v4.2 of WP Auctions is available to download. This feature has a few amazing features, here’s the run down:
- Timer Countdown: This is an enhancement to the “Auction in a Post” feature that allows you to embed auctions into a Post or Page. You can choose to show either the end time as is (the default setting), a countdown timer X minutes before the end of the auction, or show the timer throughout the auction. So if you want to show it 60 minutes before it will show 60 minutes before. Of course, once the timer runs out and someone feels like placing a bid it will not get accepted. As a reminder, the countdown is ONLY visible when an auction is embedded in a Post/Page.
- Time Extension: Now you can choose to extend the end time of an auction by a desired amount minutes if a bid is placed within a certain time frame. Confused? Not too worry, it’s quite simple. If a bid is placed within X minutes of the auction end time, it will extend the auction end time by Y minutes. You can set both X and Y. This will stop auction sniping in the last few minutes and is a very handy feature when it comes to increasing the final value your item could sell for.
- Translation Ready: We’ve been sloppy about this in the past and we admit it. So we took the time to really, really go through every single piece of text and make it compatible for translation. If you are using the plugin in your native language please let us know how we did!
Upgrade Instructions
As always, we recommend you to upgrade via FTP. You can find more instructions for upgrading on our documentation.
Current Version: 4.2
Update Status: Non-critical
This plugin has lots of potential and a tip of the hat to the developers. With that being said, however, it needs to clean up a number of things (especially the little nuances) and add more relevant features, visual display options as well as back-end features and improvements before it would deliver the truly professional and straight-forward, easy to use user experience that can be taken seriously by professional selling organizations. This is especially important for anyone wanting to run auctions selling high price items with a high number of concurrent users. Perhaps this is not their goal or target audience, for which, if that is the case, is understandable and acceptable.
Large online auction sites such as ironplanet.com and auctiontime.com may provide some valuable reference and stimulus for future development features and user experience.
Our company would utilize this plugin if it could meet the above mentioned standards. After reviewing the WP Auctions forums, it is clear that many good ideas already have been mentioned and the developers should not only go back what is popular by request because many interested parties do not know what is needed or perhaps do not care to take the time to provide and inform. It may not hurt to have a specific forum for gathering ideas and create an incentive program for ideas that do get utilized. Here is an example of an idea forum: feedback.twincitiestech.com/forums/95257-wp-crm
Good Luck!
After trying the demo quickly for the first time, a few things are immediately apparent that need to be implemented:
1) Allow a bidder to raise their Proxy Bid without bidding against themselves
2) Create a “bid button” that allows a bidder to bid the next bid increment instantly without having to type in a bid
3) The text area for entering a “max bid” or “proxy bid” should always auto clear itself every time after a bidder has submitted a bid whether or not the bid is the high bid
4) The text area for entering a bid should accept formats with or without commas
5) If a bidder types in a bid, it should have a confirmation step before entering the system
6) If a bidder is the high bidder, there should be an indicator, visual queue or message that displays this status as long as a bidder remains the current high bidder. At the end of the auction, this queue should indicate to the high bidder that they have won the auction and should provide direction to the next step and further require an action on behalf of the high bidder.
7) To register a bid, the bidder should have to provide first and last name, an alias name or user name, a phone number and email address. Only the alias name or user name should appear in the bid count. Perhaps rather than an alias name, the system could create bidder numbers for which could then be displayed in the bids tab and be used for referencing.
8) The demo “auction in a post” is not functioning. It would not register a submitted bid. Only the sidebar widget works. Am I correct in assuming that this is because you can’t have the same auction item both operational in a post and a sidebar widget at the same time? Setting this up properly would be helpful to anyone considering buying this plugin.
9) The default auction display page should be the bidding tab or window at all times. Currently, the default is the description tab and you always have to click on either the description tab or the bid history tab before you can enter the bid tab or window.
10) I read the forums where the plugin owners (or staff) repeatedly strongly suggested to people suggesting ideas for improvements to better inform bidders of the bidding process and how the plugin works. I agree that this is important, however, using this methodology for mitigating the plugin’s simple but yet important shortcomings of good basic functionality makes one question how serious the plugin owners are about supporting and improving their plugin. Just a few initial observations that will hopefully be of value.
Thanks for your suggestions Online Seller, we appreciate it. We take all suggestions seriously, unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day. We implement what we feel will benefit the bulk of our users.
As for how serious we are on supporting or improving our plugin, well we’ve been developing this plugin since 2007 and it has improved considerably over the years. So yes, we’re very serious.
Thanks again.
I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem, When someone bids, an error message always displays, instead of a type of message that states: you have been overbid or something similar.
It makes it seem like there is some type of error,
Anyone know how to change this text??