The number of items in your online auction will be influenced by the role the online auction plays in your fundraiser. Will the online auction preview your live and silent auctions and allow pre-event bidding to drive up the opening bid at your event? Will it provide a selling vehicle for items that didn’t get placed your live event, or for items that weren’t sold at the event?
Using an online auction as a preview means that more guests will come prepared to bid on that special item they saw online. A preview will help bidders be more efficient when reviewing and bidding in your silent auction, so you could offer a higher silent item volume at the live event. And, if you’re deploying an online auction as a preview, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what’s going to sell at the live event.
When devising your strategy, let past auction history and your audience demographics be your guide. If online auctions are new to your organization, test one or two of the items selected for your live to see how the online strategy works with your audience.
If you put live auction items online first to drive up the opening bid amount at the live auction, note in the online item description that this item will be part of the live auction and that the final bid at the online auction close will be the opening bid at the live auction. Then, as your auctioneer is describing the item to start live bidding, have him remind the audience that the bidding for the item started with the online auction and the winning bidder that evening will take the item home.
The great thing about an online auction is that you can have a large item count and be successful. It’s easier for a donor to view every item when sitting on the sofa in her sweats than walking through a crowd, dressed in evening attire. Plus an online audience has days or weeks to view items, not an hour or two.
One tip for any size online auction—hold some items back and add them through the life of the online auction. Notify your donor base by email when you add items and keep them coming back—and bidding!