Overview

GankIt isn't your typical auction. Prices are changing, timers are changing, and it's very important that you know the rules before you begin. After that, you'll be prepared to get the best deal, and we'll offer some tips along the way.

Register

Fill out this form to create your free account. You must have an account and be logged in to bid on or gank an item. Once you register, we will send you an email to verify your account.

Once you create your account, you will not be able to edit your username.

My Dashboard

Your Dashboard is where you can manage your account. You can edit your profile information and change your password.

You can also purchase bids, manage bid butlers, complete any pending transactions, and view previous transactions from your Dashboard.

Finally, you can see a record of all bids you have placed on various auctions.

Bid to win it

Overview

On every product page, you will find the penny auction on the left hand side. Penny auctions are powered by a pay-to-play model, and there is one big winner per auction. There's a risk, but there's a huge reward.

Once logged in, to view a list of recently won items, click the Won Auctions tab in the black navigation bar above.

This section of GankIt 101 will only discuss the auction. To find out what is happening on the other side, check out GankIt To Buy It.

*Note: the timers shown in the video do not necessarily represent the actual timers on GankIt.com

Purchasing Bids

To start bidding in an auction, you must first purchase bids. You can buy pre-configured bundles of 40 up to 1000 bids, or you can create your own bundle.

We value auction integrity and fair competition, so all bids are $0.55 each. As a result, we do not offer free or discounted bids, and we do not auction our bid bundles. Therefore, you will never be competing against someone who spent less than $0.55 for each of their bids. All users have an equal chance of winning regardless of their previous activity on GankIt.com.

Bidding, Winning and the Timer

If you are familiar with penny auctions, this process will seem familiar. If not, we're here to help.

Every auction starts at $0.01. Each time you or another user places a bid, the auction price increases by one penny.

Example: If the auction price is $9.07, exactly 906 bids have been placed.

When the timer gets below 20 seconds, any bid placed will increase the timer back to 20 seconds. This gives you and other users another chance to bid, similar to a traditional auction's Going Once, Going Twice, Sold.

Example: 14s, 13s, 12s, 11s, (bid) 20s, 19s, 18s, ...

There is only one exception where the timer will increase beyond 20 seconds. This is referred to as a Butler Brawl™ and will be covered in the next section.

Auctions end when no one places a bid, resulting in the timer reaching zero. The current high bidder when the timer hits zero wins the auction.

The official timer runs on servers maintained by Amazon Web Services, and it is not necessarily identical to the timer displayed on your screen. We recommend you refresh your page periodically, and be careful when placing a bid if the timer is under 3 seconds. Small delays that occur during the transmission of your bid caused by computer lag, internet lag or a slow network connection may result in the auction ending before your bid reaches our servers. Using a Bid Butler alleviates any potential communication lags that may be experienced when placing a single bid. For more information, please review our Terms of Service.

Bid Butler and Butler Brawls

The Bid Butler is here to serve you! By setting a Bid Butler, you can automate the bidding process for a certain number of bids – usually 25 or 50 at a time – specified on each item.

Your Bid Butler will place a bid for you at a random moment when the timer is between 1 and 10 seconds. Using a Bid Butler also helps you strategize and test the bidding pool to determine who you're up against.

You can recognize a Bid Butler by the icon that is displayed near the bid price. Records without icons represent single bids. If a Butler Brawl™ occurs, you will notice a distinct information block in the Bid History with results of the brawl.

To set up your Butler, click the "Bid Butler" tab next to "Bid History."

• Fill out min price and max price to set the price range you want your Butler to be active within.
• Fill out max bids to choose the maximum number of bids you are willing to use for this butler.
• For a very fast, instant setup of your bid butler, click on the button. This will automatically fill out your bid butler form with the maximum allowed settings but it will not be saved or activated until you manually click the save button.
• Click when you are satisfied with the Butler settings.

By clicking the "pop out" button at the bottom of the bid window, you can view the bid history in a separate window so you can watch the bidding occur while keeping an eye on your butler.

Butler Brawls™ occur when two or more bid butlers are active at the same time. At a random moment when the timer is between 1 and 10 seconds, all active butlers will engage in a "brawl." Bids are placed from all butlers simultaneously. Whichever butler has more bids becomes the winner of the brawl, and that user is set as the current high bidder.

After a brawl, the auction price will increase by one penny for each bid placed, and the timer will reset to 2 minutes. In the event there is a tie and multiple butlers are brawling with the same number of bids, the user who becomes high bidder is chosen at random. There are many strategies on how to utilize your bid butler to feel out your competition and increase your chances of winning.

Example 1: User1 has a butler set for 10 bids. User2 has a butler set for 19 bids.

During a Butler Brawl™, User1 will place 10 bids and User2 will place 11, just enough to beat User1’s 10 bids. The auction price will increase by $0.21, the timer will increase to 2 minutes, and User2 (the new high bidder) will still have 8 bids left in his active butler.

Example 2: User1 has a butler set for 15 bids. User2 has a butler set for 15 bids. User3 has a butler set for 15 bids.

When the brawl occurs, each butler will place their 15 bids simultaneously and a high bidder will be chosen at random between User1, User2, and User3.

In the bid history box, you will notice a distinct block of information dedicated to the Butler Brawl. If you click the link on the number of butlers (such as "2 butlers threw down") the details of the brawl will pop out.

Users are allowed to set multiple Bid Butlers throughout the course of an auction. However, it is important to understand that only one Bid Butler can be set at any given time. This is referred to as the active Bid Butler. Your active Bid Butler will only end with one of the following events:

1. The timer runs out and you win the auction
2. Your bid butler runs out of available bids
3. Your account runs out of available bids
4. The auction price reaches the max auction price threshold you set for your bid butler
5. You manually delete your active Bid Butler

You may set a Bid Butler at any time, provided that you do not already have an active Bid Butler for that particular auction.

Checkout

If you are the last bidder when the timer runs out, then the item is yours. To complete your purchase of the auction item, simply click on "My Dashboard" at the top of the page, then "Won Auctions" on the left-hand side. From here you will see a list of all auction items you have won in the past, as well as recently won auction items waiting to be purchased. Find the item you just won, and click the "Pay" link. This will direct you to a payment page where you can fill out your payment information with CCBill. You will have seven days to claim your won auction item before it expires.

GankIt™ to buy it

Overview

On every product page, you will find the "buy-it-now" GankIt price on the right hand side. If you don't want to bid in the auction, you can still get great deals without worrying about bids or timers. The GankIt price ticks down by $0.10 for each bid placed on the auction side, and with a single click, the item is yours.

To view a list of recently "ganked" items, click the Ganked Items tab in the black navigation bar above.

This section of GankIt 101 will only discuss the GankIt price. To find out what is happening on the other side, check out Bid To Win It.

*Note: the timers shown in the video do not necessarily represent the actual timers on GankIt.com

The GankIt™ Price

Let’s say participating in the auction side is not for you. You just want to buy an item at its current GankIt Price. Great! It’s as simple as click, buy.

The GankIt price begins at the retail price and decreases throughout the duration of the auction until someone ganks it (purchases the item). Here's how it works in more detail:

With every bid placed on the auction side, the GankIt price is reduced by $0.10.

Example: An iPod Touch retails for $399.00. After 400 bids have been placed in the auction, the GankIt price is $40 less than the MSRP. Simply click GankIt to buy it.

Here's the math! 400 bids × $0.10 discount per bid = $40 discount

What if another user ganks it first? No problem! Let's say you have your eye on an iPod. You are watching the GankIt price tick down, but other users are watching it as well. At any time, a different user might click GankIt and get the item for the current GankIt price.

If that happens, another iPod is available for purchase from the same page, starting at the retail price and decreasing. When this iPod is ganked, yet another one is available again. The cycle continues until the auction on the left-hand column closes when the timer runs out.

Be sure to note the GankIt Fee which is added to each item's GankIt price upon checkout. The GankIt Fee is a set percentage of the product MSRP that helps GankIt.com cover applicable taxes and fees.

GankIt Stats

To give our users insight as to the value of a particular item, each product page has specific statistics about that item's history on GankIt.com.

In the GankIt Ticker box, you can see how many ganks have occured during this auction, what the average GankIt price is, and what the average savings are. You can also see details about the Last Gank to give you an idea of how popular an item is and how much people are willing to pay for it.

In the Statistics tab, next to Gank History, you can see all the stats for this auction and the product's lifetime. These statistics will help you strategize and decide when to gank it.

Over time, the Average GankIt price will indicate what the item is worth in the collective GankIt Marketplace. Gankonomics™ anyone?

Last Call

Last Call does not mean run to the bar and buy a drink. Last Call is where products go when the auction ends. During the auction, all bids placed reduce the GankIt price by $0.25 each, so when the auction ends, we don't want these savings to disappear.

As soon as the auction timer reaches zero, there will be one final item available to be ganked for the next 30 days. The price is set at whatever the GankIt price is when the auction ends.

Example: An auction for a $399 iPod Touch ended, and when the timer hit zero, the GankIt price had dropped to $312. Anyone can purchase this iPod for $312 within the next 30 days from the Last Call section. If no one purchases the item within 30 days, the deal will expire.

Checkout

After you click GankIt, the page will redirect you to a payment page for the item you just ganked. You will have two minutes to complete your purchase, or someone else will be given the opportunity to gank that item. From the payment page, you can fill out your payment and shipping information or store it with GrayPay, Inc. for faster purchases in the future.

If you happen to navigate away from the payment page before you finish checking out, you can click "My Dashboard" at the top of the page, and then "Pending Ganks." From there, you can find your item and click the "Pay" link to complete the checkout process.