Penny Auction Watch Meets HappyBidDay.com Founder

happybiddayHappyBidDay.com is a relatively new penny auction site that seems to have grown in leaps and bounds over the past few short months that they’ve been open.

I met with HappyBidday.com’s founder, Lisa DeMaria, as well as both their social media manager and affiliate managers just last week while I was visiting NYC and attending the Affiliate Summit conference, where they were exhibiting.

In case you have not yet bid on HappyBidDay.com, or even if you have, you might want to read our interview with Lisa to learn more!

Some of the HappyBidDay.com Penny Auction Team - All Smiles! 🙂

PennyAuctionWatch: What sparked your interest in starting your penny auction site, HappyBidDay.com?

Lisa/HappyBidDay: My partners and I believe that that penny auctions are a great way for consumers to have fun and find amazing deals. It was unfortunate that the industry had some negative press, so we felt we could make a difference by offering a trusted site with excellent customer service.  I ran a successful lead generation network and affiliate program for over 10 years that I sold back in March of 2009 and was looking for an industry where I could bring my expertise.   Here are just a few postings on our face book page:

Jeanette C- I am a regular at HappyBidDay auction. Try this auction they are wonderful, fair, and exciting auction . Great products to bid on. They a quick in shipping your wins and customer support is quick and friendly.

 

Paula W – I have bid on many penny auction sites, but this one is by far the best. I have won so many great things from gift cards to home theater systems. Shipping is lightning fast and customer service if needed is handled promptly. Can’t say enough about this site, if you are looking for a reliable penny auction site, Happy Bidday is the real deal.

Lorri H – Love the freebids..love the regular bids more. I won a gift card and it was shipped amazingly fast.

Jade C – this site is amazing! not only are the products great, the generosity of their daily free bids feature imakes me log in every day.I love happy bid day

PAW: How much do your bids cost? 

HBD: bids cost between 50 cents and 80 cents, depending on the bid package you purchase. We also offer a 20% discount on packages upon registration as well as a bid back guarantee on specific bid packages.

PAW: What type of items do you currently offer and are there others you plan to add in the future?

HBD: Our customers tell us the types of items they would like us to auction. We presently auction tablets, laptops, TVs, cameras, gold and silver bars, sunglasses, designer handbags, necklaces, earrings, watches, telescopes, kitchen appliances, gift cards and more.

We are planning to add vacation packages and event tickets soon.

PAW: Do you ship direct or from Amazon.com (a few sites do this)?

HBD: We have our own in-house shipping department. We inventory many of the products we put up for auction.

PAW: Can you tell us about your bid refund guarantee?

HBD: We just launched our BID BACK GUARANTEE! Upon registration, when you purchase specific bid packs, you will be enrolled in our Happy Guarantee. If you do not win an auction within 30 days, and your bids have run out, we will replenish those bids one time for free.

PAW: Since I met you at an affiliate conference, I know you’re committed to growing your site. A huge mistake that new penny auction start ups make is that they fail to really invest time and money into marketing their site. What got you interested in promoting HappyBidDay this way? (I know you mentioned you own a network.)

HBD: Unfortunately most businesses fail because they are under capitalized and understaffed. In order to have a successful auction site, we must let the public know who we are. With our expertise in the online marketing industry, we are presently taking advantage of all advertising avenues.

PAW: You seem to have a good grasp on the industry and want to provide a good experience to your bidders. What has the response been from bidders unfamiliar to penny auctions?

HBD: Yes, we pride ourselves on providing our users with a great experience. Penny auctions are definitely a new concept, and fortunately, the response has been very positive from our new bidders. We encourage our users to learn about the penny auction industry by reading and educating themselves. We also regularly report industry news on our blogs and in our social media updates.

PAW: Where does the HappyBidDay name come from? 🙂

HBD: We put a lot of time and thought into the name and logo for our site. We believe that everyone’s goal in life is to be happy and the name just reminds us of that. One of the business partners Kathleen also loves smiley faces.

PAW: Can you tell us more about your team?

HBD: We have an excellent staff that all work from our corporate office. We have an IT department with two software developers, an in-house graphic designer and web designer, an affiliate manager, a social media marketer, a customer service representative and a shipping specialist.  Co-founder Kathleen handles all the product research and purchasing.

Features unique to HappyBidDay: We are pleased to announce that we are the first penny auction site that offers a robust rewards program, where customers receive free bids for registering, logging in daily, inviting friends, purchasing bid packages and celebrating their birthdays.

Thanks Lisa! It was a pleasure to meet with you and some of the members of your team. Also, thanks for the fun smiley mouse pad :).

Discuss & post your reviews of HappyBidDay.com in our penny auction forum!

**Disclosure: Actions you take from the hyperlinks within this blog post may yield commissions for Penny Auction Watch.com. See Penny Auction Watch’s disclosure statement for more details.

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24 comments… add one
  • Guru Technologies September 1, 2011, 4:29 am

    site is not working for me “The server at happybidday.com is taking too long to respond.”

    Reply
    • Lisa Demaria October 6, 2011, 5:21 pm

      Our server has 99% up time. If you are experiencing a long response time it could be your internet connection and or browser.

      Reply
  • Amanda Lee September 1, 2011, 11:24 am

    Hi Guru, Looks like it’s up now. Thanks for your comment!

    Reply
  • Tricia Schmidt September 1, 2011, 11:51 am

    I bid there pretty heavily for 5 months, I have my own opinion. It was pretty good until I reported a couple of technical issues I had with an auction (only the 2nd time I reported a technical issue), then it changed, and not for the better.

    Reply
    • Amanda Lee September 1, 2011, 12:09 pm

      That’s not good, Tricia! What happened?

      Reply
      • Lisa Demaria October 6, 2011, 5:10 pm

        Trica was a client and won many products. She lost several hundred bids on one auction and claimed we were having technical problems. We ran several queries and responded to her that our system was working and that she simply lost. When asked if you thought their was problems why didn’t you stop bidding and send us an email she never responded. We answered all of her emails even though she was extremely abusive.

        Reply
        • Diana Booth October 12, 2014, 5:39 am

          First, most “technical” issues do not arise until the auctions end. I have had many issues such as:
          1. Autobidder stop working
          2. The timer malfunction and I bid and it said “Auction ended.
          3. Bidding and my bid not being placed.

          Several different issues like above, where you can’t take a screenshot to prove a malfunction.

          I, too, have had many PA sites respond with the same answer. Well, I hate to tell you, but trying to duplicate the same issue or running several queries won’t find the exact issue! No IT company is perfect and many bidders won’t report the issue (do to getting the same response) and just stop bidding. Me being one of them!

          Any site that asks “why you didn’t stop bidding in the middle of the auction and sent us an email?”, is ignorant and just plain and simple bad customer service! I personal know the bidder above, and do not doubt their was an error. And having dealt with with this sites customer service as well, I can fully understand why she didn’t reply to such a stupid question. You even said that she had replied prior, in an abusive manner. That is because her situation should have been resolved with the first message! A few hundred bids is a nothing, compared to how much of a rip-off you guys make!

          Reply
          • Amanda Lee October 12, 2014, 9:46 am

            Diana,

            Thank you so much for taking the time to share this experience with us. This is not good and I hope they make it right and fix these issues. What time did you place a bid at? It’s weird that the autobidder would stop working that’s a big problem. Again, thanks for sharing this info it helps others. Good luck out there!

      • Darrell June 7, 2015, 5:51 pm

        Today’s date 6/7/2015

        Dear Founder Lisa Demaria,

        I have been a regular on your website for some time now. Recently there has been a mistake on my part to select “Happybidday.com” charges on my credit card to be selected as fraudulent charges, so in turn charge backs were made on my credit card on or about 6/5/2015. Shortly after this happened, one of your loss prevention personnel called me at his telephone number of: (302) 294-0879. He threatened to send all my collected data information to my local police department under the fraud/cyber crime department. He had went ahead by tracing my internet IP address. He told me how he had all of my personal information and full records on this site. He said that if I did not reverse or undo the charge backs, he would then report me and hand over all my personal information to my local police department!
        As I explained to him how it was a mistake as some other charges on my credit card were identified as real fraudulent charges from some other merchant and I selected HappyBidday.com to be one of them by accident. I informed my credit card company of this and they had the charge backs reversed or undid the charge-backs. While during this entire process, I been experiencing unresponsive and crashes happening on my laptop by direct internet line connection to my personal laptop computer by your (IT) personnel while I was at my home. I believe as your loss prevention personnel through information technology knowledge has hacked into my laptop computer. By tracing my ip address and shutting down my account on “HappyBidday.com”, on a finger’s notice has contributed to my laptop crashing, being unresponsive and extremely slow! As a result I had to get my laptop fixed which cost me $199.00. I am out raged do to the contribution of one of your loss prevention (IT) personnel hacking my internet line and protocol. I am very unhappy about the action of your (IT) loss prevention personnel.
        What turned out to be a mistake on my part and the actions on your (IT) personnel has contributed to costing me $199.00 to fix my computer. Your personnel did not even follow his boss’s orders on how to go about solving this issue appropriately. I am stunned and unhappy customer because of all this! Thinking to stop being a member/customer of this site!!!! I like to know as the founder of your website, what are you going to do about this??

        Respectfully yours,

        SSG Darrell Shubbie U.S. Army Retired.

        Reply
  • Ben September 2, 2011, 10:20 am

    I’m not a fan of “trap” pages upon registration where most people probably feel like they’re forced to buy a bid pack, because there aren’t any outgoing links on the page. They just always seem shady to me.

    Reply
  • Brian London September 7, 2011, 10:09 pm

    This is one of the worst sites, actually. More than 1/2 of the auctions are for bid packs. It seems that all they auction off is bid packs with an insignificant gift card. And, even with the gift cards. Are $10 and $25 gift cards…. it’s a joke compared to the other sites. There’s really nothing substantial to bid on, and when they finally have an ipad running, everyone jumps because it’s the one ‘major’ thing running. Finally, from what I’ve read from others… they have a phone that is on perpetual voice mail and they don’t bother responding to email. Bidding on this site is a waste of time. THAT is my honest opinion.

    Reply
    • Lisa Demaria October 6, 2011, 5:18 pm

      Most of our bid packs are auctions where clients can use Free Bids that they receive from our rewards program. Our clients like to use their free bids to win bid packs at a discount so they can then participate in our penny auctions. We are the only auction site where customers do not have to purchase a bid package in order to participate in an auction.

      For new customers we also have a bid back guarantee. If you do not win an auction we refund bids back into your account.

      We inventory our own products and sometimes during the day the phone goes into voice mail because our staff is in the shipping room. We get back to all of our customers.

      Reply
  • peter September 21, 2011, 6:12 am

    Check out our penny auction site, we offer the cheapest price on the internet only $0.30 a bid. Free registration & Get 25 Free Bids! We have the best products!

    http://www.santabid.com

    Reply
  • JustMyOpinion November 16, 2011, 8:48 pm

    UnHappyBidday does not answer emails or the phone. When I asked thru email why it was the same usernames winning the high dollar items….they did not respond….they just closed my account. That is a huge red flag. When I emailed them to ask why they closed my account…..they then blocked my ip address so I could not enter their website. I just go to another computer but they still will not respond. I hope people do not fall into the hype that they give away free bids…..because everyone gets free bids on the site and bid the items up to the point that you could buy it cheaper at walmart. The next time I am in the area that they claim to be located….I am going to visit them with a video camera and post the video on youtube.

    Reply
    • Amanda Lee November 21, 2011, 7:06 am

      Yikes. Really? Not good.

      Reply
  • The Cube January 21, 2012, 5:15 pm

    They seem to have blocked my IP address as well. I can get their via anonymous proxies (which are too slow to use to bid), but not from my own charter.net IP address. My only “crime” (as far as I can tell) was to spend some time this month watching bids go by and recording how much items went for, certainly nothing onerous. Just an ordinary browser window with four to eight tabs open on the site. Sheesh.

    Reply
  • Jessica January 1, 2014, 8:26 am

    Waste time and money. Don’t even try it.

    Reply
  • often anonymous February 10, 2014, 8:14 pm

    OH! IS THIS A SUCKER BET … First time on the site(I had my 100 free intro ‘happybids’), I watched the bidding on a $100 amex gift card. And, actually 2 identical $100 amex gift card auctions taking place at the same time.
    My observations are these:

    1) they charge $5.99 to send(activate) the card to you, so now you’re at $94.01
    2) the ‘CAPPED’ amount(the amount you’ll have to pay for it if you win) has been bid, hits and stays at $5.00, now $89.01 to the winner right there if you didn’t pay a dime for bidding.
    3) I watched for 25-30 min off and on: Note: the ‘counter’ resets to 8 sec – 7, 6, 5, … then the notice ‘GOING … as in ‘GOING, GOING, … GONE’, after each bid. So to keep ‘in the game’ a new bid has to be entered a minimum of 7 bids a minute – minimum(I counted as many as 12 in a minute!!! At $0.50 a bid, or $3.50(minimum) 12 = $6.00 a minute to happybid. Now I followed this again for 25-30 minutes and my assessment is that people, i.e. bidders, in total paid well over $700 for $89.01 in amex gift card value. I saw the same bidders easily make 80+ bids in that short 25-30 minutes. And let’s remember it has to get bid up to the ‘CAPPED’ amount to start with, so that’s 499 bids, ea. at $0.50(that’s $249.50 to happybidday. I’d estimate the site earned over $700-900 in revenue on that one $100 amex gift card. And remember: there were two $100 amex gift card auctions going on at the same time!!!!!

    My conclusion, OH … I WISH I OWNED HAPPYBIDDAY … cause they’re deceptively raking it in BIG TIME!!! HUGE $$$$$$$!!!!!!

    AND … hear me … there’s no accountability. Zero!!! No way to audit them and find out IF ANYBODY(a real bidder) WON IN THE END ANYWAY!!! Who’s to say … huh?

    Regards, good luck to all,
    often anonymous

    Reply
  • Shade June 27, 2014, 11:17 am

    I auctioned on this site and won 600 bids only to have my account cancelled right after I paid for my bid administratively with claims that multiple accounts were opened. I tried contact the company via email and also via phone to no avail to advice them that my children had also opened accounts that they can close all other accounts and leave one open. But have not heard from them. I have left voicemail and no respond. I am our of account, 600 bids and $36.67 of the bid package that I lost. Absolutely ridiculous. I see the owner on this forum defending the company customer service practice since 2011, and it is still the same today 2014. Please fix this issue as it is driving loyal customers away. You cannot just be defending and not make changes. I am a new customer and it is such a shame to be experiencing this issue.

    Reply
  • Eleanor Kobayashi August 8, 2014, 4:29 pm

    I wrote Happy Bids so far no answere

    On July 18 and21 I spent $131.02. Did some bidding, opped out, continued buying 2 or 3 packages. Haven’t recieved anything but an HP mouse that HP declined, too old not working they said. What happened to the rest of my purchases???

    Reply
  • irene cross February 10, 2017, 11:25 pm

    how do I log in. I have signed up gave credit card info then nothing???concerned

    Reply

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