Raise More Money at Your Silent Auction with Auto Max Bidding

After helping nonprofits and charities host hundreds of in-person, virtual, and hybrid events, we’ve learned a few things about what it takes to put on a successful fundraiser. One of the most useful things we’ve discovered? People love participating in silent auctions.

One of the most popular activities you can offer using our online platform, silent auctions enable your organization to start raising money days or even weeks before your fundraiser begins. That’s because, unlike live auctions where you have to participate in real-time, anyone can visit our silent auction page, place a bid on an auction item, and be notified via text or email if they placed the winning bid.

Plus, since people are already technically participating in your fundraiser by bidding in your auction, a silent auction is an excellent way to build buzz around your main fundraising gala and get people excited about attending your official event.

In fact, silent auctions have helped so many of our clients raise large amounts of money that PayBee’s decided to create a new feature designed to make bidding more convenient for your guests — and more profitable for your nonprofit organization.

It’s called auto bidding.

What is auto bidding?

In the past, when donors wanted to bid in a PayBee-supported silent auction, they’d visit your silent auction page, place their bid, and leave their contact information (name, email, and phone number). After that, PayBee’s system would text or email each bidder if they got outbid by another guest. This would encourage guests to return to your auction page, place a higher bid, and then wait for a notification informing them that they’d won the auction item.

This worked out pretty well, but it still required people to come back to your website which could be inconvenient for some. Today’s digital world moves fast, and even regular text messages can go unread or unnoticed, causing your auction to miss out on some additional bids.

To solve this, we’re now offering an “auto bid” feature you can enable with our platform. Automatic bidding allows your guests to set up bids to be placed automatically in case someone places a higher bid on an item they want.

This frees guests up from the hassle of having to return to your website and manually place a bid. Auto bids can be set up to regularly increase a guest’s bid up to a specific “maximum bid amount.” This ensures each guest doesn’t go over their budget while also increasing your nonprofit’s chances of raising more money — and stimulating healthy overall bidding for your entire silent auction.

How does auto bidding work?

Setting up auto bidding is easy with the PayBee system. All your guests need to do is set up a maximum bid amount, or the highest amount they’re willing to bid on an auction item. This can be any amount that’s more than the current bid by at least double the bid increment.

For instance, if your guests are bidding on an all-expense paid vacation with a current bid of $500 and the bid increments are $50, a person setting up auto bidding would have to create a maximum bid amount of at least $600 (or higher) to use auto bidding.

Keep in mind that each person’s maximum bid amount is known only to them, meaning the other bidders won’t know how high each guest’s auto bid will go. This keeps bidding lively since the PayBee system will automatically bid for each guest using the smallest allowed increments. Your guests won’t even have to be on the website to help keep up the excitement of the auction.

Once each guest reaches their maximum bid amount, they’ll receive a notification from PayBee. If their bid was enough to win them the item, they’ll receive another notification letting them know they won.

Other bidding options

Of course, some guests still enjoy doing their bidding one at a time, which is why PayBee’s original “Bid Once” option isn’t going anywhere. This option lets each guest select their bid amount and bid right away. If they get outbid, they’ll receive a notification from PayBee, prompting them to return to the website and continue bidding. This is a nice way to keep your guests in the middle of the action and experience the fun of a silent auction.

Guests can also bid from anywhere using PayBee’s mobile silent auction bidding feature which lets them conveniently bid from their smart phones anywhere in your event venue — or at home.

However way your guests decide to play, PayBee’s system is set up to maximize enjoyment and reward fast play. This is shown in our “tie breaker rule” where, in the case of a tie, the person who placed the winning bid first is considered the winner. This bid can be placed either as an auto bid or a straight bid, meaning both types of bidders have a fair shot at winning.

Then there are those guests who simply don’t want to wait for the auction to end to get their desired item. Guess what? PayBee accommodates them too by offering a “Buy It Now” option that lets you set a price that’ll let a guest immediately snap up an auction item — and put some money into your nonprofit’s pocket.

Promoting your silent auction

PayBee also offers useful features that help promote your silent auction and guide people toward your website. As stated, this also helps promote your main fundraiser while immediately generating funds for your nonprofit or charity.

To begin, take advantage of PayBee’s silent auction campaign tools. These online tools make it simple to bulk upload all your silent auction item information onto our auto generated auction pages and set up key features like minimum bid amounts and custom bid increments. You’ll also want to take the time to create enticing descriptions of each item and illustrate it with an attractive photo or graphic.

Then, promote your silent auction using PayBee’s built-in social sharing features and automatic email invitations. Know what social media channels your audience frequents and promote your fundraiser (and silent auction) on prominent posts. Make sure to include a direct link to your silent auction website so interested people can start bidding right away!

Moving forward

As you can see, PayBee constantly updates its online fundraising platform to make it more convenient for your guests to use (and more profitable for your organization). Stay on top of all our latest tools and features by having your event staff periodically test out our system.

Sign up for a free demo of the PayBee system and experience first hand what your guests will enjoy at a PayBee-supported fundraiser. If you’ve never had a chance to use our platform before, you’ll discover how intuitive and easy-to-use the controls are. Each demo also comes with a mock live auction where you can bid on items with virtual money, letting you see how much fun these events can be.

Want more one-on-one support? PayBee now offers “mini-demos” where you can schedule one-on-one sessions with our team of experts. You’ll be able to ask all of your technical questions and be able to discover the advantages that come with hosting an in-person, virtual, or hybrid fundraiser using PayBee’s digital tools. Discover how you can use the latest online tools to make your next fundraiser your most successful one to date. Sign up for a free demo now!

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