Auctions

An Auction in DonorPoint is an activity where donors bid online on auction items. Bidding opens and closes on the dates you set, and the winning bids are charged automatically on the auction’s billing date.

Auctions bring together a number of DonorPoint features:

• Item restrictions automatically open bidding on your launch date and hide items when bidding should end
• Winning bids are charged automatically after the auction ends
• Email distributions for promotions, reminders, and post-auction solicitations
• Autoresponders that notify bidders they have been outbid and prompt them to raise their bid
• Reports and dashboards for management and comparison

Other DonorPoint items can be associated with an auction when it is published to your catalog:

• Donations in lieu of item purchase
• Corporate sponsorships

Creating an auction

Click Activities in the gray menubar, then Auctions.

An auction has a name and description, the dates bidding starts and ends, and the Billing Date — the date the high bidder on each item is charged.

• Set the billing date a day or two after the auction closes.

Auction items

Auction Items are the items up for bid. Each has its own descriptive text and image (a stock image is provided; replace it with a JPG or PNG of your choice) and its own bid settings.

Auction items can also carry custom fields to collect additional information from each purchaser — select an existing custom field or create a new one. You can have as many auction items as you wish.

Each item can carry its own start and end times in addition to the auction’s. An item is visible while both its own window and the auction’s window are open, so item dates narrow the auction window rather than extend it.

Bidding and checkout

Donors bid on published auction items from your catalog. Each bid is recorded against the bidder; when a bid is beaten, the previous high bidder receives the Auction Outbid autoresponder prompting them to raise.

When the auction ends, the high bidder on each item is the winner. On the billing date, winning bids are charged automatically to the payment method on file, and each becomes a transaction. Staff can also enter payment in the admin application.

Confirmations

Two things are created automatically as part of auction setup:

• A confirmation page, shown to the purchaser on their device when they complete their purchase
• A confirmation email, sent to the purchaser afterward

Both can be customized. See Confirmation Page and Confirmation Email.

Auction autoresponders

Autoresponders are emails DonorPoint sends automatically in response to actions on your auction items. An auction’s set contains three:

• Auction Outbid — sent to a bidder when someone outbids them
• Auction Receipt — sent when a winning bid payment is processed successfully
• Auction Failure — sent when a winning bid payment is declined, prompting the bidder for new payment details

These are created with the auction and can be edited, or linked to an existing set for reuse. See Auction Autoresponders and Autoresponders.