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A Live Auction traditionally consists of an auctioneer presenting an item and starting bid to a large group of bidders, each bidder has their own paddle to raise if they want to place a bid on this item. With all the changes society has made to "stay home and stay safe", we must also change the way we think about a Live auction. We have come up with a way to make having a virtual Live Auction possible, here are some recommendations:
Start By Making Your Live Auction Item into a Silent Item
- When you have an item set up as Live in the admin, no one can bid on it. This is to make sure your bidders are at the event to raise their paddle. When you change this item to Silent you are giving your bidders the opportunity to place bids.
- We suggest making the starting price for your newly silent item either 50% of the Fair Market Value for this item or the price your auctioneer suggests to start the bidding at.
- A simple bid increment would be $100. Increase the bid increment for higher-priced items.
- Leave the item open for 15 - 30 minutes to create a sense of urgency.
When Do We Activate The Item?
- Keep these items' status to Closed so your bidders can view pictures of them and get excited.
- Give each Live Auction item a different closing time (live item one closes at 9:00, the next at 9:30, and the last at 10:00)
- If you are doing a Live stream event you can promote these items and tell your viewers what time you are opening the bidding and how long they have until the item closes.
- You can turn on the "Show names in History Tab" option so your bidders know who they are bidding against.
- Give your Live auction items a separate category so they are easily found on the Bidding Site.
- You can activate each item at separate times to let people focus on one Live item at a time. Go to Items > Manage Items, click on the item's status column and change it to Active. If you have more than a few Live items you can toggle them together and batch update the status to active at the bottom of the page
