Over the last 10 months, the internet-fashion world has been completely overrun with “sample sale” sites.

…as we well know, because I fully support the idea! But, if you’ve seen the Event Calendar lately, you’ll get the impression either that a) I’m lazy, or b) there are so many sales on a weekly basis that it gets a little overwhelming. Jennifer knows the perils of the calendar… For 4 hours each Monday morning, when she asks how I’m doing, all I can respond with is “EVENT CALENDAR. D:”

While I fully plan to get that back up and running ASAP, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to tell you about a refreshing new type of sale site I was invited to check out last week: JoJolie.

Basically, if you smashed Gilt, eBay and Woot all together – you’d have JoJolie. The sales are based on bidding and strategy, as opposed to the first come, first served madness of a typical sale. They do one product per day, most often a designer handbag, and you purchase bids to try and snag a designer bag super cheap… And when I say “super cheap”… Well, you’ll see.

I was invited to participate in a trial run for a cute Marc Jacobs bag with a  bunch of other bloggers. I documented it for you guys, because I had a feeling my explanatory skills would fail me.

Jojolie sweetly gave us all 25 bids to play with during the auction. Typically, 25 bids would cost $18.75, which sounds like a lot for something intangible, but keep reading…

All the auctions start out at $1, which is awesome, and the bids only go up by one cent at a time, and they’re timed (one hour)! Each time someone bids, however, the auction time extends, so you have to watch out for that! It’s like a game.

So, the auction started and there was a natural awkward lapse of time where I’m sure everyone involved was e-looking around, uncomfortably, wondering who was going to make the first move…

Elizabeth (of White Lightning) did! After that, it was “Game On” and the bids were off… I was winning for a minute!

Did I really thing I’d last an hour at $1.04? No, but I honestly hoped. What can I say, I’m a romantic. And I certainly wasn’t going to stand idly by and let Geri or Elizabeth get that bag, damnit.

So I held the lead for a while… But not too long! The bids started coming in full force – I was glued to the screen. Literally about 5 inches away. I know, really bad for my eyes, but look at that bag!

The bids and time goes by so fast, I had to pop in to my account to see if I even had any bids left…

23 bids left. So I’ve used…. two. Okay, so math isn’t my strong point.

After many minutes and many bids, I decided it was time to quit whimpering and get back in there! I made my next bid:

Ha, back in the lead! Then I looked at the bidding history…

I totally sniped Jazzi! Sorry, girl! Fashion is a rough game sometimes, friends.

As the bids flew by, i started to examine the participants a little more (keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer, right?)

(Yes, they’re enemies when I could have a MBMJ bag for $1.14.)

(No, okay. I don’t really hate them. Jeez, ruin my joke.)

The silence was deafening, post-tweet. Naturally, my competition was hiding in the shadows, hoping to catch me off guard! I THINK NOT!

After the rest of my bids, and the rest of my hope… A winner finally emerged after a lengthy series of last-minute-snipes and time extensions.

Lilliana?! She came out of NOWHERE!!

She got a brand new, current, Marc By Marc Jacobs bag…

… for $2.10.

Two dollars.

And ten cents.
There’s really nothing more to say. Watch out for me on JoJolie.com, though, because I’m coming back with a vengeance.

NOTE: I’ve been contacted by a wonderful blogger, Barbara, and she’s written up a take on JoJolie that holds a lot of water! I wanted to throw the link up here because she does have a good point about the lack of transparency in JoJolie’s business model. Stay informed, and read her post on her blog, barbbarbbarb.

Technorati Tags: auction, bidding, Designer on the Cheap, handbags, jojolie, marc by marc jacobs, sample sale

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