http://www.flickr.com/photos/annabananabobaloo/ / CC BY-ND 2.0
Swoopo made a profit on revenue of $32 million just last year. Swoopo came to the US in September of last year and they’ve been around since 2005 in the European market. They have over 2 million members on their US site (swoopo.com) and an Alexa traffic ranking (8,124) that I’m sure many penny auction/e-business owners would covet!
Recently, in an effort to keep their customers happy, Swoopo introduced Swoop It Now.
With Swoop It Now Swoopo lets you buy the item that you bid on at a discount and you get your bids back. This option is only available when the auction is still going. The discount is based on the amount of bids placed.
Swoopo admits Swoop It Now will cut into their profit margin, but they are doing this in an effort to try and please their customers.
What do you think about Swoop It Now?
However, some people are not too fond of Swoopo.
We recently received a comment from a reader who says that Swoopo employees shill bid their auctions.
But if you look at the data and Swoopo’s popularity this claim doesn’t match up.
What would be the incentive for Swoopo to do this? If they are, they lied to the BBC. They would also be breaking the law and going against their own terms & conditions. August Capital gave Swoopo $10 mln dollars, if they were doing shady business don’t you think August Capital as well as Wellington Partners would have found this out beforehand?
“Employees and relatives of employees of Entertainment Shopping, Inc. are not eligible to participate in Swoopo auctions under any circumstances.”
P.S. If Swoopo is King, Who is Queen?
That’s why online pharmacies is becoming more pop over the last years. Well-known are remedies which are used to reduce inflammation caused by inflammation of the skeletal muscle etc. There were only few examples. Did somebody tell you about canadian generic Viagra? Maybe you already know about the question. Sexual dysfunction can be a result of a physical condition. Even when it has a physical cause, psychological problems can make the disorder worse. Sex drive problems are so commonly a product of how you feel that there is something to that “headache” saying after all.
Whatever August 13, 2009, 9:55 am
This posting has nothing to do with Swoopo using there employees to bid on the items to drive up the prices to meet there profit margins. You made it the title buy failed to even discuss the possibility that there employees are bidding on the items with an unlimited amount of bids. Search the net and read some posting amout this guy who said he used to work for swoopo. He claim he got fired becuase he didnt make his quota of driving up the prices on the product. When you find that posting, pennyauctionwatch, you should post that. It will really initiate a great discussion on swoopo.
Ryan August 13, 2009, 6:56 pm
It's not really worth anything because the guy won't put a name to his statements. As if Swoopo doesn't know which employee was "fired" for not meeting a quota. The guy making claims wouldnt care if his name was out there. I haven't checked if there is in fact a name given but I suspect there wasn't.
Whatever August 14, 2009, 6:28 am
From the link (http://thecakescraps.com/2008/09/25/pur … -at-swoop/ )
—->
Jon Wesley says:
June 17, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Your absolutely right! I’m glad to see an article on the evil that is SCAMO. Swoopo is a complete scam with a touch of legalized gambling. I worked with Swoopo’s “Sales Monitoring & Web Specialists†department for Six months before I was “let go†for not reaching my weekly quota. We specialize in profit management as they call it. I went into the job because they wanted “highly motivated individuals with good computer skills to work in a fast paced environment†which sounded like me, except the highly motivated part. Anyway.. My job specifically was “profit managementâ€. They trained us to look for auctions with a lot of people bidding on them, high-profile popular/expensive items, basically anything that had the potential to make money. Every item has a set “profit quota (PQ)â€, which is the minimum amount of money/bids were allowed to let an auction end. During my shift I would control no less then 20 accounts at one time (though we were encouraged/threatened to do more) while simultaneously biding (â€monitoringâ€) on 8 auctions per account. We were trained to engage bidders with various techniques specifically designed to trigger an emotional response. Causing bidders to spend more money, whether logical or not. So basically my job was to snipe auctions, meet the “PQâ€, and keep the game going as long as possible. They do that with 50%-%60 of every auction, every month. So you may get lucky and find a deal, but most likely your gonna end up in a bidding war with someone with no limit. And Scote, Your dead wrong on that profit margin. Swoopo covers 100% of their overhead from the first 25-30% of sales, They are brilliant evil genius’s of this modern corporate world.
Sarah September 21, 2009, 4:04 pm
So, if this person exists, he claims he was bidding on 160 auctions at once…. that sounds a little far-fetched.
Pursuing Swoopo to deal rightly with me--I paid a LOT of money for nothing while being sold an illusion that I would get something! September 27, 2009, 7:23 am
NOT far-fetched to work on 160 auctions at once, when (1) you have training what to target and look for–purpose is to *seed* more bids, not become the bulk bidder; (2) if one, two, three strategically placed bids (plus *monitoring* software to flag when and where to bid, even bots) create another 40 bids; (3) you have practice at it (who, who has an office job, with time and practice, did not come to double or more what they could do at their start, without the practice?); (4) the time for bids EXTENDS with bids and many auctions go for hours and some even for days; (5) even TWO bids a minute = 120 bids an hour…AND if Swoopo has more than one employee looking at these high-profile auctions = not hard to do. I was on Swoopo, sucked in as a bidder today, and there were only 179 auctions going at once. And this man/former Swoopo employee’s name is Jon (on his blog post) and what he describes, a FEW oddly placed bids by a FEW other bidders who just seemed a bit dumbass at times and would piss me off into making more bids FITS EXACTLY what I experienced today! I don’t doubt one bit!
Also, I am 32 years old and have worked for over 20 companies in my working years so far–including white collar office jobs (computer support, accounting, contracts, sales) and blue collar jobs (landscaping, delivery, warehouse labor, manufacturing–electronics and metal tools, construction) and even one green collar (conservation)–and I have NEVER seen ANY employee or manager in a for-profit business who does not cut corners, many small, some great and felonious. The PRESSURE for for-profit business to do what it takes to compete and make profit is GREAT, REAL, and PERMEATING in our social and work cultures.
I once was involved in felonious fraud as a minor, so I even know fraud from the inside. I have also been the victim of thousands, hundreds, and tens of dollars of fraud, lying, and cheating = I know fraud from the outside too. I despise the taking advantage one person of another, HOWEVER the perpetrators may excuse themselves by saying “buyer beware,” it was in the “Terms and Conditions” and other such ethical malarkey. What is ETHICAL is NEVER *ENGAGING* in any practice that hurts other people, NOT just warning them about it before proceeding! Does slapping someone in the face and taking the money in their wallet suddenly become ethical if somewhere I WARNED and TOLD the person I was going to do it to them? Don’t stand for such baloney! Crime is crime, injustice is injustice, however you color it. And while yes, we do have responsibility, sadly, to defend ourselves from others–put the BULK blame of crime where it belongs, on the perpetrator and not the victim. The “buyer beware” response while you sit and laugh at the person who lost money does not excuse the crime.
People will do anything from cheating themselves (even of sleep, exercise, kindness to self, good diet) to putting pressure on others to slashing, scalping, or outright murdering others to make money for whatever reasons they justify it.
Do you know Venn diagrams from geometry? All that is ethical is not legal and all that is legal is not ethical–don’t forget this…they are overlapping circles in a Venn diagram.
Lying to people right in the presence of my mother at age 17, to dupe them a few hundred dollars, was a turning point in my ethical life. I still am not 100% honest. And frankly, I have searched, I have investigated, and I don’t know HOW to be 100% honest without suffering the most miserable consequences imaginable, even day to day, as everyone else grinds down on you, usually even despising you. I even spent about 3 years without ever speeding in my car, but I was not under as much pressure and use of transport to speed as now. Now, I speed on the trafficways (which is a form of cheating, deceit, and often, stealing–when you analyze it in depth), I do tell some white lies, I occasionally exaggerate, I have not stopped others from lying for me, I observe others’ crimes without reporting some to many of them (depends how serious I deem them to be–how immediately or overall hurtful, destructive, or illegal), I choose what information to tell, etc. On the other hand, I have been so honest at points in time since that horrible experience lying before my mother for a little money, that I have lost or been fired from seven jobs/career pathways b/c of being honest, six of the seven were career starts representing over six years of my life! (UMKC med school, ROTC, BYU major, BYU job, Chris, Spherion/Gap Inc, Jiffy Lube)
However, running out of options in recent employment, I am allowing my boss/managers again to pressure and as good as force me to cut corners and break rules–yes, some legal (OSHA rules, labor laws, company policies, lying to and deceiving customers, electrical codes, professional standards, and just plain, sloppy work). I cannot pay my bills and don’t even live in a house, but rent an apartment. I need my job and I do not have the skills, certification, start-up capital/equipment, or, frankly, the moral support or personal confidence to set out on my own, self-employed. I have two sons to support. So I am making the “political” compromises it takes to keep my job, but the bare minimum. I resent being pressured and forced/threatened to cut corners and turn a blind eye as rules, some legal, are broken!
So, Sarah and others, I do not doubt one bit Mr. Jon’s description, as it also fits my experience with Swoopo very well. The harder I tried to win an auction, the more resistant became the other bidders, taking the *majority* of ending auction values FAR above the average values I saw on all sides of me! I simply was not allowed to win! I have screenshots SHOWING two auctions that were CLOSED on me while I had clicked BID with one second still left on the clock, among other problems! = Swoopo won my bid money and I went away empty-handed. I TWICE saw three or four of us bidding back and forth, then somewhat out of the blue someone else come in and win with relatively few bids–and the cause of our losing? My bids were blocked and, I assume, so were theirs! I am wondering if these were not shill bidders/winners. Yes, Swoopo undoubtedly has SOME true winners, but I think they also SHAM many others out of their wins. Swoopo themselves said they started the “Swoop-It Now” offer in order to make more customers happier. Well, why aren’t customers happy? Why would customers be angry? People get angry when they are treated unfairly and unkindly.
Also, as to Swoopo having the “policy” not allow its own employees or their relatives to bid on their own auctions. (1) I have worked for an international company with billions of annual revenue (Gap Inc.–I was in their Albuquereque office) which does not hold its own executives (over 150 vice presidents and above, up to the CEO) responsible for following company policy, so why would Swoopo? (2) I haven’t looked myself, but what is quoted in the main blog here as their policy has a MAJOR hole–what about “FRIENDS” and recruits of Swoopo and its employees? Do you have ANY idea how much work and employment is done in this country, unofficially, “under the table,†outside the radar of the IRS and outside the formal, legal label of “employee”?
I worked for a company in landscaping (Intermountain Lawns, LLC, in Colorado Springs) that has ALL its employees legally categorized as “independent contractors”–even though they supplied all the equipment, gained and scheduled all the jobs, even provided the uniforms (a T-shirt and logos). What keeps Swoopo from finding some loophole? If they are “genius” enough to make so much money from people, how are they not genius to do whatever else they want and “get away with it”?
And for the blog’s comment, “What would be the incentive for Swoopo to do this? If they are, they lied to the BBC. They would also be breaking the law and going against their own terms & conditions. August Capital gave Swoopo $10 mln dollars, if they were doing shady business don’t you think August Capital as well as Wellington Partners would have found this out beforehand?”
The INCENTIVE in any capitalist market is ALWAYS the same–to make the most money possible, from the least amount of effort and expense, sometimes including the unethical and illegal. And how many companies have lied to the media before? How many companies have ALSO DIVIDED their employees so that one group of employees or one employee does not know what the other employees do? How EASY it is, for any company, even to put forth a spokesman to the media who HONESTLY knows of no wrong-doing…but find any spokesman who knows of ALL the doings within a company…they never exist. August Capital or ANY investor will put their money into the companies that make the most sense to them, NOT an indicator of whether the business model is shady or not. With tobacco smoking in the U.S., how many companies, through their own research, and ESPECIALLY intuitive knowledge, KNEW that people were being poisoned and caused disease and horrible suffering by their product? YET they had ads in the 1950’s with *medical doctors* backing up smoking as harmless! If the 1950’s was a time where we view people as relatively inocuous compared to today and as having had higher average morals and values, then NOTHING surprises me any more. Nothing.
What investors weigh with shady business models is not right and wrong, but is it 100%, inarguably illegal (they can argue that it is legal–and LOSE, I hope–but that depends on the judges, lawyers, and juries), and how well it can be obfuscated. I worked for Transamerica Life Insurance at one point (the 5th largest life insurance in the U.S., at the time–Kansas City office) and my own immediate manager once told me in response to my questions about the complexity of some of the policies, “All we have to do is confuse the hell out of people, just so long as they keep paying their premiums.” This is identical to Swoopo–just keep the people paying for their bids, and money is made. Well, I chose not to give my career to Transamerica or the insurance industry. Hey, wasn’t there a time when people faced tragic events that their FAMILIES, friends, neighbors, communities, and “God forbid!”, their CHURCHES helped them through the finances and such of the tragedies? Yes, = no need for insurance then! (Just look at how in some cultures–such as many hispanic and Pacific islander cultures, how they care for their aging and ill and dying and when tragedies strike.) Yes, insurance = a band-aid on the sick, pustulating sore of our world’s disintegrating families,kindness, and faith in God.
Wrong is wrong is wrong. And treating each other kindly, honestly, and fairly, the way WE want to be treated, or the way that is for our good and well-being to be treated, is what matters. THESE are the lessons we all need to learn!
Joe Blow December 23, 2009, 8:36 am
just spent a few days on swoopo…watching lots of auctions and test bidding a few…I have a very good memory and it is entirely obvious that they have people working for them…the same 7 account names bidding outrageously on many auctions at once…esp if they would die out for a low price…and in circumstances that ONLY someone not paying would do…such as paying more in bids for the thing than it cost to swoop it…continuing after that even to bid and still just giving away later.