Closing Online/Mobile Bidding and Awarding Items

There are 5 elements to closing-out your online/mobile auction:

  1. Close Bidding (dictated by the online bidding groups you've set up)
  2. Award Items to High Bidders (differs slightly based on your selected setting: A: with Confirmation Step (recommended) or B: Auto-Award without confirming.)
  3. Review and  Award items requiring Manual Award (if necessary).
  4. Notify Winners and Request Payment
  5. Option to Bulk Process Credit Cards

During your event, the best place to confirm/edit your current settings and manage closing times is your Online Bidding Dashboard.

1. To Close or Extend Bidding:

Bidding will be be halted automatically at the closing time specified for the online bidding group (unless you have the extended bidding option enabled to capture last minute bids).

  1. If you need to adjust the closing date/time of a bidding group, use the edit icon next to the desired online bidding group - this will automatically update all of the items assigned to the group. 

    (Note: Bidding is halted at the time specified within a Bidding Group and can be viewed on the under Online Bidding Groups > under the Closes column)
     
  2. If you need to adjust the closing times of some, but not all, items within a group, Go the Catalog and reassign items to another bidding group with the desired closing time. These edits can be done individually or via bulk item edits.
     
  3. If you need to extend bidding at the last moment - the fastest way to do so is to use the Extend Bidding link provided on the Online Bidding Dashboard - and choose a preset # of minutes to extend the bidding.

2A.   Award Items to High Bidders using Recommended Confirmation Setting: 

Using the recommended, default award setting, once bidding closes - you must trigger/approve the awarding of items to place them in winner's carts.

As each bidding group closes - a pop-up window will appear on the Online Bidding Dashboard. Click the desired button to Award Items or to Re-Open Bidding. 

If any items require manual awarding, links are provided to review the bids placed and award to the chosen winner(s). (See section 3. Manually Award Items (if necessary))

2B.  Auto-Award:

If you have the Auto-Award setting enabled, the award process will begin as soon as each online bidding group closes.

Note: the Auto-award process is NOT as fast as manually triggering the award function as it involves validation routines and a server refresh - and can take 2-10 minutes to move all items into winners carts.  

During the Award Process - the banners on catalog items will update from Bid Now to Bidding Closed - Processing to Item Awarded (or Item Unsold).

3.  Manually Award Items (if necessary):

Certain types of online, silent items require manual awarding because they are not always awarded to the highest online bid(s) received:

  • Items with multiple quantity, awarded to Highest X bids. The list of the top X bidders many include the same bidder more than once - either because the bidder was attempting to win more than one or because they increased their bid preemptively to ensure they remained in the top X during the final minutes of bidding.
  • Items with Secret/Closed bidding
  • Items set-up for online pre-bidding, with high online bids transferring to paper bids at a gala.

If there are items needing to be awarded manually, a green "Action Needed:  Award Items" button will display for chair users at the top of the Catalog and Orders page, dashboard and auction night flow-chart as well as the online bidding dashboard:

4.  Notify Winners and Request Payment:

How you to choose to notify winners depends on the type of event and personal preference:

  1. Gala events with mobile bidding most often disable the automatic notifications and instead opt to notify winners via a single emailed invitation to self check out. Invitations to self check-out can also be sent to winners that are not present at the gala. Instructions for set up.
  2. Online Auctions, where bidders are geographically dispersed, generally opt to "Send an email notification when an item is awarded". This automated process will send a separate email notification for each item with a link to pay for all items in their cart. Instructions for set up.
  3. You also have an option of including a QR code on bidder paddles and/or a shopping cart icon on the mobile toolbar. Once items have been awarded, you can simply make announcements to the audience to scan the QR code or to click on the Cart icon on their phones to view and pay for their items. Some chairs prefer to always display the cart icon, others prefer to enable it once items are awarded (to discourage folks from paying from fixed price or buy now price purchases each time something lands in their cart).
  4. You can verify/edit your settings and/or send Invitations to Self Check-Out from the Online Bidding Dashboard:

5.  Option to Bulk Process Credit Cards:

Acorn, Plus, and Professional subscribers have the option to bulk process payments on orders with stored cards from the Online Bidding Dashboard (see red button above), Auction Night Check-out or the Orders page.

Best practice is to give your guests an opportunity to review their carts and submit payment before resorting to bulk processing because:

  • it's easier to correct errors in a cart before a payment is applied
  • individual check-out provides an opportunity to "round up my bill" or make a Last Ask donation
  • it allows guests to opt in (or out) of offsetting cc processing fees. Bulk processing will allow you to force the inclusion of offset fees - but it's an either/or decision - either everyone is charged offset fees or no one is.