Lately, I have been hearing a lot about Dubli. Has anybody used this auction platform? Is it better than eBay? Any reviews or comments? Thanks!

First of all, you should understand the basic difference between eBay and Dubli. Ebay works on a normal auction system in which the price of a product increases with the number of bids and the highest bidder wins the auction. But, Dubli works on a reverse auction system in which the price of a product decreases with every bid.

Reverse auction systems have grown in popularity since the 1990s. Buyers usually use reverse auction systems to buy supplies at the lowest price. In this process, the suppliers log on to the auction website on a given day and time set by the buyer. They are allowed to submit several bids over a fixed period of time. The contract is usually awarded to the supplier who submits the lowest bid. In some cases, the buyer may award the contract to the highest bidder depending upon factors like quality and lead-time.

As Dubli works on a reverse auction system, you could obtain some good bargains there.

Dubli has three types of auctions – Xpress, zero and unique bid.

Xpress auction: In an Xpress auction, you can see the price at which the auction started but the current price is hidden. You can see the current price by using a Dubli credit. When you use a Dubli credit, the price of the item decreases by $0.25. After checking the current price, you have to decide whether you are willing to buy the item at the current price or not. If you are willing to buy the product at the current price, you can buy it then and there. Otherwise, you could just hope that the price drops after sometime. But remember that every time you check the current price, you will have to use a Dubli credit again.

Unique bid: in this case, the person who makes the lowest unique bid wins the auction. For example, if you bid $0.75 for a product and other bids are like 5 bids at $0.25, 6 bids at $1.0 and 18 bids at $0.50, then your bid will be the winning bid, as it is the lowest unique bid. This is a concept that have been exploited by many unique bid auction sites, whereby you have to buy credits to bid, and you win the item only if your bid is for the lowest amount and no other bidder has bid that amount.

Zero bid: In this type of auction bidding, you win the bid if your bid brings the price of the item to zero. You basically continue bidding using credits to decrease the item's price, each bid decreases the item price by $0.25, and the first bidder to bring the item's price to 0 wins the item.

Dubli was founded in 2006 by Michael Hansen. Initially, it had operations only in Europe, but now it has expanded to the US and Australia too.

Unlike eBay, Dubli works on a reverse auction system. On this website, you should aim at submitting the lowest bid in order to win. When you place your bid, you’ll be notified whether your bid is the lowest bid or not. If your bid is the lowest and someone else bids at the same or lower price during the auctioning period, then you’ll be notified that you’re no longer the lowest bidder and in order to remain in the race to win the auction, you’ll have to submit your bid again.

You have to buy Dubli credits in order to place your bids. Each credit costs you $0.80. So, if you place a bid, it means you spend $0.80.

Is there any membership fee?

I think that the registration is free of cost.

In zero bid, the item goes to a person whose bid brings the price of the item to zero. That means in zero bid, the item is given to the bidder free of cost? I’m totally confused. Is it possible??

It is highly unlikely that a person can win the item at the first bid. You might have to place many bids before the price reaches zero, and even then you are not assured to win the auction. And, for each bid you will have to use a Dubli credit. This means you’ll be spending a lot of money on the bidding process only.

If you win a zero bid auction, then apart from the cost of Dubli credits you will also have to pay the shipping fee. That means you won’t get the item free of cost.

Can you imagine how much money this company is making just by enticing people to bid for their products!

And in the case of a unique bid auction, if there is no unique bid then who will get the opportunity to buy the product?