We all know online shopping can often be cheaper than buying items over-the-counter, but did you know that there’s a new kind of web auction that promises to let the lowest bidder ’win’ new products for a mere fraction of their worth? It could be just the bargain you are looking for.

It’s called a reverse auction and its set to be the next big thing in online shopping.

Here’s how it works: A reverse auction (also called procurement auction, e-auction, sourcing event, e-sourcing or eRA) is a type of auction in which the role of the buyer and seller are reversed. The main goal is to drive purchase prices downward. In an ordinary auction (also known as a forward auction), buyers compete to obtain a good or service. In a reverse auction, sellers compete to obtain business.

Step 1:

Register and Purchase eTokens.

Step 2:

Place a STANDARD BID or a GOLD BID using your eTokens.

STANDARD BIDDING
Each auction will have a price range in which bids can be placed. For example if the price range of an auction is between $0.01 and $5.00 then you may enter your STANDARD BID value anywhere in $0.01 and $5.00. You may choose to enter as many bid values as you like to increase your chances of winning the auction.

At this point one of 2 things can happen:

1. The bid values are unique that no one else has registered
OR
2. The entered bid values are not unique at which time you will be asked to entered different values to increase your chances of winning the auction.

GOLD BIDDING
Instead of entering a Standard Bid, choose to enter a bid value using the GOLD BID option.

By choosing the GOLD BID option the computer will help you by giving you the lowest bid in the selected price range that no one else has bid on. So effectively at the time of selecting the GOLD BID option the computer will enter a lowest unique bid in a given price range. These bids are not guaranteed to stay unique since someone may knock them out by chance when using Standard Bidding.

You can choose to have as many GOLD BID values as you like.

Step 3:

Winning the auction.

Once the auction has ended the person which has registered the lowest bid value that no one else has bid on will win the auction and purchase the item for that bid value amount.

SCENARIO... Joe wants a boat

Joe wants to buy a boat on www.boatreverseauctions.com.au. He finds a boat worth $46,000.00 in an auction.
For this auction each STANDARD BID uses 2 eTokens and each GOLD BID uses 6 eTokens.

Step 1:
Joe registers his details and buys eTokens to start bidding on the boat.

Step 2:
The price range for the auction is $0.01 to $100.00. This means that Joe can only register bid values from $0.01 to $100.00.

Joe decides he wants to use the STANDARD BID option and manually enters the values of: $0.05, $0.07, $0.11, $0.18, $0.25, $0.26 and $0.32.

A message pops up letting him know that only the $0.18 bid value is unique and others have already entered the rest of his values.

This means no one can win the auction with the other values since they have been knocked out. Joe remembers that he can only win the auction if he has the lowest unique bid and no one else enters that bid value that he has.

Joe really wants this boat and decides to increase his chances of winning even more and bids again choosing the GOLD BID option. He tells the computer that he wants 3 GOLD BIDS in the selected price range. The computer gives him $0.10, $0.17 and $0.29. These bids are not guaranteed to stay unique since some may knock them out by chance when using Standard Bidding.

Step 3:
The results of all the bids are shown to everyone at the end of the auction for the boat:

Joe knows his member number is 567866

Joe GOLD BID has paid off. He has won the auction with a $0.10 bid. Other members also had gold bids however they were knocked out by other standard bids. He also won since he had the LOWEST UNIQUE BID value, this is the bid value which is the lowest and that no one else has entered. Therefore Joe has effectively bought a $46,000.00 boat for 10 cents.

Joe placed 7 STANDARD BIDS using 7 x 2 eTokens = 14 eTokens and 3 GOLD BIDS using 3 x 6 eTokens = 18 eTokens. Joe used a total of 32 eTokens to win the boat.

CLICK on REGISTER NOW! and start bidding