We offer mobile bidding, A!
Mobile, and online auctions,
A! Online, and they are different. One
thing they have in common is that other than any actual credit card
processing fee, the winning bid amount is yours to keep.
We do not take a cut of the winning bid amount.
Mobile bidding, usually occurs in conjunction with a gala event. With mobile bidding, your guests can bid on items using their cell phone, a tablet or a computer. Guests are pre registered, by you in order to bid, so you control who can bid at your event. Our mobile bidding platform is called A! Mobile
Online auctions are usually stand alone and can be open for bidding for a longer time period, from several days to even months. Bidders register themselves to bid online. Our online auction platform is called A! Online
The easiest way to use either the mobile or online platform is with Auction! V4. The data entry is the same: Enter all your items and donors
into an Auction! project. Take advantage of all the reporting and donor receipt functions of Auction! V4 so you can thank your donors and plan for future events.
With A!Online and with A!Mobile, use our special export
built into Auction! V4 to upload your items to
the platform. For
A! Mobile, use our special export to upload
bidders to the mobile site.
For online auctions, your bidders will register themselves on the online platform. When the bidding is over, the results of the winning bids
along with the bidders names and contact information are easily imported back into
Auction! using
our special premium feature import.
To take advantage of the premium features with Auction! V4, your license for V4 must be in support and you must have purchased Premium Features. Premium Features is a one-time purchase, and the menus for mobile bidding and online auctions will be enabled thereafter whenever support is renewed for Auction! By the way, when you have Premium Features you can offer your guests Quick Checkout at a gala event because you have the ability to process credit cards through Auction! V4 with our special EventPay! app. You must have a merchant account with our processor to use EventPay! at a gala or to accept credit cards for payment online with A!Online.
Any silent items offered for sale on the mobile bidding platform can only be offered on the mobile platform. You cannot have bid sheets for the same items. This is because anyone that uses a bid sheet will not know what the actual current leading bid is on the mobile platform. On the other hand, the mobile bidders will receive a text message when they have been outbid on the platform, and have the opportunity to raise their bid amount. When the bidding closes, the mobile bidder will receive a message that they have "won" the item. A person bidding using a bid sheet for that same items may think they are the leading bidder, but only the leading mobile bidder receives the message that they have won. If you have guests that are reluctant to use their phones for bidding, you can offer to help them bid by having a tablet or computer connected to the internet.
Yes, but we don't recommend having all your items in the mobile platform. The best items handled in a mobile bidding environment are the silent items that can have only one winning bidder. If winning bidder wants to "share" the item with another bidder, after the mobile bids have been imported back into the Auction! project, using Auction! you can split the item into shares and edit the winning bids.
We do not recommend live auction item bidding using the mobile platform, because they never do as well as using a phone to bid as they would with people raising a paddle. With mobile bidding in the live, the auctioneer cannot get a bidding war going since he or she cannot tell who is doing the bidding.
Not only can you, we highly recommend it! Upon arrival at the event, securely capture their encrypted credit card information in the EventPay! app and then give the guest a code to text to the mobile bidding platform. On the platform they will confirm that they are the correct bidder and start bidding. They DO NOT also register their credit card in the platform because you already have the encrypted card on file in the EventPay! app.
Your organization must have a Merchant ID (MID) with our processor, CardConnect, to use EventPay! We will help you with the process to obtain an MID.
When mobile bidding is complete, import the mobile bidding results into Auction!, and also enter the live and retail item winning bids and bids for any other items not handled using the mobile platform. Invoices generated from Auction! at the end of the event will include all items purchased and the correct balance due. When a guest is marked as quick checkout, their credit card on file using EventPay! will be batch processed through Auction! later.
Since online bidders will be registerng themselves, they must register their credit card to be charged when they are notified that they have "won" the item. In order to take credit cards in the online platform, you must have a Merchant ID (MID) with our processor, CardConnect. We will help you with the process to obtain the MID.
You are responsible for letting your guests know how to obtain each item. This information must be included in the full description of the item. Be sure to specify with each item, whether the guest will be responsible for picking up the item at your organization (ideal for tangible items) or you will mail it to them (ideal for gift certificates).
