Smokoo.co.za online auction now king of bargains

South Africans have always had a keen eye for a bargain and, following the recent recessionary conditions, their search for the best deals seems to have intensified even more. What the canny locals are beginning to discover is that many of the best bargains for consumers lie, not in the shopping malls and high streets, but in cyberspace. More specifically, they have been targeting one particular internet destination, an innovative online auction site named Smokoo.co.za.

Smokoo is the first locally operated pay-to-bid online auction site and, although this innovative operation has been running for just a little over one month, it has already captured thousands of followers from around the country, all eager to score one of its seemingly endless succession of unbelievable bargains.

The site employs new generation online auction technology and differs considerably from other bidding sites such as bid-or-buy and eBay, in that it offers only new and fully guaranteed branded items without reserve. Bidding starts from zero, proceeds in increments of just one cent and operates against a digital countdown clock. The result is twofold – unparalleled excitement and unequalled prices. Since its launch, its hundreds of successful bidders have rarely paid more than 5% of the recommended retail price for any item and, in fact, the vast majority has enjoyed discounts of 98% or more.

To bid on Smokoo, shoppers are first required to register and buy bids. Each bid costs R5 and, when placed, increases the sale price of the goods by one cent while adding ten seconds to the countdown. This creates the opening for a counter bid with everyone vying to be the last bidder before the countdown expires.

On Tuesday, one bidder operating under the alias ‘gwatta’, bid for and won a top-of-the-range Sony Bravia LED TV. This sought-after item would have cost a cool R16 990 in the shops but the lucky bidder pulled of an incredible coup to take it away for just R637.22 and score an amazing 96.3% discount. It must have been his or her lucky day because, in a second auction, this same bidder landed an Apple Macbook that would normally have sold for R10 899, for just R416.62. A closer look revealed that the purchase was achieved with 82 bids, amounting to R410 while the remaining R6.62 was the purchase price shown when the countdown finally hit zero.  

The Smokoo home page features photos of some of the site’s recent successful bidders while the section entitled ‘closed auctions’ catalogues the most recent wins and the discounts gained. A brief inspection confirms that, with items like a R15 000 holiday voucher sold for R46.55, a R7K Blackberry Bold fetching just R8.09 and an eleven grand Apple iPad going for a paltry R12.09, Smokoo.co.za has just got to be the biggest source of consumer bargains South Africa has ever seen!