You can’t buy much with a penny anymore, but on a new online auction site, one more cent might be all you need to be the top bidder. Online auction site, Dibzees!, was started by a University of Iowa student, a UI alumnus and an ISU alumnus in September 2009. The site is great for students who are on a pretty slim budget but looking to buy hot entertainment items, co-creator Andrew Wright said. The site includes auctions for Amazon Kindles, iPod shuffles, Nintendo Wiis, makeup kits and a variety of nationwide gift cards, including Target, Walmart, Starbucks and Bed Bath & Beyond.

Whenever someone places a bid, it adds a cent and 15 seconds to the clock, Wright said. It costs the bidder 50 cents for each bid placed. The action generally comes right at the end.

“Basically, the customer decides when the auction is going to end,” said Wright, who graduated from UI in 2006. Wright started the company with Casey Everts and Robert Hu. “It is a lot of fun. It’s really intense as the timer is counting down,” Wright said. “It’s an edge of your seat experience for sure.”

The primary draw for the site is its entertainment value, said Everts, a UI senior double majoring in finance and management who also is earning a certificate in entrepreneurship. “Whether you win or not is in your hands,” Everts said.

Presently, Dibzees! offers six auctions a day, ending between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. each day. As the site has gotten more traffic, they’ve added more auctions, Wright said. Their target audience is college students and women. “We think there’s a huge group out there for mothers and women in general,” he said. “Generally, women like buying online and if they can get things at a discount, why wouldn’t they?”

The John Pappajohn Iowa Business Plan Competition recently awarded the company $5,000 in investment seed money.

“The penny auction industry is getting big and I strongly believe it is going to be the next hot thing out there,” Everts said.