Redemption Value

The redemption value is simply what the cash certificate is worth when used to purchase goods or services from the seller.

Starting Price

BIDDERS: The starting price is the price when the auction opens that will enable you to buy the redemption value. Typically, the starting price is below the redemption value, so bidders are already guaranteed savings before the price goes even lower! A bidder can stop the auction at any time to declare being the winner. The starting price will go down every time any bidder bypasses on buying. Bidders bypass on buying for 2 reasons: (A) because they believe the price to get the redemption value will go down much lower. (B) Many sellers offer consolation certificates to bidders that have bypassed without buying a minimum number of times. So bidders bypass the required minimum in order to at least get a consolation cash certificate if someone else decides to win the auction. NOTE: The auction may open substantially less than the starting price because bidders have the option of pre-qualifying for their favorite seller’s consolation certificates. In some auctions the consolation certificate funds will drive the current asking price below $0. When this happens the winner not only gets the redemption value at $0 cost but will receive free bidding credits. Bidding credits can be purchased or received at no cost. See the website for several ways to freely receive bidding credits!

SELLERS: The starting price the price you are accepting from the auction to provide the redemption value less any pay for results auction fee. Business/Sellers it is important that you understand that no matter how low the winning bidders price goes the auction system will make up the difference so businesses/sellers receive upfront its initial asking price less the auction fee that is shared with non-profits.

Falling Price

Anytime a bidder bypasses instead of buying the reverse auction system will continue reducing the current asking price towards $0 until a bidder decides to stop the auction and declare themselves the winner. The winner pays as low as $0 to obtain the redemption value and sellers still receive its initial starting price less the nominal auction fee because we apply bidder’s pennies from each bypass towards the sellers starting price. The auctions pay for results fee that that the business is paying is shared with local nonprofit organizations as these non-profits have encouraged its members to buy their favorite businesses cash certificates. When bidders buy cash certificates the bidder decides if there is one particular non-profit organization that should receive the share or decides to share amongst all local non-profits.

Auction Time

Any bidder can stop the auction at any time either manually or by automating bidding time intervals and buying price to declare themselves the winner; however, if in the very rare case that an auction runs for 1 fiscal year the auction will stop with no winner. If consolation certificates were offered the bidders that qualified to receive the consolation certificates will have the option of buying at the end of the auctions fiscal year. The primary value of the Time Countdown is for smart bidders to evaluate for certain of their favorite businesses how quickly its auctions ended and how far below the initial starting price the auction fell.

See Current Lower Asking Price

To get a 10 seconds peek to see what the current asking price is to obtain the redemption value bidders need to use 2 bidding credits. Bidders have 10 seconds to decide on stopping the auction and declaring themselves the winner or bypass because the bidder believes the price will go much lower. Bidders have the option of manually checking the price or automating the time interval to check the price and also setting an automated buy price to stop the auction. Whether a bidder manually peeks to see the current price or automates peeking the cost is the same 2 bidding credits.

Consolation Certificates

Businesses provide consolation certificates to those bidders that used their bidding credits and bypassed and did not win. If the seller is offering a consolation cash certificate the seller will state, the minimum number of bypasses without buying required to qualify for a consolation certificate. Typically, the savings offered using a business consolation certificate is many times greater than the cost of the bidding credits needed to qualify to buy a consolation certificate. A bidder can pre-qualify for consolation cash certificates from their favorite sellers prior to the auction opening or a bidder can also qualify during the auction. Some businesses may limit the total number of consolation certificates that will be sold. If a bidder tries to qualify and the capacity has already been reached, the reverse auction system will let the bidder know and will not charge the bidder for the required bypasses.

Add to My Auctions

In your admin control panel, you will be able to see all the auctions that you are participating in.

Auto Bid & Buy

Bidders can set the time interval in seconds to automatically have their “robot” automatically take a peek at the current asking price. So for example a bidder can have the system check every 3,000 seconds which is 50 minutes. Bidders also set a price to automatically stop the auction and declare themselves the winner! Yes, each auction can have its own time interval and automatic stop the reverse auction price. There is no additional cost to automate peeking to see the current price and buying versus manually peeking and buying.

New Auction Alerts!

If you have a favorite business and you want to be notified that business is starting a new auction the reverse auction will email you. You may want to automate bidding and buying for the auction.

If the business is offering a consolation certificate you may want to pre-qualify before the auction opens--especially if the business has a cap on the number of consolation cash certificates sold. Also because many people are pre-qualifying the opening of an auction may have a current asking price that is substantially below the initial starting price and therefore you may want to take a peek and see what the opening current asking price is and you may decide to be the winner at the opening!

Automate Consolation

This will allow you to simply hit a button and be qualified to at least be able to purchase a consolation certificate if you don’t win. If the required minimum number of bypasses to qualify for a consolation certificate is for example 3 the auction system will automatically debit your bidding credits for the number of bypasses remaining for you to qualify.