It's simple to set up an online silent auction on GalaBid. This article takes you through the basics, with links to our most popular advanced features you may like to consider. View this video or follow the steps below to set up your auction.  Demo See this demo campaign created on GalaBid. It includes other item types - raffle, buy now and Crowdfunding/Donations. Any of these item types can be included in a campaign alongside auction items.

In Items, create a new item, select Locked Item. By default, a Locked item will be for display purposes only. Participants will not be able to bid on it. To enable pre-bidding, i.e. accept bids before the auctioneer starts the live auction check the enable pre-bidding box. Remember to uncheck it before the auctioneer begins, if not, participants will be still be able to bid on the item online. Advise the auctioneer on the details of the highest pre-bid.

Go to the Bids and Buys section, search the item or participant's name and delete the bid. In the case of a deleting a bid after the auction has closed, communicate with the underbidder to alert them and offer them the prize. The underbidder's invoice will automatically be populated with the prize and their bid amount. If the offer is accepted, a notification with their updated invoice can be sent as follows:

This is not yet available. It is on the product roadmap and will be available before end of June 2023.

The donation always stays open. You can change the Auction Closed pop up message to include a note about the donation being open. Edit it at Branding > Setttings, then see the field under Custom Text. With the Fixed Fee (4.9% + Stripe Fees) pricing option the Campaign manager can prompt participants who didn't win in the auction/donate/ make a purchase to make a donation as part of the end of auction messaging.

On Voluntary Contribution campaigns the end of auction messages are standardized and cannot be edited. Data from the campaign is merged to personalize the message for each participant.  On Fixed Fee and License Fee campaigns these messages can be edited. For example the message to participants who didn't win or make a purchase can be customised to include a link to make a donation. 

Go to Control Panel in the side menu and click the Enable overtime check box. Enter the amount of overtime in seconds. Add 60 seconds and if a bid is placed in the last 60 seconds of the auction the auction will be extended by a further 60 seconds. If no more bids are placed during the overtime the auction will close. If a bid is placed during the overtime an additional 60 seconds the overtime will be extended by a further 60 seconds.

Options for Unsold Items After the auction has closed some items may not have sold. These are the options to consider. Option 1: Change to Buy Now Items 1) Edit items without bids and change the item type from auction to Buy Now.  2) Choose the fixed price for the item(s) and save.   3) Consider hiding the auction items that have already sold. This can be done via Bulk Update.

We currently don't have a feature that allows you to close auction items individually but there are other means to achieve this. Hiding the item  If you go to the items tab and edit the item you wish to close, you can go to the advanced options of the item located at the bottom of the page, under the item description you can change the visibility of the item to 'Hidden' this means the item will no longer be displayed on the front end for participants so no more bids can be placed and then when your auction closes the highest bidder of that item will be notified.

Single Item 1) First go to the Items section in the side menu and edit the item you wish to add the reserve price to. 2) Next Click on Show Advanced Options. The Advanced Options button is directly under the Item Description box. 3) Next scroll down to see the Reserve settings.  4) Tick the Enable Reserve Price and use the Hide Reserve Price Box to either hide or show the reserve price to particpants.

If you set up your auction item with more than 1 unit available for example 3 as shown here in this screenshot. This means the top 3 highest bidders will win an item, so the first 3 bidders will place a bid of $1 and then once a 4th person bids, the bidder with the lowest bid or the bidder who bid last (if all 3 bids placed were the same amount) will then be notified that they have been outbid and then so on for the other 2 bidders.

This article will explain the process of placing a bid on behalf of a participant using the volunteer mode. Here is a tutorial video on how to use the Volunteer mode, you can also follow the instructions below. To achieve this you will need to be on the 'Fixed Fee' payment option of the GalaBid platform as you need access to the volunteer mode. Step One Go to the participant's tab on the left sidebar and click 'Volunteers'