Upgraded Features: Product Auction for Shopify – [User Guide]

We have updated and upgraded one of the most popular app Product Auction for Shopify. While restoring every old feature and adding a lot new to our customer’s demand.

We have introduced a major feature called joining fee. Where the admin can charge a joining fee from the prospective bidders who want to join any particular auction along with various other features.

You can set a single joining fee for all the auctions or you can also set joining fee auction wise. In case of auction wise, you will get an option to add the fee on the add auction detail form:

If you enable it, we will send a coupon to customers who have joined the auction with a discount equal to the joining fee.

Options available after enabling the joining fee
Enabling this option allows bidders on auctions with joining fees to directly purchase the item by clicking “BUY NOW” and immediately win the auction.

Once you enable this from the Auction configuration, it will be set.We will have a set of new options to enter while adding an auction on any product. Let’s try it out:

Go to a product and add an auction. Now you will view a new option on the auction creation page called enable joining fee. Enable that feature and select the rest of the details accordingly.

Enabled Joining Fee

Enter the booking amount: Enter booking amount payable by the winner after winning the auction to book that product.

Enter Buy Now Price: Enter Buy Now price on which the bidder or auction joiner can immediately agree to pay this much and auction comes to an end.

The number of days prior to which customer can join the auction for this product: Admin can set the number of days prior to which the customer can pay the joining fee and join the auction.

Rest everything in the add auction page will be the same as earlier. Hence please note if you are planning for setting up an auction on an upcoming date always click on SAVE if you will click o SAVE & START: the auction will start immediately.

Joining fee for Every Auction Tag

Now you can enable joining fees on the basis of product tag. Admin can add the joining fee rule on the basis of product tags from Configuration >> Auction Confiq >> Joining fee for Every auction Tag

Note: Products must have the tag in order to use this feature. Additionally, if a bidder has already paid the joining fee for a specific product tag (e.g., AUC001), they will not be charged the joining fee again for the same tag.

We are introducing a new feature called “Reconcile Winner.” This feature empowers admins to efficiently identify auctions where winners haven’t been declared yet.

Admin will be able to declare all those winners in just a click by using this feature.

NOTE:

• The admin can only declare the winner of the past 90 days (3months).
• This feature only works in the case of Approve Winner Automatically.

Configurations of Reconcile Winner

Firstly the admin needs to enable Approve Winner Automatically Once The Bid Is Over tab from Configuration->Auction Config:: Approve Winner Automatically Once The Bid Is Over.

Once the admin enable the configuration, a tab will be visible on the auctions tab page as shown in the below image,

Admin can apply a date-wise filter to get the previous winner list who has not declared yet.

click on proceed to view the winner list.

The auction ids will display where the winner has not been declared.

Now, the admin can send a reminder to the winner to make the purchase complete and also configure the days , configuring days helps the admin to maintain the reminder gap.

suppose the admin select 1 in days then the reminder will send after 1 day of auction end if select 2 then a reminder will send after 2 days of auction end to the winner.

With the help of this feature, admin can set time intervals at which purchase reminders will be sent to auction winners before the winner is canceled.

For example, you can choose to send reminders at 1, 2, and 5 hours before winner’s cancellation.

Note – Admin can add maximum of up to 5 time interval slots for purchase reminders.

Admin needs to follow the path Configuration > Auction Configuration > Scroll down to “Time slots for Purchase Reminder” > Enable > Set the hour/hours prior to which you want to send the reminder > Click on Add > Click on Save

Configuration of the send purchase reminder

Admin need to follow the path Configuration->Auction Config:: Send Purchase Reminder

Once enabled, you can visit the Twilio SMS Gateway section and configure Twilio by entering the API KEY.
Note: This API you will get from your own Twilio account.

The message will be sent to the second and third position holder after declaring the winner, to hold on in case the current winner fails to pay the amount, the next highest amount bidder will win.

To join any running or upcoming auction,
-the customer will have to select the auction,
-and click on the Join Now button,
-Pay the joining fee for that particular auction
-and then start bidding.

You can now send product images in the product auction emails sent via the app. For this, you need to enable this below feature: Visit Product Auction app backend>>Go to Configurations>>General Configuration.

You will now have a edit bid option for merchant when you manually declared a winner.

You can now edit or delete the current proxy bid applied on any auction.

You can now charge taxes on the joining fees. In the app, you need to visit the Auction Configuration and configure the below two options as per your requirement:

1. Charge Taxes on Each Joining Fee: You need to select this option if you want to charge taxes with joining fee on each product once the customer joins the auction.
2. Charge Taxes with Joining Fee only with Taxable Products: You need to select this option if you want to charge taxes with joining fee only on those products to which tax is applied on Shopify.

A new page for is created for the apps’s information like the tags getting added automatically, or any other details related to the app. You can find the page in Configure Frontend section in the app.

We have now introduced the “Sorting” feature on the “Products On Auction” page – A page where all the auctions get listed on your storefront.

To display the Sorting feature for your customers, you need to visit the App admin panel>>General Configuration & enable the settings.

Once enabled, select the options that you want to display for your customers.

After that, all the “Sort By” options will appear on the Product Auction Listing page. Now, the customers will visit & sort the auctions by Alphabet, Current bid, Auction Ending Soon, Latest.

We have now added the pagination option for the appearance of product listing on the auction page.

To display the auctioned product listing in the pagination style on the auction page, you need to visit the App admin panel>>Auction Configuration & enable “Pagination for products on auction page”>> save.

After enabling the configuration, the products will be listed in pagination style i.e, 12 products listed on every page, and on disabling the configuration, the product will be listed in “infinite scroll” style.

The merchant can now modify the winning bid after the auction closes but before the winner purchases the item.

To be able to edit the winning bid, the admin has to enable this configuration from App admin panel>>Auction Configuration & enable “Edit winning bid” >> save.

After enabling the configuration, the admin can edit the winning bid of the ended auctions from the “Auctions” section(Auction app >> auctions >> view.)

Clicking on the “Edit” button, A window will pop up and you need to enter your updated bid and a message for the customer which will be received by the customer on their email.

Please NOTE: You can only enter a greater bid than the winning bid while editing the bid.

After submission, the new bid will be updated as the final bid, and you can also view the history of edited bids by clicking on the ‘view’ button.”

We have introduced a new feature that enables the admin to send an email notification to the highest bidder if the reserve price has not been met and the auction is close to ending.

The merchant can set a specific time frame for sending the email notification to the highest bidder before the auction ends. This feature will help to minimize the number of failed auctions.

Merchant can set up the time frame prior to which email notification will be sent to the highest bidder before the auction is ending. This will reduce the chances of failed auctions.

Set the time frame:

Merchants can configure a time frame before which the highest bidder will receive an email. To set a time frame, Navigate to Configuration > Auction Configuration > Mail To Higher Bidder

Configure Highest Bidder Mail

Admin can modify the content of the email sent to the highest bidder.
PLEASE NOTE: Do not change the variable as every variable retrieves its corresponding values.

For making changes to the mail template, navigate to Configuration > Mail Configuration > Select Highest Bidder Mail template

We have added a new feature in our Product Auction app where the admin can allow bidders to add a username while bidding on an auction product, Navigate to Configuration > Auction Configuration > Bidding Username

Add an extra field to the auction product where bidders can input their usernames. Bidder can also update their username from their respective accounts page as well.

Banned Username Keywords

Admin can add banned keywords that the bidder cannot use. If the bidder tries to use the prohibited keywords then they will get an error message to use another bidder’s username.

We have introduced a new feature that enables the admin to set a capped amount for bidders, which limits the maximum bid the bidder can place. However, Bidders need to be approved if they wish to bid above this capped amount.

To configure the capped amount, you need to visit the App Admin panel >> Auction Configuration >> Capped amount for Bidders.

NOTE: The feature will not be functional in case “0” is set as a capped amount.

Storefront Flow:

Now once the Admin sets the capped amount to Rs. 200 then the bidder won’t be able to place a bid of more than Rs. 200.
However, if the bidder tries to place a bid of more than RS 200 then a popup with an alert notification will be displayed on the product page, as you can see in the image below:

After this, until the Admin approves the bidder, the bidder will not be able to place the bid, as you can see in the image below;

In the meantime, the Admin will receive an e-mail regarding the bidder bidding more than the capped amount, as can be seen in the below image;

Now the Admin can directly click on the open app button in the e-mail received or can directly navigate to the Auction App >> Bidders, to approve or reject the bidder, if the admin approves the bidder then the bidder will be able to place a bid more than the capped amount.

Now, when the admin approves the bidder, then the bidder will also receive Bidder approval mail, as you can see in the below image;

Additionally, the Admin can edit the template of the e-mail accordingly; For this kindly navigate to the Auction App >> Configuration >> Mail Configuration, as you can see in the image below;

DEMO

• https://auction-10.myshopify.com/pages/demo