Kenya’s Bidpesa.co.ke‘, a new exclusive auction site launched late last year aims to offer its members an online bidding experience on a variety of items such as fashion, electronics, travel, leisure, and entertainment among others.
The platform will see its members bid on brand new, exclusive, limited edition, designer brands and state of the art electronics for prices up to 95% less than their retail value. The firm says all the items on the site are new and are sourced from top manufacturers from around the world.
To use BidPesa, a customer is required to register for a free online account on the site. Registration allows one to not only bid but to also be notified when new items are listed on the site. A registered customer can also manage their account details, order history, bidding history, and track their orders or review past bids.
After signing up for an account, a user is required to pre-purchase a bid package buy clicking on ‘BUY BIDS’ button, and select the bid package that suits you most. BidPesa gives 5 free bids to all its new registered users. To acquire additional bids one can either invite their friends to join the site or purchase additional bids through mobile money by clicking on the ‘Buy Bids’ button and following a few simple steps.
After registration, a user then deposits money in their BidPesa account via their Mobile Money accounts then they can start to bid. To bid one searches for an item they want to purchase then they simply make a bid on it by clicking on the ‘BID’ button underneath the item.
Users who have no time can use the site’s automated BID Buddy which places bids for customers according to their wants or needs whether they are online or offline. A customer only decides how many bids they wish to place and BID Buddy will randomly place their bid at a random time until they are the final bidder or until your bids are consumed.
To make it fun, ‘bidpesa.co.ke’ puts up new items for auction every week to make sure more customers bid for an item. The process also makes it hard for anyone to manipulate an auction. Unlike lottery, ‘bidpesa.co.ke’ auctions do not contain any random element and the the outcome of every auction depends on how many bids a bidder is prepared to place.
To kill the element of chance and make it possible for a bidder to win any auction, BidPesa advises users to place enough bids and purchase the product at the final auction price reached. BidPesa’s pre-paid system allows it to offer luxury brands at extremely low prices allowing its final bidders to buy the items at very low prices. BidPesa also procures the items directly from manufacturers assuring users of the best auction deals in town.
At the moment, BidPesa ships free of charge within Kenya and charges a small fee to deliveries to customers in Uganda and Tanzania. BidPesa is a welcome move after BidorBuy shut its operations locally.