Run a Silent Auction

Setup your Silent Auction

Click Add Item to add a Silent Auction Item. On the popup window, leave the Purchase Options dropdown as Silent Auction Item as this is the default. Once you are in the Silent Auction Item mode, you will have options pertaining to Silent Auction items. Fill in the details of your auction item and click Save.

Please see below a detailed explanation of each field:

 

1) Item No: this is a system-generated and defaulted number; however, feel free to change it as is suitable for your event or organization. As long as the number is unique across any active auctions within your organization, it is yours to customize. This reference number is a unique identifier for your auction item and will need to be visible on your silent auction item because this is what bidders will use to bid on your item. This does not have to be a numeric reference; it can have letters as well.

2) Name: Basic name for your auction item. Should uniquely identify your item. Up to 50 characters.

3) Description: this will typically appear on your printout card and online when someone clicks on the item to view more detail. So make it count - provide exact details of what the winner will be getting if they win this item.

4) Category: You can choose to put your specific auction items into categories of your choice. Categories may be especially useful if you have a lot of auction items in your event. The guests/bidders will be able to choose certain categories to view and bid on instead of searching through all Auction items.

4) Est.Value: This is a way to entice bidders to go higher. It can effectively indicate the value the winner would be getting for this item as you accept bids.

5) Purchase Options

• Available for bidding: Turn this option on if you want to accept bids for this item. If you turn this off, then no bids will be accepted. If you turn on the Purchase Now option, then the item will only be purchasable out-right instead of available to be bid on.
• Min Bid: The minimum bid you are accepting as the bidding starts for this item. If you leave this blank, the system will accept any amount as a starting bid.
• Min Increment: The minimum amount by which a bidder can outbid an existing bid. e.g,. if you set this to $5, and the current highest bid is $100, someone would have to bid at least $105 to be the winning bidder. In this example, if you tried to bid $104, it would not be accepted as a valid bid. If you leave this blank, the system will assume $1 increments.
• Reserve Amount: The reserve amount indicates the minimum amount the organizer is willing to accept to award this item to the highest bidder.  This number can be optionally shown to bidders in order to entice higher bids. If bidders know a limit, they may be enticed to reach that limit in order to win this item. If you don't share this information with the bidders, then this field simply acts as a reference for you as you process the bids for items.
• Buy Now Price: Check the "Available For Purchase" option to allow anyone to purchase this item by skipping the bidding process and offering the Buy Now amount in the Buy Now price field.  If you have both bidding and Buy Now available, anyone who bids at or higher than the purchase price will automatically win the item and be notified.
• Access Options: For each Auction Item, Access Options include Not Visible to Guests, View Only, and Allow Bids or Purchase.
• Not Visible to Guests [default]: This is the default setting when you create a new item. This item will not be shown to any public or guests while in Hidden status.
• View Only: This is typically used for live auction items before opening them up for bids or in cases where you would like to preview the auction items for your guests before opening it up for bidding or purchasing.
• Allow Bids or Purchase: You would mark your items with this option when you are ready for the item to be activated for bidding.

5) More Options

• Winning Bidder Communication: This is an optional email and (if you've opted into Guest Messaging for your event) text that goes out to winning bidders. This email/text is commonly used to describe or provide information on the items' pick-up, delivery, or shipping. It can also provide an organizational representative's limitations, rules, or contact information.
• Additional Item Details (for internal use): These fields are optional and for internal organizational use only. Your bidders/guests will NOT see this information. You will see this information in reports that you pull from your Auction as individual columns.
  • Provided By & Provider Contact Info: If you enter a Provided By contact whose donor file is recognized by your BetterUnite account, the Contacts will show in a list from which you can choose the appropriate contact, or you can create a new contact.
  • Sales Tax Applicable: If this is checked, when the guest purchases or wins this item, you will see an indication in the guest's cart, and you will be able to add or bulk add the sales tax percentage.
  • Misc Information 1 and 2: This section is used as a general placeholder for any other specific information you'd like to track for this item. When you mouse over the “Misc Information 1” and 2, it will turn into a text box that you can edit. This is on a per item basis. You can edit the title of Misc Information 1 and 2. 

On the Auction Settings page, you can choose to show Highest Bidder Names or Items Provided By info or Misc Info 1  or 2. Or, if you don't wish to show any of this information, you can select None in the options below. 

Once you have added your Auction Item/s, you can upload images for each Auction Item by either clicking on Upload image or Edit Images, as shown below.

Once you are in the Add Image/Manage Images pop-up window, click on Add Image. You can add multiple images and choose which image you would like to put as your primary image.

You can also add images to your Auction items without having to leave the Add/Edit Auction Item pop-up window.

If you have added more than one image for your Auction Item, you can sort the order of these images anytime.  Click Manage Images -> Sort as shown in the below screenshot.

Drag the images to change the sort order and click Done Sorting.

Auction Actions and Quick Links

Actions Drop Down Menu provides many options for your Auction. This is the section you can create items categories, sort your Auction Items, Bulk Import Auction Items, Export your Auction Items, Print cards for your Auction Items which also include the QR codes for each item, Export the QR codes, Edit Permissions, Register Bidders, and also Bulk Award Auction Items which will give you the option to filter the items you want to Bulk Award. 

You can also change the Auction page Banner image by clicking on the Actions button and then selecting Auction Settings. See more details on how to change the Auction banner in the article "How to manage the auction page banner image". 

You can also navigate to a few useful links by clicking on Quick Links. When you click the Quick Links drop-down menu, you will see the options to Edit your Event, Edit Tickers, Export the fulfillment Report, and Message guests ( If you have enabled the text messaging option)

Before allowing your guests to View or Allow Bids or Purchase, you will need to activate your Silent Auction Items as shown below.

Bulk Update:

When you have many Auction Items to update, it is easier to Bulk Update these instead of updating each separately. To bulk update, all your Auction Items, click on Select All -> Bulk Update as shown below. This will allow you to change your Access options and the status of your Auction Items. You can also choose to uncheck some auction items to not include in this bulk update.

To Activate all your Auction Items, click Select All-> Bulk Update-> Status-> Activate as shown below. You can also put all your Auction Items on Hold through the Status option.

To change the Access options for all your Auction Items or for a group of Auction Items, click Select All->Bulk Update->Access Options and select Hidden, View Only or Can bid or Purchase to bulk update.

Running your Silent Auction

When you are holding Silent Auction,  you can view your silent auction items by clicking on Silent Auction Items, as shown below.

If you have hundreds of items, you can switch to compact view, which will show up as a table like below.

When you have uploaded all your Auction Items and are ready for your Silent Auction, click on the Draft option and select Activate Auction or simply click the Activate Option button below.

If you want to see what your Auction would look like for your guests, click View Auction on your Auction page.

The below image is what your guests would see once they click on Auction on your Event Landing page. They can then click on Register to Bid to participate in your Silent Auction.

Guest/Bidder Experience

Each guest is able to see all auction items on their unique guest page. The guests would need to pre-authorize their cards to participate if that option was chosen for this event. Once they enter their credit card details, they can start bidding on your Silent Auction Items.

When the guest decides which item to bid on, they can click on the item and start bidding, as shown in the image below.

When the guest clicks on the Bid button, the confirmation window below will appear, giving the guest the option to either bid the current asking amount or put in a custom bid amount. 

Once the guests enter a bid for the next asking price, their view would look like below with a confirmation pop window showing they are the highest bidder at that moment in time.

The highest new bid will be visible to the auctioneer as soon as the new bid comes in. The Auctioneer can also Log a bid on this window.

The guest can stay on this pop-up confirmation page, and as the current ask amount is increased automatically according to the increments that had been set, the page will refresh to display the next amount to bid.  If the current bidder is no longer the highest bidder, the page will also refresh and indicate that the current bidder is no longer winning this item.  As these variables change, the bidder will be displayed the appropriate information and options.  Bidders will also receive text messages when they are outbid on an item they bid on.

When the bidder places a winning bid for a particular ask, they will also have the ability to set a Max Bid amount.  This amount will not be made visible to anyone, and it will be automatically applied to the item when it's triggered. 

Awarding the Auction Item

Once your Auction is no longer needing to take in bids, you would need to End your Auction.

When you are finished with your Silent Auction and there are winners for your Auction Items, click the green Award Item. This will award the item to the highest bidder, notify the bidder and it will be added to the guest's shopping cart for charging later.

If you click the option Mark as Awarded from the drop-down list, you will get more options.  

On this pop-up window, you can decide to notify the bidder or uncheck the option so that the bidder does not get notified, and if the bidder has not registered a card, the 2nd option of including payment instructions will also appear as a checkbox. There is also the option to Mark it as Awarded only and pick the winner later.

Once the item is awarded, it will show up as awarded on the guest page and will no longer take bids.

You can also Bulk Award your Auction Items by clicking on Award All to Highest Bidders, as shown below.

Bulk award all items will show up as a list; you can exclude some if you want by unchecking the boxes. Once you are ready with the Bulk Award list, click Award Selected Items. On this pop-up window, you can decide to notify the bidder or uncheck the option so that the bidder does not get notified, and if the bidder has not registered a card, the 2nd option of include payment instructions will also appear as a checkbox.

As the last step, go to Guest Carts on your Event Dashboard page under Action Center and check out each guest's carts, including the Silent Auction Items they purchased. Refer to the guest cart article for further details Guest Carts

Please see attached printable pdf for Silent Auction Bidding Instructions.

 

 

Thanks for reading! Let's go do some good.