Bid Wars: Pawn Empire Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Win Storage Auctions and Make a Truckload of Money

Welcome to storage auctions where participants mostly seek vintage items or antiques. They would gather around storage units to buy off any items that might have been abandoned for years. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. From TV shows like Storage Wars, Pawn Stars, or The Pickers, Brazilian game developer Tapps Games unleashes their sequel to their well-received auction-themed mobile game.

Because you’re here, you might have played Bid Wars: Storage Auction Game, maybe Tapps Games’ other titles such as Money Tree or Vlogger Go Viral, or perhaps you’ve just picked this one up and you’re a little bit lost. Strap yourself in, because we’re about to go places here in Bid Wars: Pawn Empire.

You’ve come from a run-down neighborhood and you’re out there to make a name for yourself as the king or queen of pawning. You’re first out to conquer the United States, visiting various cities all across the country. But this is only a stepping stone on your path to riches and fame.

If you’ve picked this game up and you’ve got that thirst for selling only the best of the best, then you’ve come to the right place. Read our Bid Wars: Pawn Empire guide below and you, too, will be swimming in cash!

1. Watch Those Ads For Goodies

You’ve seen them before, you’ll see them again. Ads!

Love them or hate them, ads are one way a developer could ensure a steady flow of income to their game. Using sponsored advertisements, the developers of the game can still earn from free-to-play players aside from the regular earnings they gain from microtransactions. In this case, Bid Wars: Pawn Empire has ads every other place in the game and those who watch them can benefit from these immersion breakers.

For one, while you are in your neighborhood, there is a flashing sign on the upper right portion of the screen. Tapping this will allow you to watch an ad for 3 Gold Bars. This sign comes up every so take advantage of it whenever it is present.

Sometimes, Mr. Goldblum of the cash shop offers you to watch an ad to gain a Boot for your auctions. This, along with other items such as the Calculator and the Taunt, can be used to make your wins more consistent. However so far, he only offers Boots that you can use to kick out a competing bidder.

You can also watch ads to gain a free spin at the end of each auction. With the free spin, you can gain a small sum of extra cash aside from the other profits you’ll make from selling the stuff that won’t fit in your inventory or car.

After which, Mutt, a neighborhood businessman of questionable reputation, will also offer to sell the remainder of the stuff that you won. If you aren’t going to spend your Gold Bars (which you shouldn’t and we will tell you why in a while), watch an ad instead so you get a decent profit from the sales.

Lastly, you can use ads to open up a special safe unlocking slot. This slot opens twice as fast as the others and it will be occupied by the next safe that you claim in an auction. Using this could allow you to open up more safes within a day since these take so long to open.

Most of the time these functions offer you the choice of spending Gold Bars. Let’s not beat around the bush and say that not all of it is worth it.

2. Spend Your Gold Bars With Caution

Bid Wars: Pawn Empire really has a way of roping you into spending Gold Bars at times. If it’s something you don’t need right now and it can wait, then don’t spend your Bars.

Let’s go back to the safe opening, for example. You will be given the choice to spend on Gold Bars to open them up immediately. If all safe slots are full during an auction and you find another safe, it’ll do the same except your other choice is to forfeit the safe.

When you put items up for sale, you are given the choice to wait out new offers or get a new one with the use of Gold Bars. This is also impractical. It’s better for you to wait your offers out instead of getting them right then and there.

The only things you should spend your Gold Bars on are upgrades and special auctions. Upgrades will help you progress smoother in the long run with allowance. For instance, extra space in your car means more opportunities to sell things from your inventory, regardless of what they might be. Store slots will also help you sell more items at once without having to spend for in-game VIP. You may also spend your gold bars on entering special auctions that can net you some really rare finds.

Special auctions are especially important since some of these are integral to your progress in the story. Having a shortage on Gold Bars whilst trying to attempt any of these is a pain thus saving up on them is really important.

Ultimately, spending your Gold Bars is completely at your discretion and these can be earned by following the story (more on this later). However, let’s turn our eyes first to the main currency of the game and how you can win auctions with enough of it in your wallet.

3. Work With Your Budget

Each auction you choose to participate in requires you to have a certain amount of money. This would be your budget. Naturally, if you are at an excess, you won’t have to worry so much about this. If you have almost the same exact amount needed to participate, this is what makes the auction way more exciting.

If you think you couldn’t buy out the storage unit, don’t push your wallet to the limit. You’re here to make money, not lose it. It’s better to break even than to be broke, so to speak.

The goal of the auction isn’t to buy out all storage units, but to buy out the storage units with the least amount spent. Sure, if you can buy out the remaining storage units without suffering crippling financial loss, then go for it. In the end, you have to make off with the money you spent during the auction.

Which is why as soon as that storage unit opens, you should…

4. Estimate The Price First

When the lock comes off, a war begins and you’ll be fighting it.

The best way to win it is to assess the cost of the entire storage unit by tapping on each and every item inside as much as you can. You’ll get to see an estimate and it’s these that you have to total in your head. For example, after seeing how much each item might cost, tell yourself: “$800 at most”. This is the price you should aim for.

Estimating the price can really give you an edge during an auction considering that it’ll keep you from spending too much money. With the items you make off (or the items you don’t bring home), you’ll be making more than you spent instead of catching up on your debts.

If the storage nears the price that you estimated, slow your bids down and try to win it. This is a technique you will learn in the next bullet.

5. Bid Early To Make Opponents Lose, Bid Late To Win

Bidding is the act of calling out a price offered by an auctioneer. Each bid can be raised as the auction progresses.

But the real question here is when should you bid and when should you hold back?

Bidding early will skyrocket the price of the storage unit. This is useful if you do not want the storage unit itself and prefer that someone else buys it (probably losing their money in the process). As you bid, remember not to press the Pass button because the auctioneer will sell the unit at a low, low price giving you a greater chance at finishing dead last.

Bidding late could often give you the chance to actually win the unit. After successfully estimating the price (or using the Calculator Powerup), wait until the unit’s price reaches your estimate, or close to it, and that is when you start bidding. Finishing more or less than the estimated price is your goal and not to buy out the unit with an extravagant amount of money.

But which storage units should you give a hard pass to and which ones should you buy out?

6. Antiques, Safes, And Rare Findings Are Best

A bust of Anubis? A samurai helmet? Antiquated prosthetics or even a lost idol?

Look out for the unusual and you might just hit the jackpot. There is a caveat to these items: you won’t be given an estimated price after tapping any of them so it’s up to you to figure it out yourself. Be warned that most storage units keep boxes, bags, and containers inside.

Much like antiques and relics, these are things with inestimable prices and it’s entirely your call if you’re fancying a gamble. Otherwise, if it’s something you haven’t seen before or if it’s something historic or out of the ordinary, don’t think twice about trying to buy it out.

Safes are much like the aforementioned containers. The big difference here is that safes often contain something much more valuable than the junk that some of the other nondescript containers might hold. Safes take time to open, though, so be sure to at least have them processed for opening while you’re out buying new stuff.

Of course, antiques or rare finds are best appraised first before they are sold. Certifying them at the community college before selling them will get you an even greater boost in sales, especially if they’re the real deal. You can identify these items that need appraisal if they have a magnifying glass with an exclamation point on the lower right corner of their graphic.

After winning all sorts of cool swag from the auction, you’d want more, right? One interesting way to get more stuff without attending an auction is to negotiate with clients.

7. Try Bargaining With Clients For More Items To Sell

At one point, you should be able to unlock the clients desk of your pawn shop. This is where people from all over the city will try to sell you something.

The key here is to estimate the price of an object and buy it off of them with minimal expense. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and sometimes you’ll get swindled. To avoid being swindled, try to remember the prices of some objects in the game or try offering to buy the item off of them for half the price. If that fails, make a list of these objects (physical or otherwise) in order to successfully buy out items from your clients.

If you suggest a price way too low, they will get annoyed and suggest a price slightly higher than what you suggested. Eventually, if you tick them off enough, they’ll give you an ultimatum. If you’re willing to shoulder the profit margin (if you know you’re paying for more than it’s worth), then go ahead. Otherwise, dismiss them and have them come back again another day.

With a healthy flow of items, you’d best watch your inventory capacity. You wouldn’t want that filling up!

8. Do Not Fill Your Inventory

A full inventory is usually a bad sign in almost any game. In Bid Wars: Pawn Empire, it means that you aren’t selling enough.

With every auction you attend, every client you buy from, every exchange you make with Mutt, your inventory is sure to fill up. This neither is necessarily a good thing nor is it a bad thing.

On one hand, you have a lot on your hands to sell and make money off of, on the other, you can’t take anything home from any future auctions you attend, so pay attention to your inventory counter. There is a way to lower that count, however.

Declutter your inventory of the majority of your items by selling them in ascending order. What we mean here is sell them from the most common up to the most rare. You’ll want to do this because common items sell much more quickly than rarer ones. If you really think about it, someone is going to need that surveillance camera but nobody will immediately buy that statue of Horus.

While actively selling out your stuff is a great way to earn money, there is a way you can earn passive income as well.

9. Buy Tenant Housing

You might own the best pawn shop in town, but you could also sideline as a landlord/lady!

As you level up and progress through the game, some of the run-down houses in the neighborhood will be open for renovation. After renovating them, they can be occupied by tenants who will pay you rent after a period of time has passed.

This encompasses the time you spend playing the game as well as the time you might be doing something else. Coming back to this game after an hour or two should give you some good rent money!

There is one final way to earn Gold Bars and more money and this one could be the most enjoyable depending on you as the player.

10. Try Following The Story And Sidequests

Bid Wars: Pawn Empire has a story?!

Indeed, it does! And a story wrapped in a web of intrigue, too! The story focuses on Mutt and why he is notorious or a bad influence to you as the new pawn shop owner of the town. With each mission you complete, a new plot point is revealed to you (we’ll keep it at that so as not to give the whole plot away). Aside from that, you are given rewards in the form of Gold Bars and cash.

Supplementing the main story are sidequests that you unlock after reaching Chapter 2 in the story. These sidequests reward you with similar items but can also get quite interesting since each item requested tells a story. These sidequests don’t seem to overshadow the main story but still make for some interesting drama and mystery.

For example, a man could ask for an old penguin plush that he might have left somewhere in Miami and it’s your task to save it. Or you could be given a task to win an auction or two in Las Vegas to help spruce up the community college.

Going once, going twice, and sold to the highest bidder! That’s all for Bid Wars: Pawn Empire. If you’ve got any tips of your own that can help other would-be pawn stars or anything that we might have missed out in our guide, be sure to leave them in the comment section below!