Creating an auction

How to create an auction

Adding the auction

Once you are at the point of creating an auction you will need to navigate to the Auction Management page in your Dashboard.

Press 'Add Auction' and you will be present with a clean auction page, where you can fill in all the information you want to convey to your bidders, about the auction, and any instructions they should take into account when participating in the auction.

Auction fields

Let's go through each of the fields on this page in greater detail.

Auction Name

This can be anything as long as it's text or numbers. We will use this name to as the title for the auction we display it on your home page, auction page and lot page.

We will also use this for the link to the auction, used in your marketing and promotion, which will be descriptive and sometimes useful for search engine.

Auction Start Date and Time

This is an optional field and needs to be first set in the future. There are selection fields to ensure the format is correct.

End Date and Time

We default this to be 6 weeks in advance of the current date @ 2pm on that day. You can change this to be any date you wish, as long as it is in the future.

There are selection fields to ensure the format is correct.

Status

This is a dropdown list determining whether the auction will be displayed on the auction website or not. There are 3 statuses as follows:

  1. DRAFT - this is when you are creating the auction, and not rady to publish. It will not be visible to bidders on the auction webpage.

  2. PUBLISHED - if you select this option, the auction will become live on the home page and the auction page itself will be a live page. If no lots have been added to the auction, no lots will be displayed. You can publish an auction without any published lots as a placeholder if you wish. Lots can be added after the auction has been published

  3. ARCHIVE - this option is used when the auction has been closed and you no longer wish to display the auction to the bidders any further.

Full Description

This is a text fields and you will see there is a text editor in place for you to add in formatted text a little bit like a word processor.

This is information and overview you wish to display to the bidders, describing the auction, the contents and the reason for sale.

Short Description

This is a shorter version of the Full Description above. We will display this version of the description on the home page when it is available. If not we will display a truncated version of the Full Description. This short description enabes you to control what appear in summary when required.

Viewing Details

If you wish to tell your prospective buyers where and when they can look at the items for sale, put those details in this box. This is another text formatted box and you have some freedom to express this is different ways.

If this field is left blank, it will not be displayed to bidders.

Collection Details

This information is useful as a means of communicating the terms and the location of collection for the items sold under the auction. You might wish to convey the deadline for collection and the documents required at that point in time.

If this field is left blank, it will not be displayed to the bidders.

Application Details

You may wish to force every bidder to apply to bid on each auction on your website. This is a useful way of vetting those who take part.

We would recommend this approach, because we feel it gives you more insight in to who is going to take part, and provides you with the means to prevent people to taking part who you do not trust.

You set out the terms of application in this text box.

Special Instructions

Any terms that deviate from the norm should be displayed here. You may want to consider highlighting any lift out charges, or awkward settings that will complicate the removal of the items from the site post-auction.

You may also need to highlight any contractual information here to ensure it is understood by buyer pre-auction.

If this field is left blank, it will not be displayed to the bidders.

Auction Image

This is an optional field and is nice to use to give you auction some character and provide buyers with a visual clue to the contents of the auction.

Upload the image here and it will be used on the home page and the auction listing page when availble to the bidders.

Last updated