Online auctions have grown in popularity over the past decade. Consumers are always seeking ways to save money online while discovering and purchasing exciting new products.
The online auction industry is currently evolving, and DealDash is at the forefront of the paradigm shift. Its innovative approach provides a much better experience for consumers who wish to obtain brand new products and enjoy the thrill of online auctions.
In an interview with DealDash, they detailed their commitment to providing an exciting customer experience that inspires repeat business. They also discussed their future plans to further differentiate themselves by including features that other sites do not have.
Tell me a little bit about DealDash -- What do you do?
DealDash is the largest provider of pay-to-participate online auctions in the United States. We are also the longest running service, as we have been in business for almost 9 years since we started our operations in February 2009. Our goal is to provide our customers with a fun and entertaining online shopping experience, while allowing them to discover new brands and products.
Our customers agree that the DealDash auctions are fun and exciting! We operate on the pay-to-participate model, meaning that our customers need to purchase bids ahead of time and then use one bid from their bid balance every time they want to bid on an item. The auctions start at $0.00, with a 10 second countdown. Each bid a customer places uses one of the bids from their balance and increases the price of the auction by 1¢, the auction timer then resets to 10 seconds. It's in this small window that someone else must decide if they will place a bid to outbid the previous bidder. If no new bids are placed, the final bidder in the auction wins the auction at the final sales price.
Those bidders who do not win the auction can use the Buy It Now option. By using the Buy It Now, they get the item for the listed price and all the bids they used in that auction will be returned to their bid balance, so they can use them to bid on a new item. The Buy It Now option eliminates the risk of leaving empty handed.
Why did you start DealDash?
We started DealDash as an alternative to traditional penny auctions. Our founder spent $50 in one of these sites, trying to win a laptop. However, he lost the auction and ended up losing his money with nothing to show for it.
After this disappointing experience with a bidding fee auction website, our founder realized that there were many things that could be improved regarding the customer experience in these sites. DealDash introduced two major changes that would totally improve our users’ experience.
First, we introduced the Buy it Now option. On traditional penny auctions sites, bidders who lost an auction would also lose their bids. With the Buy it Now button, DealDash bidders have the option to buy the item at its listed price. If they choose to do so, the bids they used to try to win the item are returned back to their account so they can use them to try to win a different auction. The Buy it Now option eliminates the risk of not getting the item and losing the credits, which was one of the main flaws of traditional penny auctions.
Second, we introduced a 90-day money back guarantee on the first bid pack, no questions asked. We understand that the pay-to-participate model may not be for everyone. This is why we offer a full money back guarantee on the first bid pack. If a customer is not satisfied with their DealDash shopping experience, we'll be happy to refund their first bid pack purchase (within 90 days of purchase), no questions asked. They can even keep the bids in their account and any items they may have won.
These two features were introduced by DealDash, and are what set us apart from penny auction sites. Our customers seemed to love the idea, and that’s how DealDash began to gain traction back in 2009 and has been increasing its popularity ever since.
There are several online auction companies out there -- what makes DealDash stand out from the rest?
We believe that what makes DealDash stand out from our competitors is the way we obsess around our customers’ experience. Our number one value is to talk with and listen to our customers, and we make sure that every employee in the company works hard to make our customers happy. We constantly pay attention to our customers’ feedback when introducing new features. In fact, many of the new features that we have introduced to the service have come from customer ideas.
We take customer service very seriously, since it is a key area of our business. Our excellent customer service is what sets us apart from other online auction companies. DealDash provides 24/7 customer support via email, live chat, and telephone. Our high standards for customer service begin at the very start of our recruiting process. We only hire customer centric individuals who we know will fit our company culture and values.
However, it is not only our customer service team that is in touch with our customers. Every single employee who works at DealDash (be it a developer, a marketer, or the CEO) has a phone call with at least one customer every week. During these conversations, DealDash team members gather information on the users’ experience, and how it can be improved. This feedback is then thoroughly taken into account when adding new features to the platform. We have even flown some of our customers to the DealDash headquarters so they can hang out with the team and get to know who the people behind DealDash are!
Where do you see the online auction industry going in 2018?
DealDash was the first pay-to-participate online auction site to introduce native mobile apps for Android and iOS back in 2015. Consumers are increasingly demanding to be able to bid from their mobile devices, and having native apps is crucial in order to ensure an outstanding experience on mobile. More and more services are being used on mobile devices as we speak. We certainly believe that this trend will continue in 2018, which will increase usage of our mobile apps.
What type of customer would benefit the most from your service?
Anyone who’s looking for a different and entertaining online shopping experience while discovering new products can enjoy and benefit from DealDash. We have customers from multiple different demographics and ages. We like to keep the auctions interesting for everyone. That’s the reason why we offer very diverse product categories: electronics, fashion, outdoors, sports, furniture, and many more.
Over the last few years, we have seen changes in the way different customers use our service. A couple years ago, we realized that younger users usually participated in the auctions from their mobile devices, while more senior customers still preferred to bid from their desktop computers. However, this trend has definitely changed, as we see more and more elderly users who give our Mobile Apps a try and love them!
What’s next for DealDash?
Our upcoming developments will focus on refining the user experience, to keep the service fun and entertaining. Our loyal customers spend a lot of time using our platform, so we want to make sure that we keep introducing new features and surprises in 2018, in order to provide an engaging experience.
We are currently brainstorming ideas for new features and special auctions that our customers have never seen before. An idea that I personally really like, and that the team is currently working on, is what we have named as ‘mystery auctions’. Our customers will not be able to see the item that will be auctioned until the auction starts. We think that this will be exciting, as it will change the way our customers bid. They will have to make an on-the-spot decision whether to bid or not to bid on the item that is revealed. There is also an incentive for the users to open our app more often to check what the mystery items turn out to be.
This is only one idea out of many that we look forward to developing this year. We are very excited to keep introducing new features and improving the platform for our customers.
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