Two weeks ago, I blogged about the launch of a new online bidding site – ChikaPowWow, which you can read about HERE. I mentioned that I would start bidding and I’ll keep you guys updated about it.
Well, I am very pleased to announce that on my second day of bidding itself, I’ve gotten myself a Fujifilm Polaroid Camera for the price of RM1.13! Yes, your eyes aren’t fooling you! I won the camera for 91% off its market price of RM330.
Has this caught your attention yet? 🙂
Yes? Great, let me explain to you how this works while also sharing with you a few tips on how to get amazing prizes at such a low price.
Some of you might be doubtful and wonder, “Is there a catch behind this?” Trust me I got a lot of tweets asking me about it!
The answer is no, depending on how you see it. The only requirement is that you need to purchase a minimum amount of tokens before you can start bidding. This is a norm as other online auction sites have the same prerequisite too.
To begin, click on the “Buy Chikas” button on the top right corner of the page. The minimum amount of tokens (or “Chikas”) you can buy is 25, which costs RM37.50. (Note that all payments done on ChikaPowWow are through credit cards.) When you register for an account, you will receive 15 tokens for free too. So add them up with the ones you have bought and you will have 40 tokens to start with.
Then head on over to the home page where you will be able to view all the auctions that are on- going at the moment.
The one product up for auction that first caught my eyes was the new iPad2.
I used my first token to bid (or “Pow”) on the iPad. Here I had thought rather innocently that I could actually get the iPad for just RM0.10 when I placed my first bid. I thought I could remain as the top bidder til the end of the auction.
17 hours after I placed my first bid, everyone else started bidding for the iPad as well as it was nearing the closing bid time.
I took another strategy; where I just sat back and watch the others bid against each other. Hopefully they would waste their tokens and I could just come in at the very last minute and make the winning bid.
The auction was supposed to end at 2pm that day, but due to the amount of “Pows”, more and more time were added to the clock (every “Pow” adds 20 seconds).
In the end, I just gave up on the iPad as I can’t spare the time to sit in front of the laptop and keep an eye on the bid.
Yes, half the battle is won for those with patience and who’s got plenty of time to burn; both of which I’m sorely lacking.
In the end, though I would have love an iPad, it turned out to be a wise decision to let it go as the auction only ended late at night!
Once I gave up on the iPad, I took my attention elsewhere. With everyone concentrating on the iPad, the lone Polaroid camera was neglected.
I applied the knowledge I obtained from observing the iPad auction and only started Pow-ing at the last second, conversing tokens and time.
In the end, persistence prevailed! My competing bidders gave up after a while and I got the camera! I have spent 20 tokens to Pow in that particular auction; and as you can see from the screen shot above, the 20 tokens cost me RM30. There is also a shipping fee of RM12 for the camera, but it varies depends on the prizes.
Long story short, after summing all the numbers up, I only paid RM43.13 for the camera, which I think is a really good price since I’ve saved almost RM300! Like I‘ve said before, ChikaPowWow is a great place to get cool gadgets and products at a really low price!
So, this is the story of my first online bidding experience! I’ll keep on trying to bid on other stuff and who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky again! 😛
If any of you decides to check out ChikaPowWow and has either won or participated in the auctions, do leave a comment! I would love to hear about your experiences, too! 🙂
omigosh. this sounds pretty fun, in a strange way. and yeah, it looks like the key to winning is perseverance! 😀
Haahaha..u can do it in the office 😛
Thanks to your blog, I went to check out ChikaPowWow and won myself a Nakamichi My Mini Plus Portable Speaker 🙂
My post here: http://urbanite-diary.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-first-won-bid-from-chikapowwow.html
Just wanna say thank you !
OH my god!
that’s GREATTTTT Allison~ I’m so happy for you! 🙂