In the wake of the Zeek Rewards Ponzi scheme being shut down by the SEC, rival penny auction Bidify almost immediately shut down their own similar Ponzi points compensation plan announcing that they’d be bringing out a more “traditional” MLM focused plan shortly.

A few days later Bidify relaunched with what I’m calling v2.0 of their compensation plan. In a nutshell, the Ponzi points were gone and in its place a stock standard unilevel commissions structure which paid out residual commissions on the sale of bids.

Other than some cruises, there was little else to it. With the SEC having shed light on suspicions that the former largest MLM penny auction in the world was unable to attract significant retail customers, Bidify was probably not going to fare too well down the track.

Indeed, just a few days ago I wrote:

I’d strongly suggest any change in Bidify’s compensation over the next few weeks would be an indication that a MLM penny auction relying on the sale of bids to customers isn’t really viable.

Three days later and here we are with the Bidify compensation plan v3.0.

So what’s changed?

The unilevel residual commissions structure that pays out down 8 levels, along with Personal Volume (PV) requirements that were launched in v2.0 of the Bidify compensation plan are still there.

The joining fee has been increased from 25 Euros to 50 Euros, with the monthly membership fee remaining at 25 Euros a month.

The major addition however is the introduction of Bidify membership ranks and bid packages affiliates are able to purchase upon joining the company.

Bidify Membership Ranks

There are five membership ranks within the Bidify compensation plan and, along with their qualification requirements, they are as follows:

Qualified Affiliate

  • generate a minimum 25 PV a month

 

Team Trainer

  • generate a minimum 100 PV a month
  • personally recruit a minimum of 3 affiliates
  • personally recruit a minimum of 10 verified customers

 

Ambassador

  • generate a minimum 300 PV a month
  • personally recruit a minimum of 3 affiliates, 2 of which must be Team Trainers or higher
  • personally recruit a minimum of 15 verified customers

 

Ruby

  • generate a minimum of 500 PV a month
  • personally recruit a minimum of 5 affiliates, 2 of which must be Ambassadors or higher and 1 a Team Trainer or higher
  • personally recruit a minimum of 20 verified customers

 

Diamond

  • generate a minimum of 500 PV a month
  • personally recruit a minimum of 5 affiliates, 2 of which must be Rubies or higher and 1 an Ambassador or higher
  • personally recruit a minimum of 30 verified customers

Note that PV in the Bidify compensation plan is defined a bid sales volume an affiliate themselves purchase or that of their recruited customers.

One-Time Bonus Commissions

When an affiliate joins Bidify, they have the option of purchasing a one-time bid package, which in turn pays out a one-time bonus commission.

There are five bid packages available –

  • Bidify Starter (100 Euros) – 230 Bidsson bids (generates 100 PV)
  • Bidify Premium (250 Euros) 550 Bidsson bids (generates 250 PV)
  • Bidify Builder (500 Euros) – 1100 Bidsson bids (generates 500 PV)
  • Bidify Advantage (1000 Euros) – 2200 Bidsson bids (generates 1000 PV)
  • Bidify Professional (3000 Euros) – 7000 Bidsson bids (generates 3000 PV)

Affiliates earn commissions on one time bid packages purchased by affiliates, based on a sliding upline scale. The way this works is that upon the sale of a one-time affiliate bid package, the system pays out a fixed commission to the recruiting affiliate, their immediate upline and the 1st Team Trainer, Ambassador, Ruby and Diamond members found in their upline.

The percentage breakdown paid out in commissions for one-time affiliate bid purchases is as follows:

  • recruiting affiliate – 32%
  • direct upline – 6%
  • 1st Team Trainer – 3%
  • 1st Ambassador – 3%
  • 1st Ruby – 3%
  • 1st Diamond – 3%

This equates to the following payouts in Euros:

  • Starter Package – 32% = 32 Euros, 6% = 6 Euros, 3% = 3 Euros
  • Premium Package – 32% = 80 Euros, 6% = 15 Euros, 3% = 7.5 Euros
  • Builder Package – 32% = 160 Euros, 6% = 30 Euros, 3% = 15 Euros
  • Advantage Package – 32% = 320 Euros, 6% = 60 Euros, 3% = 30 Euros
  • Professional Package – 32% = 960 Euros, 6% = 180 Euros, 3% = 90 Euros

Note that if a higher ranked affiliate is found in the upline, they receive their ranked commission as well as all commissions under them.

Eg. If a Ruby Affiliate is found after the direct upline, they receive the Ruby, Ambassador and Team Trainer commissions.

Leadership Bonus Pool

Operating I believe separately to the “Ponzi points” affiliate pool (made up of 50% of the Bidsson auction revenue), Bidify’s new Leadership Pool consists of 5% of the global bid package sales made by affiliates.

Shares in the pool are decided by membership rank:

  • Ambassador – 1 share
  • Ruby – 3 shares
  • Diamond – 6 shares

Note that shares are stackable, meaning a total of 10 shares are achievable at the Diamond membership level.

Conclusion

With the unilevel residual commissions still keeping focus on the sale of bids, the new changes are obviously aimed more on the recruitment side of things.

With the way the one-time bid packages and commissions are structured, it’s clear the idea is to sign up new affiliates and get them to buy into a one-time bid package.

With the commissions trickling upline, no doubt increased marketing pressure will spur affiliate downlines to get their new affiliates to purchase bid packs.

Retail customer retention issues still exist as far as the unilevel goes (as pointed out in v2.0 of the compensation plan), and I’m not particularly sure what kind of affiliate the new additions are aimed at.

By and large as far as MLM penny auction affiliates go the consensus over thousands of comments in discussions on BehindMLM seems to be most affiliates can’t be bothered with the penny auctions.

Looking at v3.0 of Bidify’s compensation plan, they seem to be going after affiliates who would have an interest enough in the penny auctions to make that initial one-time bid package purchase (which would have to be pretty strong interest to warrant a 3000 Euro purchase for nothing more than bids).

Having seen the Zeek Rewards bid figures, particularly the 3 billion VIP point number (points = bids), and that only 0.25% of bids were actually used on auctions with an attached Ponzi investment scheme, I still have my reservations about the viability of an MLM penny auction focused around the sale of bids.

One thing I’m not particularly keen on is the recruitment requirements built into the membership ranks.

It was quickly noted when Bidify released v2.0 of their compensation plan that they might struggle to attract affiliates due to the simplistic nature of the compensation plan.

From what I can see the only reason Bidify forces affiliates to recruit if they wish to advance membership ranks is the hope that newly recruited affiliates will purchase on-time bid packages to generate commissions. Otherwise why not just have requirements based on bid package sales volume?

That said, this does appear to be somewhat of a genuine attempt to restructure the MLM penny auction niche away from the Ponzi points style compensation plan and full credit to Bidify for that.

I’m only aware of one other MLM penny auction that’s launched with a bid sales focused compensation plan (One Penny More) and as of yet none of the MLM penny auctions in pre-launch have come forward with anything tangible (Global One simply abandoned their penny auction plans altogether).

Zeek Rewards was heavily praised for being trailblazers in the MLM penny auction niche and while they were the first to combine MLM with a penny auction, ultimately being a Ponzi scheme is was nothing new.

Bidify’s attempt at bids as a viable product is more like what they should have launched with, but whether or not it penny auction bids are viable as a stand-alone product remains to be seen.

In the meantime some recent comments by Bidify affiliates might shed some light on where things are currently at:

it’s a pretty pointless program now unless you’re a recruiter. I was doing ok before the changes, now I am making next to nothing from my 1500 leadership points, after monthly fees.

This is probably the situation that 95% of affiliates now find themselves in. Most cannot recruit, certainly not paying auction customers.

I don’t think any of my customers ever made a purchase, in Bidify or Zeek.

There was a very drastic decline in Founders Bonus since the compensation plan changed… it’s kinda disappointing and I feel that they have let us down.

Stay tuned.

 

Update 11th September, 2012 – After reading reports that Bidify’s Ponzi points global pool returns had dropped so low that members who had Ponzi points couldn’t even cover their monthly membership fees (25 EUR) and minimum PV (25 EUR) to earn, Bidify have just announced they’ve dropped the eligiblity requirement to paying the admin fee only.

This effectively means that those members who participated in the old Ponzi points investment scheme are now back to earning a passive investment (pay admin fee, do nothing, earn ROI on previously invested money).

Well, until the Ponzi points revenue share drops below paying out a ROI of less than 25 EUR a month – what happens then is anyone’s guess.