Recently I stumbled on a link as I was doing a Google Search. I got to another blogger's site, where he was saying something about removing a post about Smokoo. Smokoo is a pay-to-bid website. As the word clearly explains: you PAY to BID. Every bid you place costs R5, and if your bid is the last one when the timer runs out you win the bid. Because every bid increment is only 1c or 5c, the final price you pay for the item if you win it is most of the time less than 10% of the actual price of the item. So the blogger writes that he removed the specify post (but slyly gives a link to the original post as it appears in Google's Cached memory). So I read his post - and it was quite shocking to see someone blatantly attacking a company with unfounded accusations. The title alone labelled Smokoo as the biggest scam in South Africa, which I think is absolute rubbish and borderline libel. A scam means you are taking from people by tricking them or stealing from them, through whichever means. Smokoo does none of that.
I discovered the site while it was still in it's very early stages and I was intrigued by this whole concept. I was skeptical to begin with, because they were offering great items like iPhone's, PlayStation's and HD TV's for ridiculous prices and my logic said 'There had to be a catch'. However, after reading their How It Works section it all made sense, after reading the rest of the website it was clear that there was no catch, just a clever concept. I bought a couple of bids and tried bidding, unfortunately up to date I've not secured an auction, and it's not because they 'scammed' it away from me. As a non-winning participant I can say that the reason I have not won anything is because my bidding strategy was... well non-existing. However, I'm working on it.
I studied the website and the auctions for about three months, looking at what items sold at what prices and how many bids, and it is really true what they say on their blog. Some items they make HUGE profits, and I mean HUGE!!! Like +500%, but on other auctions they didn't even come close to breaking even, nowhere close, like selling an iPad 2 worth R10000, while only getting R50 from the whole action and bids. Or a PS3 Slim where they only made R200 on a R4000 item. And I also noticed that on average of the three months that I monitored the website I found that they had pretty much equal amount of items that made profit and items that had loss. However, in total they still made a profit, and a pretty good one (but come on, hellooooo, wakey wakey, it wouldn't be called a business if it didn't make any profit!?). So good profit that I think their company could grow leaps in a short time, and the items on auctions are a testimony to that. They started off auctioning smaller items like a iPod nano, and steadily grew to bigger and bigger items. Now some of their items are humongous: a car! A trip to space! Insane!
So basically my rant is about people like the blogger mentioned who are quick to jump on a box an yell 'Wolf!'. I understand that that is their opinion and everyone is entitled to one, but when you look at the cold facts, there is nothing that shows Smokoo as being a scam and if you talk nonsense, spreading lies, don't be offended when they ask you to retract your words. The instructions on the website are very clear, and they also give lots of tips and advice that tell newcomers to just observe the auctions and learn from them before they start bidding. And if people don't want to loose a bid, well then, don't bid! I think many of the people hating on Smokoo are people who are pissed off that they didn't think of the concept first or they didn't bid with a strategy and are sore losers. I know I'm very jealous that I didn't think of this concept, and I take my hat of for the guys at Smokoo for doing so. You deserve every bit that is coming to you and you all just continue growing and selling great items, ignore all the haters. My mom always said, the highest branches get's the most wind. But there's lots of fans who love your website and love following you on Facebook, especially with all the fun and regular competitions you've got going there, and I'm one of them!
I'm especially looking forward to the 'Fly to NY to buy the iPhone 5', I've got something funky planned for this week, to make sure I increase my chances to win! I'll update this post as what I'm doing is revealed, but watch this space and what Facebook and Smokoo's page. Go like them and you'll see what I reveal!
And a last message to all the haters, do us a favour: If you don't like something, don't do it. But then don't come moaning in my ear when I'm sitting in New York buying the iPhone 5 or enjoying the items I win on Smokoo and you're not!
[EDIT]
So I thought I'd have a little fun, play around in Photoshop and create a 'marketing campaign', I visualized winning the competition, and this was the result:
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