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    Product Auction for Shopify

    Updated 8 November 2023

    Product Auction App for Shopify enables the feature of a bid or auction on your e-commerce website. Moreover, the admin can enable the bidding feature on products he wants to go for auction and can monitor all the bids happening on the store from the app itself and much more.

    The app namely auction, which will enable the feature of bidding and auction of products on your e-commerce website. So don’t wait, install the Product Auction app & start Bidding.

    Check the introduction video of the product auction app for Shopify:

    _xcsuHXkzG8

    How to add an auction in the product auction app for Shopify:

    2ooXo9GXo5M

    Features

    • Admin can create and manage auction for any product.
    • Make the auction process legitimate on your store by enabling the Join Fee feature.
    • Enable the proxy-bidding feature within the app to have a less time-consuming bidding process in the app.
    • Also, allow customers to place a normal & proxy bid with a single button. Explore!
    • This app also includes the feature of popcorn bidding.
    • Real-time bid update:- Once a bidder places a bid for a product, the bids will get updated on the auction window page for all the other bidders who are live on auction.
    • Admin can create multiple auctions at a time just by uploading them via CSV.
    • You can configure your own SMTP to send emails to the customers from your own mail engine.
    • Automatic emails sent to the winner & loser of the bid.
    • Bid On Multiple Units feature, where admin can enable it for the bidder to bid for a number of units of product.
    • This app also includes Multiple Winner & Autopay features
    • Option to manually end the bid, also, to start auction automatically.
    • Admin can even restart the unsuccessful auctions. Explore
    • Set increment rules and the increment gaps while creating Auctions.
    • This app is now compatible with the Product Dreamlist app

    More…

    • Set reserve price – The minimum price which must be reached, to have the winner.
    • Enable the option to stop Auction if the product gets out of stock.
    • Enable the option to edit customer’s bid.
    •  You can enable the option to disable the Add to cart once the bid amount exceeds the actual price of the product.
    • Admin can also view all the bids and happenings in the notification section.
    • Admin can also edit the labels for the front end.
    • The customer can view the bidding history.
    • Admin can also enable/disable the ‘Add To Cart’ button if the bid amount exceeds the actual price.
    • Admin can choose to display the following information on the storefront: bid count, current bid (product and collection page), Sort Running Auctions on the basis of Recently Added, No. of Bids, or About to End. 
    • Top of all, this Product Auction app for Shopify also integrates with the Multi-Vendor Marketplace app for Shopify!- Explore!
    • Get the option to authenticate your 3D Secure customer’s card details in the case of AutoPay.
    • You can now show the start date on the product page for the upcoming auctions.

    Updates:

    • Enable this for showing start bid on upcoming auctions.
    • Enable this to hide buy now button for letting the customers purchase the winning auction products and to manually update the purchase status, you can do it from here.

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    Benefits

    • Putting auctions on your products rather than just displaying them for a simple purchase can give you the opportunity to score big savings. This app will help you do the same.
    • If you want to check the real-time value of a product, you can set products up for auction.
    • The product Auction app is now integrated with the Multi-vendor Marketplace app. Thus, you can create an e-auction marketplace and allow sellers to add auctions to products.
    • Use in Online Charity Auction to raise funds.

    Installation

    On Landing Pageyou will find the “install” button. Enter the shop URL where you want to install the Product Auction app.

    A1

    After that, you need to select the plan as per your need as shown in the below image.

    Currently, we are having three different plans: Basic plan, Executive plan and Pro plan.

    plans

    Pause plan: If you do not want to use the app for a while, you can pause the plan.

    You will be charged 7USD per month for the paused plan.

    Once the payment is done for the plan, the Product Auction will be listed here:

    Workflow

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_35_30

    Clicking on which you will be redirected to the Auction page.

    On the home page itself, you will find few codes to be pasted in .liquid files and other files of HTML/CSS to have the Auction bar displayed at the frontend.

    product auction by webkul

    Configuring Product Auction For Shopify

    The configuration of Product Auction is very simple and divided into 05 sections:

    • General Configuration
    • Auction Configuration
    • Widget Configuration
    • Mail Configuration
    • Label Configuration
    • Design Configuration
    • SMTP Configuration

    General Configuration:

    Enter your email and upload your shop logo in this section. The shop logo’s image dimension should be 197 x 52. Extensions Supported: jpg, jpeg, png, JPG, JPEG, PNG.

    AwesomeScreenshot-screencapture-auction-10-myshopify-admin-apps-product-auction-index-php-2019-07-08-14-38-43-2019-07-08-14-07-46

    Auction Configuration:

    Configure the auction/bidding configurations like enable/disable start auction automatically, send automatic emails to the bidders to notify their loss.

    AwesomeScreenshot-screencapture-auction-10-myshopify-admin-apps-product-auction-index-php-2019-07-08-14-40-29-2019-07-08-14-07-23
    AwesomeScreenshot-screencapture-auction-10-myshopify-admin-apps-product-auction-index-php-2019-07-08-14-40-29-2019-07-08-14-07-69

    Highlight Current Bid On Collection & Product Page

    You can now configure the color to highlight the current bid on your auction products. You can have different colors for the bids on the collection & product page for the customer who leads the auction, participated in the auction, or has not yet participated in the auction.

    To configure this, you need to visit the Auction Configuration menu of the admin panel>>Configure the color of your choice>>Save the settings.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-17_53_40

    This is how it appears on the collection page of your store:

    collection page

    This is how it appears on the product page of your store:

    product page

    Confirmation Pop-up while placing Bid

    You can now have the option to show a confirmation pop-up on the product page when a customer places a bid. Just visit the Auction Configuration and enable this option.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-17_54_17

    This is how the confirmation pop-up appears once a bid is placed.

    Art_Painting_on_Auction_–_auction

    Amount To Be Paid By The Auction Winner

    Once the bidder wins the auction, it depends on admin how he/she wants the bidder to pay the winning amount.

    The winner will either pay the auction winning amount or some percentage of the winning amount set by the admin. If the admin selects the % of winning bid, he/she needs to enter the percentage amount. Admin can also enter the Capped amount if he/she wants the auction winner to pay the maximum amount.

    “Capped Amount is the maximum amount to be paid by the auction winner”.

    NOTE:-
    In the case of % of winning bid:
    -If Entered Percentage of (Auction winning amount)>Capped Amount
    Then, the Auction winner will pay the Capped Amount.

    -If Entered Percentage of (Auction winning amount)<Capped Amount
    Then, the Auction winner will pay the entered Percentage of the winning amount.

    AwesomeScreenshot-auction-Product-Auction-Shopify-2019-07-08-14-07-15

    Hide Buy Now Button for Purchasing Auction Products

    In case you want to charge the winning amount outside the app, you can hide the “Buy Now” button for purchasing auction products of the winners. Then, you can manually update the purchase status in the app.

    To hide the option, You need to visit the Auction Configuration and enable the tab as shown in the below screenshot.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_12_01

    This way, no Buy Now button appears for the winners but, the purchase status can be update in the app once the payment is confirmed outside the app.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_12_52

    Widget Configuration

    CHANGE AUCTION WIDGET LAYOUT

    You can now change the layout of the auction widget shown on the product description page.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_34_06

    This is how the widgets look:

    Antique-Gramophone-–-auction-5

    Layout 1

    Default Widget

    Antique-Gramophone-–-auction-4

    Configure Bid End Date Format

    You can now configure the format of the “End Date” of the auctions on your products. For this, You just need to visit the Configuration>>Widget Configuration.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_14_23

    Configure the date format and click the Save button.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_14_56

    That’s all.

    Design Configuration:

    Change or reset the look of the front end and design by changing the color of the background, themes, button text, label, and much more.

    AwesomeScreenshot-screencapture-auction-10-myshopify-admin-apps-product-auction-index-php-2019-07-08-14-44-15-2019-07-08-14-07-49

    Label Configuration:

    Edit the labels of buttons on the front and rename them as per your requirements such as changing the label of time end, bid end date, place my bid and much more.

    AwesomeScreenshot-auction-Product-Auction-Shopify-2019-07-08-14-07-07

    Mail Configuration:

    Configure the after win, purchase reminder, after proxy loses mail content such as mail subject and content. You can also disable these different event’s email status.

    AwesomeScreenshot-auction-Product-Auction-Shopify-2019-07-08-14-07-42

    SMTP Configuration: 

    Click here!

    Popcorn Bidding

    Popcorn Bidding, also known as Dynamic Bidding, is a way of giving the bidders who were outbid an opportunity to rebid.

    Enable this option, enter the time within which you want to extend the auction deadline. Enter the time by which you want to extend the auction deadline and lastly, enter the number of times this whole popcorn bidding scenario can reoccur.

    auction-_-Product-Auction-_-Shopify-2

    Note: To make the popcorn bidding feature by default enabled for all the future auctions, you can enable the popcorn bidding feature from the app’s Configuration > Auction Configuration Section:

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_15_46

    Real-time Bid Update

    The product auction app is now upgraded with the feature of real-time bid update. So, from now onwards, once a bidder places a bid for a product, the bids will get updated on the auction window page for all the other bidders who are live on auction.

    No need to refresh the page again & again to update the last bid placed for any item.

    Proxy Bidding

    The Admin can enable the functionality of proxy bidding using the Product Auction app on his Shopify store.

    So to configure this, visit the Product Auction app from Shopify backend > Configuration > Auction Configuration.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_16_21

    You can notify customers once a proxy bid is placed. For this, you need to enable the settings from the Auction Configuration menu of the app.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_16_56

    Once enabled, you will get an option to configure the mail template on your own.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_18_27

    Allow Customers To Place Normal & Proxy Bid With A Single Button

    You can now allow customers to place a normal and a proxy bid using a single button for an auction product.

    If the bid amount is greater than Bid Price + 2*(Increment) then, it will be considered as a proxy bid.

    Let’s take an example:-
    If the current bid amount is 100 and the minimum increment allowed is 10, then if the customer places the bid for 120 [Bid Price + 2*Increment] or more then it will be considered as a proxy bid for the auction, but in case the customer bids less than 120 then it will be added as a normal bid.

    You just need to enable the option from the “Auction Configuration” menu of the app.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_19_06

    Enabling this option will let you choose whether you want to enable Proxy bidding for all the running & upcoming auctions OR only for newly created auctions products.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_19_48

    StoreFront View

    Customers will place both normal & proxy bids with the same button.

    Proxy bidding customer end

    NOTE:- If the bidding value is greater than and equal to Current Bid + 2*(minimum allowed bid- Current Bid) then, this will be placed as a proxy bid.

    Default Bid Rule

    Now, the admin can set the default bid rules for the auctioned products of his store.

    From this, you can maintain the gap between the bidding amount.
    If there is no rule defined for any particular bid, then we will take the nearest increment rule.

    For this, visit Product Auction App > Configuration > Auction Configuration

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_20_30

    Once you save the added bid rules, a dialog box will appear. Here, you can decide whether you want these bid rules to be effective on all the auctions or just on future auctions.

    hjtjtlej0kr-1046×562-

    The added bid rules will be by default added to all your future auction. Moreover, you can alter the by-default bid rule for any individual auction while adding/editing it.

    How To Add Product For Auction?

    Firstly, the admin needs to add auction on products and then, the customer will bid on any of those products.

    Click here to know how to add a product for auction.

    This section of the Product Auction lists the products set for auction by the store owner. From here each product auction details can be viewed by clicking on the view button in front of the products.
    Clicking on view auction in front of the product will redirect you to the auction detail page for that product.

    product auction by webkul

    Once you will click on View Auction section, it will list the products with their auction’s start and end date, current bid, and the auction status. Click ‘view’ to see a detailed structure of product bidding history, bidder details and even the remaining time for auctions in the running phase.

    webkul blog

    Clicking on add auction button will let you create an auction for that product by filling up auction form containing bid start-end date and time and much more.
    After creating auctions, you can view all its entered details.

    Add Auctions in Bulk

    Add multiple auctions at one go by following these steps:

    Product Auction App Backend > Auctions > Add Auctions

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_21_28

    Further, on the redirected page, click on the Select Products button.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_21_57

    Now, select the products on which you want to add auction from the product listing pop-up & click on Add. Refer:

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_22_35

    Furthermore, fill the add auction form with the required details as usual.

    The admin will receive an email once the auction is added successfully to all the selected products. In case any product auction fails to update, the information will be included in the received email with the reason for failure.

    Update, finish and delete Auction in bulk.

    Now, if the admin wants to update, delete and finish the auctions in bulk then he can do it from Product Auction App >> Auctions >> select the auctions >> Click on “bulk auctions”

    From the bulk actions, you have “Update auction”, “delete auction” and “finish auction” options to select.

    Sagar-satti-Store-·-Product-Auction-·-Shopify


    Suppose, the admin has clicked on update auction then the admin will enable the update time duration and update the pricing toggle button to update the new time duration and pricing then click update button below.

    Sagar-satti-Store-·-Product-Auction-·-Shopify1



    To know more:

    Auction

    This section lists the products with their auction’s start and end date, current bid, and the auction status. Click ‘view’ to see a detailed structure of product bidding history, bidder details and also the remaining time for auctions in the running phase.

    Moreover, on this page, there is a filter using which the admin can sort out auctions based on ‘Have Winners‘ & ‘Purchased‘.

    Have Winners: This will sort out a list of all the auctions on the store which have winners.
    Purchased: This will list down the auction products which are bought by their winners.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_23_19

    Moreover, clicking on view, you will be on a page that contains all the details about the app.

    webkul blog

    Declare New Winner

    In the Product Auction app, you can now declare a new winner even if the bidder has not reached the reserve price.

    Once the auction ends, you can visit the Auction section & choose the auction to view its winner details.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_25_05

    On the auction detail page, you will get a button “Declare New Winner“. Clicking that button, you can view the list of all the bidders. Select a bidder whom you want to declare as a winner for that particular auction product.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_25_39

    Clicking the Declare New Winner button, you need to select a bidder & approve him/her as the Auction Winner.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_26_27

    Product Auction for Shopify: CSV Feature

    Export Auctions

    You can now export all the auctions from the app via CSV. You need to visit the App>>Go to Auctions menu>>In the Bulk Action>>Click Export Auction (in the drop-down menu).

    This way, you can export the auction CSV from the app and send it to the email configured in the app.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_26_53

    Select if you want to export the selected auctions or export auctions on the basis of auction end date.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_27_49

    Select the Auction type from drop-down menu.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_28_23

    Click the Proceed button and the Auction CSV gets exported and sent to the admin’s email ID.

    Mail Counter

    As per our app’s mail policy, you will be charged for the extra mails in case your mail count reaches the threshold limit. You just need to proceed to the payment page and accept the capped amount.

    Note:- You will be charged an additional amount only if you use extra emails.

    Important Points:-

    • The renewal date will be the last date of each month.
    • You will be charged for the emails up to the current date.
    • The final charges will be counted up to the last date of the month as per the usage.
    • Once your mail count reaches the limit of 2000 free mails, you will get charged an additional amount as per the usage per 1000 mails.
    • If the merchant is using his/her own SMTP then, no additional charges will be deducted for the additional emails.

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_28_58

    Configure Front End

    You need to configure your theme to make this Product Auction work. Copy the below-given code and paste it into their respective files as specified.

    webkul blog

    Product Auction for Shopify: How to Paste Codes in Liquid File

    To get Auction displayed on the front end for selected products, follow the below process:

    • Click on Online Store.
    • Go To Themes.
    • Click on the Action button on the top right.
    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_30_07
    • Select the Edit code button.

    Then paste the below-given codes in the files as stated below.

    product.liquid file

    <div id="wk-auction" prod-id="{{ product.id }}" cust-id="{{ customer.id }}"></div>
    

    customers/account.liquid file

    <div id="wk-auction" cust-id="{{ customer.id }}"></div>

    product.liquid file

    {% unless product.tags contains "wk_auction" %}
    wrap your liquid file content within this block
    {% endunless %}

    search-result-grid.liquid file

    {% unless item.tags contains "wk_auction" %}
    wrap your liquid file content within this block
    {% endunless %}

    product-grid-item.liquid file

    {% unless product.tags contains "wk_auction" %}
    wrap your liquid file content within this block
    {% endunless %}

    Online Store 2.0 – Instruction Codes

    In case you are using Online store 2.0 (Example- Dawn), you need to follow the steps to add the codes.

    To show auction block on product page, add the below code into main-product.liquid template file:-

    <div id="wk-auction" prod-id="{{ product.id }}" cust-id="{{ customer.id }}"></div>

    Paste code at the start of template:-

    {% unless product.tags contains "wk_auction" %}

    Paste code at the end of template:-

     {% endunless %}

    To add Auction Configuration to your theme, add the codes to layout/theme.liquid file:-

    Add code after <body> tag:

    {% render 'wk_auction_config' %}

    To hide “Add to Cart” button on product page, add the codes to sections/main-product.liquid file:-

    Add attribute: class='wk_hide_element' and style='display: none'

    Paste code at the start of block:-

     {% unless product.tags contains "on_auction" %}

    Paste code at the end of block:-

    {% endunless %}

    “View your bids” button on customer account page, add the codes to customers/account.liquid file:-

    <div id="wk-auction" cust-id="{{ customer.id }}"></div>

    Display auction timer and bids on collection page, add codes to snippets/product-card.liquid file:-

    Paste code at the start of template:

    {% unless product_card_product.tags contains "wk_auction" %}

    Paste code at the end of template:-

    {% endunless %}
    <div class="wk-category-auction" data-prod="{{ product_card_product.id }}" cust-id="{{ customer.id }}"></div>

    Bidders

    The bidders menu provided the list of all the customers who have placed their bids on the auctions.

    screenshot_1694165104866

    Here, we have provided the following options for the admin –

    1 -Ban bidder

    2 -Remove Card

    Ban Bidder

    The admin has the option to ban the bidders which he seem unfit to place bids on the auctions set up by them.

    screenshot_1694173487721

    Remove Card

    The admin has the option to remove the card for the bidders in the case of auto-pay

    screenshot_1694165215595

    Initially, only the customer had the option to remove their card from their customer Account page.

    screenshot_1694165437160

    However, they could not remove their card while they have placed their bid for a running auction.

    The bidders can now request the Admin to remove the card while they have placed their bid in a running action.

    screenshot_1694165679378

    Once requested, an e-mail will be sent to the Admin to remove the card.

    Current Bid as a meta field

    Once you enable this configuration, the Admin’s store will create the current bid for the auctioned product as a metafield.

    screenshot_1694168058892

    The Admin can view the meta field on their Shopify store

    screenshot_1694173635450

    Once an auction ends the last current bid’s value for the auctioned product will be stored in the metafield. While once a new auction is created on the product the value of the metafield will be updated to the current bid value of the new auction.

    Purpose – This meta field can be used by the Admin to create a filter on the collection page.

    Note – The functionality will exclusively cater to clients who are subscribed to the Shopify Plus plan and have opted for the pro plan of the Product Auction application

    Bidder End

    Any buyer can bid for a product on which the auction is enabled by the store owner, the only requirement for bidding is to have a buyer account.
    The bidder will see this auction window(ref below image) for the product on which the auction is enabled. The bidder will have to log in and start bidding.

    AwesomeScreenshot-Antique-Gramophone-auction-2019-07-08-14-07-09

    A brief history of bids made can be viewed by the bidder by click on a number of bids section just above place my bid.

    AwesomeScreenshot-Typewriter-Antique-auction-2019-07-08-14-07-85

    History of all the bids made by bidders can be viewed by visiting my account section of the eCommerce store.

    AwesomeScreenshot-Account-auction-2019-07-08-14-07-10

    Clicking on View your bids button on my account page of the customer will make him view the history of bids made along with current bids, lost bids and won bids in separate dedicated sections.

    AwesomeScreenshot-Bidding-Details-auction-2019-07-08-14-07-48

    Important Note

    For the products on which store owner wants to enable auction, the store owner will have to visit that product from Shopify backend’s product section and have to enable auction by clicking on the three dots on the top right.
    Once the auction is selected, that product will start getting reflected in the product section of the Product Auction and the auction can be configured from there.
    Refer to the image below:

    screenshot-cdnblog.webkul.com-2022.09.06-18_30_49

    Winning Flow

    Winning flow is simple for product auction product. As soon as Auction is finished then Winner is declared automatically based on admin configuration. Winner gets the automatic email from admin that “You have Won an Auction. Proceed further and buy this product”. Admin can modify winner email content from configuration.

    image-11

    As soon as Winner click on Buy Now button he/she is redirected to customer accounts page. From Customer account page they can check the winning auction. Buy now button is added in-front of Auction Product.

    image-12

    Once winner click on Buy Now button he is redirected to cart page where he can proceed with checkout.

    image-25

    Note: Winner Product at Shopify Back-end

    When Admin creates the Auction Product, our app creates a product having name shopify auction while initial configuration. As an admin never delete or put that product in Draft state otherwise product auction will not work. Also this product should be available on online store sales channel. Moreover, if this product is not Active or Disabled, then the auction winners will get an Out of Stock error at the checkout page.

    image-27
    image-28

    Auction Product is created as a variation but Auction Widget is applied to the actual product that customer sees on the front-end. As a result customer placed the bid on actual product and received the mail if declared as winner to buy variation product.

    image-25

    Place bid on behalf of customers

    Now, the admin can place bids on behalf of customers using a CSV file.
    for this, go to the AUCTIONS section >> click on “Place bid”

    Dipesh-Singh-Store-·-Product-Auction-·-Shopify

    Now, you will have the option to upload a CSV file to bid place on behalf of the customer and you will find an option to download a sample CSV file but go through instructions for the CSV file then upload the CSV file to place a bid.

    Dipesh-Singh-Store-·-Product-Auction-·-Shopify1

    DEMO

    Moreover, Use the below-given links for the demo of this app: https://auction-10.myshopify.com/pages/demo

    Support

    If you need any kind of support/consultancy then please raise a ticket at http://webkul.uvdesk.com/ or drop a mail at [email protected]

    Thanks for reading this blog!!! 🙂

    . . .

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