There are a lot of strategies for "taking the gold" in a penny auction so to speak. It's those strategies that help bidders find success and avoid losing money on a regular basis when they start bidding on penny auctions.
Without a strategy, you're essentially just throwing money into the void and ditching your bids you might as well just light your money on fire because there's not much of a chance to win auctions. You can just keep clicking away on bids in hopes of winning the item. That kind of chaotic bidding just leads to a lot of people paying retail (or more) for the item they fought so desperately to win under discount.
One of the best strategies that veterans use to win auctions is the name. The username might not seem like much but when everyone is bidding on an item they watch the usernames of people flash across as the bids come in. You can use intimidation through the username to keep others from bidding on the item. Common names are things like "iwontquit" and "bid2theend".
Do names in penny auctions really give you an advantage? In some cases, very much so. Penny auctions are like a game, and in any game or competition involving multiple people you have to think about nerves, motivation and the psychology behind the bids.
When people take part in penny auctions and other pay-per-bid auctions they're constantly asking themselves "is this person bidding against going to keep it up? How far are they willing to go?"
If your user name suggests to other that you might be an aggressive bidder, you can use a little psychology to freak them out and fake/bluff them into walking a way or keep them from bidding at all. If you use a name like "nancyflowers" or "pinkystinky" I would feel compelled to continue bidding with confidence and just stick it out to the outcome. However if I were going up against some other bidders with names like "bidtank" "auctionwhale" "bulldozer" and "ialwayswin" I'd think twice about how I wanted to invest my bids.
Penny auctions are a game of skill along with a little chance thrown in. As such, there is a certain strategy to making sure you come out on top of the other competitors when you're "playing". If you set a game plan and you're willing to go the distance then there's a good chance you'll do well right out of the gate.