General Archives - WP Auctions

WP Auctions takes the security of your auctions seriously. Here are the features we have in place that allow you to run safe and secure auctions.

1. Register to Bid: You can set the plugin to only allow registered users to bid. Users will be required to register via the default WordPress registration system. Make sure to set all new users to be set as “Subscribers”. Once activated only registered users will be able to place bids on live auctions.

2. Request to Bid (for registered users): After activating the feature to allow only registered users you will see another option show below called “Request to Bid Mode”. You can set this to activate for approved bidders to bid. After activation you will see all your approved list of bidders on a per auction basis in the “Manage Bidders” admin area. Users can request approval to bid on a particular auction, approval is manually handled by you. You can revoke anyone’s bidding rights at any time, even after an auction is live and there are bids placed.

3. Blacklist: You can ban certain email addresses from bidding on auctions by entering their email address in the space provided under Auction Settings.

4. Anonymous Auctions: You can obfuscate the names of bidders when this option is activated. A great way to hold semi-private auctions.

You can use the Bid Increment feature to only accept bids that meet a set target.

To get started set your global Bid Increment (plugin general settings) with any figure, such as 10. This means that all your bidders have to bid at least 10 above the current bid. So if the current bid is $32 the next bid has to be at least $42 and no less. The bidder can place a higher bid if they like, but it must be a minimum value of (Current Bid + Bid Increment).

You can also override the global Bid Increment value and set it per auction. This is useful when you have auctions for selling items of different value.

You can use the Buy it Now feature to sell items at an up-front price point.

To use Buy it Now simply enter an amount for the field while adding a new auction. It should typically be over the starting bid of your auction and be a final price you are willing to accept for the item on sale.

You can also use Buy it Now as a standalone feature by putting the starting bid of the auction at 0 (zero). This way you can use the plugin as a quick and efficient e-commerce plugin.

Important: The auction engine cannot be changed if you have any live auctions. You must wait till all your auctions end to change the engine.

The plugin comes with three auction engines built-in.

1. Proxy Engine

This is the default engine and works like the following example:

John enters a Maximum Bid of $20 on an auction with a starting bid of $10.
John is currently winning the auction at $10, the starting bid.
Mary places her Maximum Bid of $40, but since John had bid only up to $20 he is now beaten by Mary’s bid.
The current bid is now $20 with Mary winning.
John decides to bid $30, the most he is willing to pay, and enters it.
Since Mary had entered $40 as her Maximum Bid her current bid price will increase to match John’s Maximum Bid of $30.
Therefore the current bid now goes up to $30, and Mary continues to win.
The auction closes soon at $30 with Mary winning.

2. Simple Engine

Bids are accepted as is.

John bids $20 on an auction with a starting bid of $10.
The current bid is now $20.
Mary decides to bid $40, the current bid is now $40 and she is winning.
Bidding continues till the auction is over.

3. Reverse Engine

Bids are accepted in reverse. This type of auction is best used for services where you want your winner to provide some service at a lower rate.

John bids $19 on an auction with a starting bid of $20.
The current bid is now $19 and John is winning.
Mary bids $18.50, the current bid is now $18.50 as Mary is willing to pay less.
Mary wins the auction once time is up as John does not want to go below $19.

4. Quick bidding

The quick bidding is just another name for a regular sale, so this isn’t an auction but more a “buy now”

You can limit who bids on your auctions by turning on the option to only allow registered users to bid. You must also have your site to accept new users via your general Settings in WordPress.

Once you’ve done the above the plugin will ask all bidders to register or log in to bid.

The Request to Bid feature is activated once you activate the registered users only option. Request to Bid allows you to further segment bidders based on a permission to bid given to them upon request.

Users can navigate to any live auction they are interested to bid in and request to bid on it. Once they do so you will see their username in Manage Bidders tab. Here you can decide to give them permission or not. You can also set the system to automatically accept all requests, you can always remove permissions for any user at any point of time.

Yes, in v5.0 of WP Auctions subscribers can place their own auctions. This feature is still in early development phase and will extend in functionality as we gather user feedback.

On activation the plugin automatically allows your users who are signed up as “Subscribers” to post their own auctions. You must first allow users the permission to sign up, this is done via the Settings admin panel in WordPress. Check the box called “Membership” and select the user default role as “Subscriber”. All your new registered users can now conduct their own auctions.

Important points for your Subscribers

1. Set up a Default Auction Page and enter the shortcode [ wpadisplay ]. This will show all active auctions from all your users. Without this set up your users will not be able to show their auctions, unless you give them the rights to create Posts. This can be accomplished by using any role editor plugin available for WordPress.

2. Your users will get paid for their own auctions, they can enter their PayPal email account under their WordPress profile page (at the very bottom).

3. An auction can only be viewed and edited by its owner via the auction backend. The administrator has rights to view all auctions but cannot edit them.

4. Subscribers cannot edit your main Auction Settings or auction engine.

Very Important: You can only place ONE auction per Post/Page. If you want to show a list of auctions in a Page, try our List Widget add-on.

Tip: Use the < !-- more -- > tag from the editor to separate content and auction forms for your, home, archive and search pages. If you show more than one bid form per page the bids will probably not be accepted properly. By doing so your users will not get confused by viewing all auction bids forms at once on one very long page.

First, you need to add your auction.
Create a new Post or Page, and embed the auction by using the custom panel that shows all your live auctions in a drop down or by using the custom shortcode [wpauction id=”1″ /] where 1 is the auction ID.
Click on the “Bind Post to Auction” button and you’re done.

The Sidebar Widget and List Widget will now direct all your bidders to this Post/Page for bidding and getting updates on the auction.