Dawdle Blog

Because outdoor lines and screaming children suck

OK, we've got a Wii.  And we're giving it away - FREE - to one of our members.  All you have to do is list stuff for sale on Dawdle.  Every time you list something, BAM, you're entered to win the Wii.  List ten things, BOOM, ten entries.  There's no form, no coupon code, nothing.  It's automagic.  The giveaway entries end at 11:59pm CT on December 14.  You can learn more here or you can just start Dawdling!

And, yes, we have them for sale for those of you too anxious to wait until we draw on the 15th.  You'll note that our selling prices have tended to be lower than some of those other sites - so get your bids up now, before more people flood Dawdle with their bids.

"Right on! Now, what the hell is Dawdle?"

So, perhaps you saw this image on the Child's Play website, decided to click it, and were magically whisked away to Dawdle. Then maybe you were thinking "what is this Dawdle thing?" and decided to click on the Blog link.  Welcome.  Sit down, have a drink, and be merry.

First, Dawdle is proud to be a corporate sponsor for Child's Play.  We're a site by gamers, for gamers, and in this Holiday season, we wanted to support the gamers' charity.

As to what we do and how we're different: Dawdle is a totally new way for gamers to buy and sell video games, systems, and accessories with each other. We're not an auction site, a trading site, or a classifieds site.  On Dawdle, we use what we call our Intelligent Matching Engine to put together buyers and sellers. 

What this means is that you can tell us what you want to buy before someone has listed it for sale.  Because we match buyers and sellers, if we know what you want and what you're willing to pay, we can match you up with a seller who comes to Dawdle three days later.  Instead of bidding on an auction that ends in a week, you're bidding on every single listing for sale for that week (or month or whatever you choose). 

Basically, buyers come and tell us what they want and their best price and sellers come and tell us what they have and their minimum selling price.  Dawdle does all the rest, and if there's a match to be made,  we put the buyer and the seller together, charge the buyer's credit card (then and only then), and both sides get an e-mail saying the item's been sold. 

It's a really simple way for people to buy and sell stuff without having to jump through a bunch of hoops - or having to walk into one of those terrible, terrible stores (Who Must Not Be Named).

You can read why we started Dawdle here, and feel free to comment here or drop us a line.  We'd love to hear from you.

The first step on Dawdle

So you want a DS Lite.  It's really easy to place a bid on Dawdle to let us know exactly what you want.

First, find what you want in our database.  You can use the search bar or you can browse through our platforms.

Then, just go through our simple 1, 2, 3 process:
1. Select Your Criteria
2. Review Price History
3. Submit Your Price

We'll keep looking for what you want for as long as you told us to (what you picked under Ending). 

On Dawdle, you can tell us you want something even if there aren't any listings just yet by placing what we call an Open Bid.  Unlike any other site, you don't have to come back to Dawdle over and over again to see if someone's listed what you want.  When you place an Open Bid, we do all of those revisits for you by continuously looking for listings that match. 

Just tell us what you want up front and we'll keep looking to find you a find (sorry) and make you a match.  When we catch you a catch (sorry again), we'll charge your credit card automatically and send you an e-mail to let you know that it's on the way!

Welcome to Dawdle!

Thanks for coming to Dawdle.  We've been busy little chipmunks to get up and running, and we're proud to have built the best marketplace for people to buy and sell their video games, game systems, and accessories online.

We wanted to highlight a few things we're particularly proud of:

• Search.  We've done a lot of work to make searching for your item as easy as possible and to get results to be as good as possible.  We've put some example searches underneath every search bar, so you can get a feel for what kind of searches work best.  Of course, you can still browse around if you want a more leisurely experience, but we make it easy to get in, do your thing, and get out.
• Our Product Pages.  This is where the magic happens - you can use our easy 1, 2, 3 step process to submit a bid.  Your bid is good on every single listing between when you place your bid and when it expires.  You don't have to come back over and over again to see if someone has it for sale.  Plus, it's easy to list an item to sell from here - just click on the big green button on the upper right of every Product Page.
• Our matching process.  When you tell us what you want (or have), we don't just search for exact matches.  We search for exact matches or better.  Better meaning better condition, higher seller rating, or a higher bid (if you're a seller).  And when we make a match between a bid and a seller's listing, we complete the transaction automatically.  This way, sellers get paid faster, so buyers get their stuff faster.  Our matching process means you'll never get sniped and you'll never have any unexpected shipping charges.
• MyDawdle. The Summary page includes a feed of all of your activity in reverse chronological order, just like an RSS or Facebook feed. You can easily jump around and see all of your activity and edit or remove your bids or listings at any time.
• Security.  We work hard to protect your info.  We've gone the extra mile for VeriSign's Extended Validation SSL certificate.  If you have IE 7 or the Firefox extension installed, your address bar will turn green on every secure page to show that you're on our servers.  We also use Yahoo! DomainKeys to sign our notification e-mails, so you know that e-mails that look like they're from us actually are from us.  (We're also particularly proud of the fact that our automated HTML e-mails render pretty nicely on BlackBerries.)  We're also a TRUSTe licensee, so you know that our Privacy Policy is up to snuff.

We've tried hard to make it simple to list items for sale and to bid on listings, so take a look around and let us know what you think.  We'll be on all the major forums, such as CAG and NeoGAF (that way you know we're not censoring anything) and we'll be pretty active on the blog.

Again, welcome, and Happy Dawdling!

Cheers,
The Dawdle Team