Tips and Best Practices for a Gala Auction with Mobile Bidding

Note:  this article was written for events where bidding on "silent auction items" is restricted to ticketed guests present at the gala.   If your event  includes online bidding from home - reset your dashboard event type to reflect online/virtual and in person attendance and select:  Gala Auction with online and mobile bidding.

This style of event has all of the attributes of a Gala auction except bids on silent items are placed on smartphones instead of paper bid sheets.    Bid paddles are raised for the Live Auction bidding/special appeal (if any).      

Mobile bidding is popular for low-touch, in-person events and for organizations that wish to reduce the paper involved in a typical silent gala auction.

Virtually all of the tips for Gala auctions, including silent auctions, are still pertinent and can be found here.  This article focuses on tips specific to the mobile bidding portion of your event.

Best Practices and Tips

  • Verify that your venue can support mobile bidding in advance!  Best Practice: If Cellular Signals are consistently strong, prioritize Wi-Fi usage for your staff/volunteers, and have your guests use cellular networks. This prevents guest usage from potentially overloading the Wi-Fi network and interfering with your Auction management.
  • If you are displaying silent/mobile items on more than one table - best practice is to stagger the closing times by 15 minutes.   Because bidding is most active in the final minutes - it can be hard to react to outbid notifications quickly enough for bidders trying to win many items.   Dividing tables into separate closings allows bidders to focus on fewer items during the last frantic minutes of each closing - ensuring they don't have to "triage" the items they most want to win.
  • For ticketed events:  enable auto-invite at check-in to ensure each guest has a fresh invite at the top of their inbox once they check-in.   If you are using self-check-in, enable the "Direct Guests to Online/Mobile Bidding after check-in" setting so they can begin to browse (and bid) right away.
  • For non-ticketed/no check-in events:  Bidders must be signed in to their account to place online bids.  The software provides QR codes for the Signup page, Catalog, and Individual items.  While it sounds like a good idea to display a Poster with the QR code to the Signup page at entrances, best practice is to display the QR codes on individual item description sheets only.   Asking folks to sign up before browsing is a hurdle/bottleneck to participation.   It's easier and more fun for people to head straight to the items to browse.   When they find something they want to bid on - they can scan it and use the Signup button on the item to create/access their account and start bidding.
  • Choose the right bidding style for your event:   Quick Bids (single bid buttons) are best when the bidding period is limited to a few hours and participants are focused on bidding because they encourage - and require - active participation.    Max bids (ebay style automated bidding) are best when bidding takes place over multiple days and/or bidders are distracted. Other options include Enter an Amount (bidders may enter custom bid amounts) and Combination (bidders may enter an amount or place a Max bid). (Note that Combination bidding allows bidders to outbid themselves.)
  • Whichever bid style you opt for - make sure you enable the extended bidding option - which will automatically extend bidding on items receiving bids in the final minutes - ensuring that all bids are captured.
  • Plan for - and train your event night team how to handle the unexpected:  placing proxy bids for guests that need assistance, providing access if a user can't find an invitation, knowing how to extend a closing time if necessary.
  • Bidding can get off to a slow start for many reasons - traffic hold-ups, check-in or bar lines, guests arrive "fashionably late",  guests prioritize socializing  - it happens!    If you think you may need to extend the bidding period to reach your goals - just do it.  Don't wait and hope things pick up - waiting until the last moment just creates chaos and confusion and potentially, resentment.

Things to consider or avoid:

  • Don't use mobile bidding only because it seems "easier" to have closing times and items awarded "automatically" - yes, you'll save an hour or two of (simple) data entry on event night - but that is unlikely to justify the extra complexity of configuring the "automation" and/or explaining it to your guests.
  • Don’t keep your online silent items open during your live auction. You wouldn’t keep silent paper bidding items open and allow people to wander away from your live auction, and you shouldn’t allow for that with mobile bidding items either. Closing your silent items prior to the start of your live auction keeps your guests focused on the main event. 
  • Rather than sending winning bid notifications to each item winner, turn off that setting and wait until the end of the evening to send your guests an invitation to self checkout. This will allow people to review and pay for their purchases all at once.