QuiBids

This thing is genius, at least from a marketing standpoint.  The website quibids.com hosts live auctions for all sorts of name brand products.  All of the auctions are very short; not more than five minutes.  All the auctions also start a $0.01.  So there is the possibility that you could win an auction and pay a penny for, lets say, an LG 55" 1080p 3D LED HDTV.  Pretty cool right!

So now you may be wondering how can they possibly afford to sell these items so cheaply?  This is the part that makes it genius.  Through your account, every bid you place costs you $0.60.  You basically purchase 10, 25, 50, 100 or maybe even 1000 bids and then can use them to buy these ridiculously low priced products.  So if you win an auction for $30.00 but you placed five bids to win it then you actually have paid $33.00 for the item.  However every other person who bid on this also paid for each bid... this is where it starts to get really good.

Since all the auctions are "short" this increases people's willingness to bid because, 'hey it might not still be there in a few minutes.'  But the bidding mechanism has some rules to it as well.  Each bid refreshes the time of the auction to 10 seconds, so you can't just place one bid at the last second and win.  Each bid also increases the price by one penny so it is continually going up.  So taking the example of a $30.00 auction win means there were a total of 3000 bids to get the price that high.  3000*$0.60=$1800 in bids then the $30.00 price for the winner means that $1830 was paid for this item.

Crazy right!  As I said it is genius.  I am a bit tempted to play around with it, but before you make this your place to shop please know your chance of winning is very low.  I would say to use it for entertainment value only if your use it at all.

What!?

I was picking up some groceries today and there were some new gum packages on display in the checkout line.  When I came across this one I just had to try it.  That's right... Mint Chocolate Chip flavored gum!  I was surprised by how much it actually tasted like ice cream although it doesn't replace the real thing.  Sure it's ridiculous but I have to say Bravo to Extra... you got me to spend $1.29 on your product.

Stupid Commercial

There has been an aspirin commercial on the radio for the last few weeks that claims it is most effective at reducing fever when compared to all other brands.  This sounds impressive but the quick talking at the end states that testing confirmed these results for fever under 100 degrees.  So if normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees, and this brand is 'most effective' under 100 degrees (let's say 99.9 degrees), this equates to an effective range of a 1.3 degree fever.  

I was sick and feverish today so I was very grateful to have this information.  I took their competitor's brand and am now feeling much better.