Several people have been emailing me, asking about different strategies to bid. While it's up to you to come up with your own strategy, here are a couple basic strategies to help get you started. Please note, while these strategies might increase your chances of winning auctions, they do not guarantee it-

1) The Bully - This strategy has been used many times on this site, and has worked with great success. Basically, the person buys multiple $299.99 bid packs, and wins every auction at all costs. The strategy of the "bully" is to scare anyone into bidding against them. By establishing the reputation that they will win auctions at all costs, scares many other bargain bidders away. While the person using the "bully strategy" might lose a considerable amount of money at first, many auctions following will come easy as everyone backs off and lets them take it, not wanting to go head to head with someone with deep pockets.

2) Budget Autobidder - To those who don't use it, Autobidder is a very useful tool to scare away light bidders. While you may not have to use 200 bids, sometimes simply turning on autobidder will shoo away other potential bidders. Buying a $49.99 bid pack, and setting up 50 bids to "autobidder" might score you an auction on a light night.

3) Post-War Budget Bidder - After a huge item goes long, such as a Gold American Eagle 1oz Coin  that goes for $75.00, many bidders who lost a lot of money on those "bid black holes" will stay away from the site for a while. Sometimes, if an auction goes long, there are substantial deals to be scooped up the day after a bid-war, and sometimes during the auction. If you see an expensive Gold Coin go long, watch what happens with the auctions the day after, many will dump out early.

4) Early Riser - This works well with expensive items. Many times, bullies and other bidders will see a super-expensive Gold Coin and think "Meh, I won't jump on that for a couple hours". But when enough people do that, the item dumps early! Bullion Gold Bar 1gram that went for $.37 cents, a Bullion Gold Bar 2.5 gram that went for less than a dollar, the Bullion Gold Bar 5 gram that went for .49 cents, the list goes on and on. Sometimes, charging at an expensive item hardcore from the very beginning will catch a ton of people with their pants down and you end up stealing the item for hella cheap.

5) The Announcer - Sometimes a bidder will "announce" their presence on the site, hours before the auction goes into "end soon" status. They'll place a bid on all five items, to hopefully intimidate other bidders from bidding against them. Considering this is one of the few times where you can see your name on the auctions for sometimes hours on end, this is a great way to get into people's heads early in the day. If someone’s sees your name on all five auctions, before the auctions go into "ending soon" status, they may stay away from the site that night.

6) Analyzer - some bidders will do research ahead of time on other bidders, to try to get a good idea as to how many bids some people will use in relationship to the final price of the item. For instance, some bidders will cap their spending to 100 bids per $1,000 item, 10 bids per $100 item, etc. So by using Google Chrome or Internet Explorer to CTRL-F a bidder, and see how many bids they have use, it may help predict how many bids they'll use in the future before giving up.

7) Gold American Eagle 1oz Coin - Sometimes when an expensive item is up for sale, bidders are so focused on that one item that no one pays attention to the other auctions on the site. We list 5 items a night, and just because we have a $1,600 Gold Coin, or other high end 10oz Morgan Silver Bullion Bar, doesn't mean the other items are barrel socks and swabs. There can be nice a Silver 1oz Coin, Bullion Gold Bar, Gold American Eagle .10oz Coin , and many are scooped up at a HUGE discount because everyone is so focused on the high end auctions.

8) New Auction Sniper - sometimes, when a new auction starts (let’s say at 6:30PST), some people give up on the existing auction, and rush over to the new auction that just started. You'll notice that sometimes auctions will end around the 30 minute mark, as one auction begins the previous one ends. This could be a great time to attack the auction. Also, jumping in around the 25 & 55 minute mark might work as most people are stopping their activity on one item to start on another. You'll notice sometimes a pattern of auctions ending, just before the next one starts. For instance-

Item - Start Time Example’s

Silver Coin 1oz: 6:00PST
Bullion Gold Bar 1gram: 6:30PST <-- a great time to jump on the Bullion Gold Bar, would be around 6:55 as most people are getting ready for the .10oz Gold Coin @ 7:00PST
.10oz Gold Coin - 7:00PST
.25oz Gold Coin - 7:30PST
3 Silver Coins (1oz each coin) – 8:00PST

9) "Rent Mudda Fukka!!" Strategy - Following the basic assumption that most people get paid around the 1st of the month, and the 15th of the month (bi-weekly), and that most people have their largest bills (Rent, Car Payment, Student Loans, etc) on the first of the month, and the smaller bills towards the middle of the month (utilities, cell phone, etc), watch the site and see if things tend to dump earlier during the beginning of the month. Since most people are broke during the first week of the month, less people tend to purchase bid packs, making items dump early at the beginning of the month. This could potentially be a great time to jump in on auctions, before people get paid again on the 15th, and have more discretionary spending towards the end of the month because of the smaller bills.

10) Case of the Monday's - We don't know why, but Monday's are ALWAYS the least profitable time for Bidknox. Usually it's so bad, that Bidknox will sometimes not run auctions on Mondays, and use that day to catch up on inventory, order supplies, and organize the office. If you're on a tight bidding budget, and you want to taste that first victory, charge hard at the items listed up for sale on Monday. Mondays are ALWAYS the worst day for Bidknox in regards to traffic, bid packs, & bids placed. A perfect example was recently a Gold Coin sold for 7 bids!! Watch the items listed on Monday and see for yourself!

11) Autobid or go home - Nothing screams "I only have 6 bids left" like manual bidding. Most of the winners on Bidknox, win auctions by using autobidder. Even if you only have 10 bids left, autobidder is a GREAT way to scare off other "light" bidders from the auction. It's the "red dot of death" for manual bidders. Analyze previous auctions, and see how many were won using autobidder, and how many were won using manual bids. Look for the red star next to the name, 90% of the time, the winner won using autobidder. Also, if you are on a shaky connection, using autobidder is a great way to ensure your bids will ALWAYS be counted, even if you have a internet service interruption. Autobid or go home!

12) Buy More Bids Than You Need - Most of the "regulars" know that the new bidders tend to purchase bid packs approximately 10% of the retail value of the item. So if a $450 Gold Coin is up for sale, most "new bidders" will rarely purchase more than a $49.99 bid pack. Meaning? All they need to do, is to buy a $100 bid pack and they win the item! Most of the regular bidders on Bidknox know that if they've never seen your user name before, all they need to do is to put an extra 20 to 40 extra bids into the auction and you'll fold up like an aluminum chair at weight watchers. Many people forget how important "reputation" is here at Bidknox. If you reputation is that you bid 50 bids once a week, that hardly sends fear into anyone else you might be bidding up against. Buy a bigger bid pack, use more bids on the item, and show the other users on the site that you mean business. Even if you lose the item, people will think twice about bidding against you in the future. They'll be thinking "Damn, he really ran me up on that last auction. I don't really want this item, I'll let him have it this time..." Then YOU will be making the unboxing video, not them!

13) Make unboxing videos of your winnings! - Bidknox offers 10 free bids to any winner who makes an unboxing video on Youtube and email the link to info @ bidknox.com. If you've won a couple items, get your free bids! It's silly how many winners don't take the 10 minutes to make a quick video, upload it to youtube and get your 10 free bids! The unboxing video proves to everyone that you are a serious contender for items in the future!

*** Unboxing video needs to be $39.99 of value or higher, you can mix two or more wins to get to the value level. ***

Example 1: Win 4 items of "Nadir Gold 995.0 GOLD CERTIFICATE 0.05g" value of $10.95 x 4=$43.80
This qualifies unboxing video and 10 FREE BIDS.

Example 2: Win 1 item "American Eagle One Ounce Silver" value of $39.99 This qualifies for unboxing video and 10 FREE BIDS.