UniqueAuction:New Site Looks to Profit at the Intersection of Auctions, Gambling

[mandy]

Arif Mirza's sales pitch sounds too good to be true -- a laptop computer for US$19, a $43 living room suite, a $70,000 Hummer SUV for less than $700. All that's missing is the deed for the Brooklyn Bridge. But Mirza, a resident of Ottawa, insists he's on the level. His new company, Unique Auction, is an Internet auction site that lets consumers risk small amounts of money in hopes of huge savings on new merchandise.

"It's all the power of numbers," said Mirza, a man with experience in making lots of money a little at a time. His previous venture, a London-based Internet gambling site called iBetX, reported 1.7 billion British pounds ($3 billion) in revenues last year.

... bidders at Unique Auction must pay a fee-usually $2-for each bid they enter.

In December, Unique Auction sold a Nissan 350Z. Bidding was fierce. "We made about $85,000 in bidding fees," Mirza said. A platinum member won the car with a bid of $718, and sold the car back to Unique Auctions for $48,000. The winner got a large cash windfall, while Unique Auction sold the car twice.

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/gXcVGbIt...ling.xhtml

The UniqueAuction web site: http://www.uniqueauction.com

related topic: Limbo: Lowest Bid Can Win This Auction  http://community.tuliptools.com/index.ph...183.0.html

[mandy]

Another article on Unique Auction:

A new Internet venture that screams "too good to be true" is testing users' taste for gamesmanship in the online auction space, offering electronics, jewelry and other luxury items at a fraction of their retail prices. The idea is that Unique Auction, launched in September, makes up for the loss on the item by charging bidders fees.

Unique Auction CEO Arif Mirza touted the company's revenues from bidding fees -- more than $2.8 million so far. The tally is posted in a running display on the home page, where users can place bids as low as a couple of bucks for anything from a diamond necklace, to an Xbox 360, to a Humvee SUV...

While Mirza likes to talk about competing with online auction giant eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) Latest News about eBay, the business model sounds more like a lottery to Forrester Research Vice President Andrew Bartels, who questioned the motivation for the seller on Unique Auction...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/6XRStifA...ance.xhtml

[mandy]

Article on low bid auction sites Limbo41414:

Jonathon Linner saw the future, and it was fun. In December, the 36-year-old entrepreneur started a text-message-based auction game, Limbo 41414. It bears little resemblance to eBay and other online auctions, and not just because you play using a cell phone. To win a Limbo auction, you have to be the lowest unique bidder on the offered goods and services. That's how a Salt Lake City woman recently got a US$35,000 Hummer H3 for $36.65, less than the cost of filling it up

"We've been surprised that it's spread to people who didn't even have cell phones but got one just to play the game," Jonathon Linner, the founder of Limbo 41414, said. "About 20 percent of our members are women over 50, even though most people think that's not a demographic that text messages."...

and UniqueAuction:

A 33-year-old Ottawa online gaming expert, Rocky Mirza, had launched a similar concept in September. At UniqueAuction.com, it's the highest unique bid that wins within a low preset range.

Most items are listed with a ceiling bid of about 10 percent of manufacturer's suggested retail price. The maximum bid on a pair of Jimmy Choo kidskin boots valued at $700 is $7.07; a Troy-Bilt riding tractor, valued at $2,760, can't be had for more than $27.88...

full article: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/rjFv...-Hit.xhtml