SWOOPO

Yet again, Germany.

When eBay first launched in 1995, my father started collecting things he never knew he needed until that time. Five bass guitars, four accordions, countless Afghan rugs, a Thomas Edison era phonograph cylinder (which I broke), my mom's car and many other knick-knacks were purchased through the popular online-auction website.



So of course I got into the game as well, I sold my brother's Descent III computer game for much too little, bought Magic: The Gathering cards and my most recent purchase was a vintage 1940's Ronson Co. combination lighter and cigarette case. Even though I might go a span of years between purchases, eBay is there, familiar, simple and thanks to the integrity of it's creators, virtually scam-free if you've got deductive powers of reasoning. It has to be the most popular website to date whose name is derived from the Ebola virus.

Since 2008 there's a new kid in town. Entertainment Shopping AG (Munich, Germany) has introduced their new face of online auctions to the United States. Formerly known as Telebid, this new site has garnered attention as of late, advertising miraculous, real-to-life deals such as a new Macbook Pro sold at $60.42. The site is called Swoopo. And yes, you can buy a Macbook for $60.42, or $59.46, or $88.22, or whatever, because the actual price you pay does not matter to these krauts a whole heck of a lot (kind of).
In short, they charge each bidder $00.60 per bid. Doesn't seem that bad, actually, in eBay terms. But there's more. One thing Swoopo has going for it is it's attention to history. This form of online auction is remarkably similar to a real one. For instance, when did we all start believing that bidders have the right to name their own price? In an auction, an auctioneer yells out the price and bidders choose to whether to bid or not. Also, who says an auction has to end exactly when the specified time runs out, no if ands or buts? Do you recall the phrase, "going once, going twice..."? Swoopo adds increments of 15 seconds onto every auction time with each new bid. The auctions are set up in increments of 2 cents, 4 cents, 6 cents, 12 cents and 24 cents. So, each bid is that, and only that increment.

These bastards are making money on this. That computer that sold for $60.42, it was a 2 cent auction. That means there were 3021 bids on it, and at $.60 a pop they made $1812.60 on a computer that retails for $1749 but realistically was gotten for much less by the site.

I wish I was like those kids in that movie where they take las vegas, only this time with this website and Kevin Spacey is my dad.

**An addendum to the post. There are already copycat sites popping up. One of my new favorites is bidsnbobs.com, where as you bid, the price goes down instead of up! Those sneaky brits!