to outright buy, usually things that I would be buying anyway, and then to set a limit of how many bids I'm willing to spend. I also have been spending some time watching auctions and how they work, and the warning signs for bidding wars. It means I'm not likely to magically get a super cheap laptop / camcorder / camera / whatever, because while I would love to get something like that, I wouldn't be buying it anyway and so don't want to sink money into something that a lot of other people are going to be bidding on as well.)
Or to sum up, while my squee about this site has a fair number of reservations behind it, and I'm sure there are some people who try to make a living off this -- resell the items they win, hopefully at a profit -- which makes them more cutthroat, I still think it's an awesome site.
What it costs: Registration is technically free, but they like it when you buy the starter bid pack (100 bids for $60). They offer bid packs ranging from mini (50) to ultimate (600).
Bidding is in some sense free, because you've already bought the bids (or are using voucher bids that you won elsewise), but it does use up that bid. If you win an auction, you have 7 days to pay the cost (auction + shipping). If you choose, you can buy the item for the estimated value.
(Unused bids are apparently refundable: if you use the site for a bit and then decide to quit, you can get a refund for bids on your account that haven't been used in an auction.)
What I get for referring you: If you sign up via my referral link and purchase a bid pack, I get 25 voucher bids. If you sign up but do not purchase bids, nothing happens.
Referral link: http://qb.cm/r5518248
#
If you have questions about either of these, feel free to ask. I may not know the answer but I will do my best :)
I also get a benefit out of referring people. That's not the only reason why I'm sharing - I like these sites for what they are. Even if you sign up through my referral, please don't feel obligated to buy anything -- and obviously no one is obligated to even sign up!
So.
Groupon
What it is: Group coupons, more or less. Available internationally.
How it works: You sign up with the site, and among other things put your location. You then have access to local deals (for some definition of local; I don't know how well it does for rural or non-US locations).
The deals are offered by area businesses, and usually involve a decent discount. Recent purchases I have made through Groupon are $8 worth of frozen yogurt (at a specific froyo place) for $4; two pizzas and crazy bread from Little Caesars for $6; and (co-purchased with one of my roommates) a 4-person beading party, including a small amount of supplies and the attention/assistance of one of the employees, for $40 (usually $80). Other recent deals here have been a ticket to a baseball game plus souvenir hat for $16 ($54 value), $35 worth of makeup for $15, $8 for a year subscription to Cosmopolitan magazine (usually $15); half off golf; 88% off photography course; 63% off oil change; etc.
What makes the deals work is that a certain number of people have to buy the deal. The business gets to set the lower limit; for example, 20 people. Or 50. Or 5. Whatever they feel is a breaking-even point. If they don't get enough nibbles, the deal doesn't go through. If they do, then people can continue buying it. The business also (I think) can choose to set an upper limit; for example, 1000 people. Once a deal is sold out, you can't buy it.
If you do choose to go for a deal, you will pay the money (in advance) to Groupon, and will get a voucher for it. (In the frozen yogurt case, you would pay $4 to Groupon, and get a voucher that shows the deal, so you go in and give them the voucher as part of paying, and it counts for up to $8 worth of stuff.) If you go for a deal before it hits the threshold, you will not be charged until/unless enough people buy it.
What it costs:
There are no registration fees, and it doesn't cost anything to be on the mailing list. You will, if you are subscribed to said list, get a daily email with the local offers, but this does not obligate you to anything.
If you purchase one of the deals (which is something you have to make a conscious decision, and is a multi-step process so next to impossible to do accidentally), you pay the value to Groupon, and get a voucher that you can print out. Obviously, if you forget to use the voucher by the time it expires, that money is lost, so don't do that.
What I get for referring you:
Initially, nothing, except for the warm fuzzy feeling of introducing other people to the awesomeness of Groupon.
If you sign up via my referral link, and then purchase one of the deals, I get $10 in Groupon Bucks. (If you sign up but don't ever get anything, I don't get anything either.)
Referral link: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu24521981
#
QuiBids
What it is: Sort of a cross between eBay and gambling, with the possibility of some really good deals. Especially if you're patient. Only available in US.
How it works:
You purchase bids in advance, for $.60 each. You can then use bids on auctions; each time a bid is placed, the price for that item goes up $.01. If you win an item, you pay the bid price plus shipping and handling. If you have bid on an item, you can also 'buy it now' for full value less however many real-money bids you've put in.
Items available range from intangible -- bid vouchers (e.g. 25 bids), gift cards (varying prices between $10 and $200, varying locations like restaurants and department stores and things like Shell or iTunes or whatever), gift cards plus bids (e.g. $10 Starbucks gift card plus 10 bids) -- to tangible -- jewelry (earrings, necklaces, watches), electronics (laptops, iPads, TVs, speaker systems, cameras), and oddball shit (golf clubs, waffle makers, even remote-control tarantulas).
Like eBay, the price you end up paying depends on how many other people are bidding, and how ferociously. Unlike eBay, you pay for the bids as well as (if you win) the final price. Also unlike eBay, anyone who has bid in the auction can use a "Buy it Now" function to purchase it for the value price (e.g. $10 gift card plus 10 bids can be purchased for $16), less the cost of the bids you put in (so if you bid ten times on a $16-value item, and then buy it now, you pay $10 for it). And the buy-it-now option is available to multiple people, so if one person chooses to buy it for full price while the auction's still going, the auction continues. Also unlike eBay, the end time is not fixed: when someone places a bid with less than 20 seconds, the time remaining bumps up to 20, and does that for every bid; if there are a lot of bidders the bump time drops to 15 and then to 10, but there isn't ever a situation where someone bids at the last second without giving you time to react. (They can, and do, bid at the last second, but that gives you at least 10 seconds to choose whether or not to re-bid.)
It is a little seductive to careless thinking: both in the "wow I'm getting a good deal" sense (a Sony 3D camcorder just went for $4.33, when it's a $1500 value item; even factoring in the amount that person spent on bids, $29.40, that's $35 for a freaking camcorder) and in the gambling sense (especially ego bidding, even when it's above and beyond the value price; there was a bidding war for a $10 gift card + 10 bids ($16 total value) between people with usernames like ItWillBeMine and hotbidz and the like, and it ended up going for $2.11 ... plus $1.99 shipping ... plus they probably threw at least 75 bids at it, which is $45, which means they basically paid $49 for a $16 item)
(...granted, especially for people who really know how to work the system, some bids are more or less "free". There are auctions for bid vouchers, where even if you spend 10 bids to get 25 bids you still more or less come out ahead; there are also other ways of getting bid vouchers. I like to factor in bid cost regardless of what type of bid it is, but not everyone does.)
But it really can get you some good deals, especially for things you definitely-and/or-probably would have bought anyway. At the worst, assuming you don't get suckered into ego bidding, you pay full price for an item; at best, if you happen to be the only bidder, you can get it for $.61 (bid + auction value) plus shipping. We happen to really like Sonic as an occasional treat, and I was able to get a $10 gift card, plus 10 bids, for $2.60 (bid + auction value + shipping), which is pretty damn good.
It has a few more gotchas than Groupon does; for example, it's very easy to accidentally bid on something, with no confirmation (and there is no undo button, which means that you've spent that bid whether you wanted to or not), and it's also very easy to bid on something without checking the shipping (gift cards tend to be $1.99, other items vary, and there are some pretty jewelry pieces that go for low amounts but have like $8 shipping; the main page that shows current close-to-expiring auctions gives the current bid price but not the shipping).
But if you're careful, and sensible, and don't have pie-in-the-sky expectations of getting a Macbook Air for $.01, and stuff? It can be kind of awesome.
(My personal rule of thumb is to not go for things that I wouldn't be willing to outright buy, usually things that I would be buying anyway, and then to set a limit of how many bids I'm willing to spend. I also have been spending some time watching auctions and how they work, and the warning signs for bidding wars. It means I'm not likely to magically get a super cheap laptop / camcorder / camera / whatever, because while I would love to get something like that, I wouldn't be buying it anyway and so don't want to sink money into something that a lot of other people are going to be bidding on as well.)
Or to sum up, while my squee about this site has a fair number of reservations behind it, and I'm sure there are some people who try to make a living off this -- resell the items they win, hopefully at a profit -- which makes them more cutthroat, I still think it's an awesome site.
What it costs: Registration is technically free, but they like it when you buy the starter bid pack (100 bids for $60). They offer bid packs ranging from mini (50) to ultimate (600).
Bidding is in some sense free, because you've already bought the bids (or are using voucher bids that you won elsewise), but it does use up that bid. If you win an auction, you have 7 days to pay the cost (auction + shipping). If you choose, you can buy the item for the estimated value.
(Unused bids are apparently refundable: if you use the site for a bit and then decide to quit, you can get a refund for bids on your account that haven't been used in an auction.)
What I get for referring you: If you sign up via my referral link and purchase a bid pack, I get 25 voucher bids. If you sign up but do not purchase bids, nothing happens.
Referral link: http://qb.cm/r5518248
#
If you have questions about either of these, feel free to ask. I may not know the answer but I will do my best :)