DealDash Review 2024

DealDash is penny auction that was founded by William Wolfram, who at the time was only 16 years old. Like many businesses, it was inspired after a failed experience. Wolfram had just lost $20 bidding in a bidding fee auction site; and he thought about how unfair the operating model of penny auction sites is to unsuccessful bidders.

The idea was born of a bidding fee auction site where the unsuccessful bidder has the opportunity to get his/ her money back. In 2009, the idea became a reality when DealDash was launched. The company was initially headquartered in Helsinki (Finland), but in 2013, it moved its headquarters to Minneapolis (Minnesota).

DealDash is a penny auction site that advertises with the tagline “Easy to Win, Fair & Honest Auctions”. The big question is whether it is worthwhile to use DealDash. That is, will you find a wide range of products being auctioned in the site? What about its quality; are products on the auction of high quality? Is it really easy to win auctions in the site, so as to get products at significantly low prices?

How is DealDash fair? Also, does offer quality service that we’ll expect of an ideal online store (such as hassle-free bids, fast delivery, effective customer service, etc)? In the first place, is DealDash legit, or is it another scam platform?

Yes, of course, DealDash is legit. It is not a scam because of our findings and also it has been online for a very long time without a problem. Read on to see why we said it is legitimate.

This DealDash review will examine DealDash in order to provide the information that will help you answer these questions.

DealDash review at a glance

• Website: dealdash.com
• An online pay-to-bid auction site started in 2009 and headquartered in Minnesota
• Uniquely offers the opportunity to “get back” your bids if you do not win the auction
• All auctions starts at $0.00
• Each bid raise the product amount by $0.01
• Each bid reset the timer to 10 seconds
• Bids are sold for $0.13 each
• Ships to only the US (excluding Alaska and Hawaii)
• Free shipping is offered for all items (bar Gift cards under $250)
• Guarantees replacement at no cost for defective, damaged, and not-as-described items
• Customer support is available via email (online contact form)

How it works

DealDash is an online auction store. All auction start at $0.00. When the auction starts, you can bid on the product with one credit (that is, $0.01). Each bid will raise the price by $0.01. After each bid, the timer clock resets to 10s. Thus, there are only 10 seconds for another person to place a new bid.

If someone bids before the time are up, the item’s price is raised again by $0.001, and the timer resets to 10s. And so the process continues. If a bid is not placed before the timer goes to 0:00, the last bid is the winning bid; and the bidder wins the right to buy the item at the highest bade amount.

However, like most others, it is also a bidding fee auction site (what it cheekily calls “pay to play”). Before you can take part in an auction you need to buy bids. However, it significantly differs from another bidding fee in that if you are unsuccessful in a bid, you have the opportunity to use the total amount of your bids towards buying the item at a listed price (Buy It Now price).

However, if you do not exercise that right, then you’ll simply lose all you spent bidding. Thus, DealDash is different from other pay-to-bid penny auction sites where unsuccessful bidders lose money, only as far as unsuccessful bidders are willing to use their bid amount towards buying the product bade for.

Is DealDash legit?

In our current world, almost every business is moving online, and that include the scam artists. As a result, except you make sure that an online platform is legit before using it, you just might be ripped off. Thus, the big question is whether DealDash is legit.

The short answer to that is: Yes. The longer answer is that: DealDash is 100% legal, has industry-wide recognition, and has a rich operating record of delivering products won in the site-powered auctions and paid for.

Our first check of the legit online platform is always legality. This is because a store that is 100% legal is less likely to be a scam. Thankfully, DealDash ticks this box. The website is operated by DealDash Inc which is a duly registered company in the US.

Also, in 2012, DealDash also completed the purchase of Swoopo, which at the time was a top Europe-focused penny auction site. Suffice it to say that scam stores do not go for legal company certificates, or make high profile strategic moves.

Another check of the legit online platform is visibility and industry-wide recognition. This is because the scam stores largely operate in the shadows. Thankfully, DealDash also ticks this box as it is one of the biggest penny auction sites in the US.

Just about 4 years after its launch, it was gathered enough attention by industry watchers and followers that it was named Finland’s second most visible startup. Suffice it to say that a scam store cannot earn the recognition of industry watchers and followers.

Another check of the legit online platform is the test of time. This is because the scam stores are generally short-lived. It is only a matter of time that scamming fronts are discovered; and with the exposure, the scam store naturally dies off.

Thankfully, DealDash passes this test of time, as it has been operating since 2009. Suffice it to say that a scam store cannot continue ripping off people using the same front for up to a decade.

However, the ultimate check of the legit online platform is fitness for purpose. As an auction site, the site will be fit for purpose if users can (i) really win auctions, and (ii) get delivery of real and functional items when they make payment.

Thankfully, DealDash also ticks this box. Since its inception, DealDash has been living up to the hype. Many persons have been able to win auctions of different name-brand products; and after making a payment, they did get delivered real and functional products that are largely satisfactory.

Is DealDash safe?

DealDash is safe. When using any e-commerce platform, you’ll have to submit sensitive information such as personal information and credit card details. Given all the cyber fraudsters and identity thieves out there, you’ll want the legit online store to also be safe in ensuring the protection of sensitive data that you share with it.

DealDash does fine in this regards. It says that it “uses SSL encryption to make sure that the transactions are 100% secure”. SSL is the industry standard of ensuring the private connection between two devices communicating over the internet, and the encryption protocol is bank-grade ensuring that whatever data is transmitted cannot be read by unauthorized persons. With the use of SSL among other measures, it is safe to say that DealDash is safe.

Products

Product Variety

Just as you’ll want the regular store to have a wide product range, you’ll also want an auction site to have a variety of products. DealDash also ticks this box. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find an auction store that’ll beat its product variety.

The product categories and some of the items you’ll find in each are:

• Bid packs
• Bundles – two or more products bundled together in one package e.g. Playstation 4 + Schultz Bluetooth Headphones, etc
• Cars – Chevrolet Equinox, Honda CR-V, Toyota LE, and more
• Electronics and Computers – TVs (LED, LCD, Plasma, etc), Tablets (Samsung, iPads, etc), Phones, Smart Watches, Laptops, Cameras, and more
• Fashion, Health and Beauty – Clothing (Polo, Jackets, etc), Fashion Accessories (Bags, Belt, Ties, Gloves, Eyeglasses, etc), Wristwatches, Jewelry (Necklaces, Rings, Earrings, Bracelets, etc), Beauty products (fragrances, skincare, etc)
• Gift Cards – of a diverse range of businesses including retailers (Walmart, etc), restaurant (subway, etc), and more
• Hobbies, Toys, Outdoors and Games – Racing Bikes, Telescope, Trolley Case, Sunset Umbrellas, etc
• Home, Garden, and Tools – Appliances, Wall Clocks, Furniture, Pillows, etc
• Kitchen and Dining – Appliances, Glassware, Drinkware, Knives, Cutting boards, etc

With the items categories above, you’ll find that in DealDash, you can join auctions for virtually anything and everything. Not only is such a wide range of products featuring, but DealDash always features lots of auction. Almost all the time, you’ll find lots of open auctions. Finding lots of auctions is good; however, because of the robustness of DealDash, you’ll also find a lot of bidders. Thus, sometimes, you may find that the competition is fierce.

However, DealDash advertises that you can easily win the auction. While we don’t know of the “easily” part, given the fierce competition that you can face in certain popular auctions, ordinary persons like you win bids on a daily basis and get to pay significantly less for name-brand products.

Product Quality

Apart from supporting a wide range of products, and having lots of auctions, you’ll want the products being auctioned to be of high quality. It’s a no-brainer that after all the stress of bidding if you win the auction, you’ll want nothing less but satisfaction with the quality of the product that is delivered to you.

DealDash does well in this regards, as all its products are brand-new products. DealDash works with top suppliers like Walmart and Sears, so the products you’ll get from DealDash are of the same first-grade quality you’ll find in any of these top shopping destinations.

However, the best way to gauge the quality of a shopping destination is to look at what its customers have to say about the quality of the items they received. Thus, we checked the top independent customers’ review platforms to find out what real users of DealDash have to say.

Interestingly, we found that DealDash is highly rated. For example, at the time of writing this review, in Sitejabber.com, it had a rating of 4.3/ 5 (rated by 4,038 reviewers); and in Trustpilot, it also had a rating of 4.3/ 5 (rated by 2,458 reviewers). Granted, the relatively good rating was not just because of product quality, but persons had only raving remarks about quality. For example:

• Debra Clayborn in Trustpilot says “DealDash is great. The products are excellent quality…”
• Kristi Dare in Trustpilot says “there are items that you can easily win which is super amazing. Especially since they are high quality too…”
• Lisa V in Sitejabber says “…I’m here to tell you there are a few trustworthy sites, and DealDash is one of them! I’ve been a member since October 2016, I’ve won over 21 high-quality items…”

Special Features

Get Bids Back

One characteristic of auctions is that you do not win every bid. Because in penny auction sites, bids are not free, when you do not win a bid, it is essentially losing money.

However, DealDash is one penny auction site that ensures that you never lose money; and that is even if you bade on a product and did not win the bid. It does this with the “Buy it Now” feature. For every product that is being bid for, below the current bid amount, you’ll find a “Buy it Now” price.

You must love an item to bid for it. So if you lose an auction, you can click the “Buy it Now” button to purchase it at the “Buy it Now” price. Every time you use the “Buy it Now” option, every bid you placed in the auction is returned to your bid balance.

So you not only get the item you love; you do not lose any money on lost auctions. With your lost bids returned to you, you’ll not have to buy more bids to try again in new auctions.

It should be mentioned that this “getting back” lost bids is the shining difference between DealDash and other pay-to-bid penny auction sites. However, the Buy It Now price is usually steep. Thus, many times, users do not make use of the Buy It Now option; and the money spent in the unsuccessful bids is lost.

No Jumper Limit

Penny auctions sites can be unfair. Since each bid costs you; imagine having placed several bids in chasing the win, only for someone who have been waiting on the sidelines to jump in, place a bit, and win the auction. Painful, right? Very unfair! The main blurb of DealDash is that it is a fair auction site. Thus, you’ll expect it to tackle such unfair jumping in to win the auction; and it does that with its “No Jumper Limit” feature.

With this feature, if the auction has gone on for a while (reaching the set limit), no new bidder will be accepted. Thus, if you’ll want a spot in an auction for any chance at winning it, you’ll have to join in from the very winning.

Automatic Bids

While auctions are generally exciting, following up the process can easily be stressful. If you’ll really want to win the product being auctioned, while you’ll not want to waste your bids by placing bids too early, you’ll not want someone else to beat you to the product, so you’ll need to be watching the timer to ensure that you put in your bid before it runs down.

If you don’t have the time or energy for such dedicated effort; no problem! DealDash has a solution for you with its automatic bid feature.

The Automatic Bids will place bids for you. All you need do is enter the number of bids you’ll want to place in an auction in the Automatic Bids box. The feature will place the bids for you one at a time. However, you’ll not be wasting your bids with this feature.

It is designed to place bids at the most optimal times of the auction, so you’ll have as many free bids as possible. It basically waits until the last second to bid.

While you can book Automatic Bids before an auction starts, that is no guarantee that you’ll participate in the auction.

This is because the Automatic bids feature is designed to place bids at the most optimal times of the auction, so sometimes while it waits, the No Jumper limit of that auction would have been reached and no new bidders will be accepted.

Thus, if you’ll be using Automatic Bids, DealDash advises that to secure a spot in the auction, you should place a manual bid before the No Jumper limit is reached.

Highest Bidder Reward

There are that “yay” expression and all the good feelings that come with it when you win an auction, as you know that you’ve just won the right to purchase an amazing product at an amazing price. However, DealDash ensures that you have a lot more reasons to scream “yay”.

It does this by a reward program for the Highest Bidders. Every time you are the Highest Bidder, you’ll earn “time”. There’s a Highest Bidder meter visible at the top of your screen; as more time is earned, you level up, and when you reach a new level you’ll be rewarded with free bids.

Winning Limits

Fairness is something we cannot cry enough of. It doesn’t matter that someone is not doing anything wrong, if that person wins every other bid, it wouldn’t be fair.

Since DealDash comes promising fairness, it’s expected to tackle every fairness issues; and it tackles this with its winning limits. First, the same item can only be won once in 30 days. Secondly, only 50 auctions can be won in a week.

Pricing and Related Policies

Pricing

When making any purchase, whether it is in the brick and mortar stores or in the cyberspaces, your eyes will first dart to the item’s price. This is simply because no one will want to throw away hard-earned money.

Since DealDash is an auction site, there is no question about how much products are priced. You’ll only be making a purchase at your own terms. If the auction price rises above what you are ready to pay for the item, you can simply walk away.

However, being the penny shop that it is, you’ll find that many persons are able to win auctions and get high-quality name-brand products for significantly less (sometimes for just pennies).

For example, A  Key Touch Sensitive Electric Keyboard with $390 “Buy It Now” price sold for $2.68; and a Verdict Revival Turntable with Bluetooth Speaker with $285 “Buy It Now” price sold for $0.15.

However, in DealDash, it is not free to join an auction and bid on products. Because of its “pay to play” model, you’ll also want to know how much it costs to place bids. At the time of writing this review, each bid cost $0.13.

However, bids are not sold singly and must be bought in packs. DealDash had 5 different sizes of bid packs are: 300 bids (for $39); 600 bids (for $78); 1000 bids (for $130); 2000 bids (for $260); and 4000 bids (for $520).

Payment Methods

When making online payments you want the process to be hassle-free; and for this, you’ll want the ideal online platform to support a range of convenient payment methods.

Thankfully, you won’t have any problems with buying your Bid Packs as DealDash supports payments via PayPal and Credit/ Debit Cards. It supports all the popular cards such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover Card, Visa Electron, and Maestro.

Shipping

If you buy anything online (no matter the buying process) it will have to be moved from the fulfilment centre of the retailer to your shipping address. Thus, shipping is an important consideration in online transactions. The important shipping elements include shipping destinations, delivery times, and shipping costs.

Shipping Destination:

Except for a platform ship directly to your location, getting your orders will be unnecessarily difficult. Thus, the first thing to check is whether a platform serves your location; and you’ll a global-facing platform so that your location is more likely to be covered.

However, DealDash ships exclusively to only the US. And that’s to the 48 continental US states; it does not ship to Alaska and Hawaii.

Delivery Times

No one wants to wait endlessly to receive delivery of an order. Thus, the ideal online platform will also feature fast delivery. In this regards, DealDash promises a delivery time of 14 days from the time of making payment. This is inclusive of processing time and shipping time.

DealDash also furnishes a tracking number for all its items. The only DealDash items you can’t track will be Gift Cards that are under $250. However, tracking information may take up to 10 days for it to be updated.

Shipping Cost

Every cost element is considered when making online purchases. Shipping costs add to the items purchase price in arriving at the total acquisition cost. So that shipping cost does not make an item too expensive to acquire while it itself has a reasonable purchase price, the ideal online store will have shipping costs that are as low as possible.

DealDash aces it in this regards. The lowest possible shipping cost is $0.00 (that is free shipping), and DealDash gives that. For all auctions won in DealDash, free shipping applies.

Returns

If there’s one drawback of online purchase (in whatever guise), it is blindness involved. That is, you do not get to physically assess the products until they are delivered.

Thus, online shoppers look out for return policies which will allow the shopper to return any item that is unsatisfactory and get a replacement or a refund.

Thankfully, DealDash allows returns. Its return policy covers only items that: (i) are damaged or defective upon receipt (ii) do not match the product description. This means that you cannot return any item for buyer remorse (you change your mind). You also cannot return sized products because they do not fit.

If you are unsatisfied with an item, you’ll have to contact customer support within 7 days of receiving the item. You’ll also have to upload photos for proof. DealDash will review your submission and get back to you with return instructions.

However, DealDash does not accept “returns for refund”, but “returns for replacement”. That is, if your item is defective, damaged, or not-as-described, DealDash will replace it for you at no cost.

Customer Service

When using any platform, there are bound to be those who’ll have questions, while there could also be others that’ll have issues. Thus, the ideal online store should have an effective customer support service for handling the questions/ complaints that customers will have.

DealDash does relatively well in this regards. It supports self-help resources and direct help channels. For self-help, you’ll find a “Help” page which holds an article that’ll answer many of the questions that you may have about the platform.

The subjects that the “Help” page address include: How it works, How to bid in an auction, Auction Special Offers, what I a bid pack, Orders & Shipping, Payments, and more.

For direct support, you can chat with DealDash using Facebook Messenger, or you can send an email using an online contact form that is accessible from Help > Contact Us pages of the website. While the online form is clearly DealDash’s preferred means of contact for issues relating to order; other ways of contacting the Customer Support Service are email (support@dealdash.com) and telephone (855 455-3325).

It is important to state that in the independent online customers’ reviews platforms, customers only have glowing remarks about the effectiveness of the Customer Support service of DealDash. Among many things, reviewers mention quick response time and helpful responses.

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Pros

• Has a great product variety
• Lots of auctions almost all the time
• All product auctions start at $0.00
• Bids raise the item price by only $0.01. making it possible to win great products for just pennies
• Auctions are fast and exciting (with only 10 seconds allowed between bids)
• There’s a “Bid Buddies” feature for automatically placing bids in auctions
• Make the biding process fair by featuring “No Jumper” limits and Winning limits
• Offers convenient payment process that supports popular credit/ debit cards and PayPal
• Offers free shipping
• Delivery time is relatively fast (14 days from the payment date)
• Customer support available via the online contact form

Cons

• It’s a “pay to play” auction site, thus you pay to bid
• Ships to only the continental US States
• Tracking information may take up to 10 days to be updated
• Return policy covers only defective, items, and not-as-described items
• Refund policy allows only for only replacement, and no refunds
• Lots of bidders making some auctions very competitive and hard to win

Conclusion

DealDash is a fair and honest auction store. It lives up to this fairness-speak by giving bidders who are unsuccessful in auctions the opportunity to get back their bids (by using it towards purchasing the item bade for at a listed price). Thus, technically, you never have to lose money even as an unsuccessful bidder.

DealDash features a variety of products, and there are always loads of auctions to join. Also, products being auctioned are of high quality. Auctions start at $0.00, and each bid only raises the auction price by $0.01 per bid. Thus, many times auction ends with you winning great products for relatively small amounts (sometimes only pennies).

DealDash has some cool features like the Automatic Bids which you can use to automate your bidding process. Shipping is also relatively fast, and free. What is more, there’s a guarantee to replace at no cost any item you buy that when delivered is defective, damaged, or not as described.

However, there are a few bumps on the road. First, you can’t use DealDash except you are in the US. Though, there’s the opportunity to get back your bids if you lose in an auction (via using it to buy the item at a Buy It Now price); the Buy It Now price is usually steep.

You may not want to take up this opportunity, meaning you still lose money on unsuccessful bids. Also, you may find that auctions are not always easy to win, as there may be many bidders in certain popular auctions. Lastly, when unsatisfied with an item, it may not be possible to get a refund; but DealDash do only replacements.