Tutorial Video – Creating a new Timed Auction

Can’t see the Tutorial Video for this guide? Click here to watch it on YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-9hLbC0guo&list=PLw8RuwC1CKuoF3H2Mwhew81nu9EhVqrVp&index=1&pp=iAQB 

Creating a New Timed Auction – Step-by-Step

This Quick Guide details the setup process for Creating a new Timed Auction inside the Webtron Dashboard. Please note, this is the Creating a New Timed Auction guide specifically for the Webtron Dashboard. For VendorPlus, click here to open the Creating a new Timed Auction in VendorPlus guide.

For the more detailed tab-by-tab breakdown, click here to open our Creating a Timed Auction (tab-by-tab) guide.

Step 1 – Click on the Auctions & Items dropdown

Once logged in to the Webtron Dashboard, in the sidebar click on the Auctions & Items dropdown and click Create Timed Auction.

The New Auction menu will now load and you will land on the General Settings tab.

Step 2 – the General Settings tab

The first tab you’ll land on is the General Settings tab. Here you will set several Auction details, such as the Name of Auction (Auction Title), Auction Description, Bidding Extension and Buyer’s Premium % (and additional taxes if required).

We’ll go through each of the Fields in the General Settings tab below:

1. Name of Auction * – Enter in the Title of your Auction, this will act as the name of the event and the clickable link to open the Auction on your Portal. The Name of Auction can be up to 234 characters long, and supports alphanumeric characters (letters and numbers).

2. Description * – Enter in the Description for your auction. The information entered here is up to you, we recommend you include notable items in the auction, important auction information such as; contact details, collection days, bidding extension rate, etc.

3. Currency – Your Currency will automatically pre-fill based on the default Current in your Auctioneer settings, otherwise you can click the drop-down menu and select a different currency.

4. Bidding Extension – This dropdown contains time values that set the duration of your Bidding Extension

For example, if you choose 2 minutes, this means that any bids placed in the last 2 minutes of an Lot’s countdown will result in the Lot’s End Time being extended by a further 2 minutes, until all budding activity on that Lot has ceased.

5. Purchase Cut Off – This is optional.

If you have Buy Now or Make Offer options enabled on Lots in this Auction, this determines how long prior to the closing of the Auction that these options will disappear. Listings added to your Auction will not be affected by the Purchase Cut Off. If not Lots in your Auction are using the Buy Now or Make Offer options, you can leave Purchase Cut Off as is.

6. Buyers Premium * – The Buyer’s Premium field will be pre-filled by your Auctioneer profile’s Default Buyer’s Premium, but you can enter in a different Buyer’s Premium for this Auction if you so choose. This is a number field that supports decimals, simply type in the whole amount (e.g. 15% is 15.00) and that will set the percentage value of your Buyer’s Premium.

7. Sales Taxes Required – The Sales Taxes Required is a checkbox that will hide the Hammer Tax, BP Tax and Charges Tax fields. We recommend keeping this checkbox ticked, as unticking it will also hide the Buyer’s Premium for this Timed Auction.

8. Hammer Tax Rate, BP Tax Rate and Charges Tax Rate – Hammer Tax Rate is a percentage applied to the final Hammer Price on each Lot and Listing, BP Tax Rate is a percentage applied to the value derived from the Buyer’s Premium levied on the final Hammer Price, and Charges Tax Rate is a percentage applied to the value of the flat Charges amount you can set on each Item in your Auction. These are all optional, and can also be set on a per-Item basis.

9. Default Deposit and Auto-Approval Location – These options are no longer supported, please leave them as-is and proceed to the Logo tab.

Step 3 – the Logo tab (Optional)

Once you’re finished with the General Settings tab, scroll up and click on the Logo tab. The Logo tab allows you to upload and set a Logo for your Auction.

1. Logo – Setting a Logo is optional. If you would like to upload and set a Logo for your Auction, simply click the green Add button and either click the blue Choose Files button or drag and drop your Logo from your File Explorer/Finder inside the dashed border.

2. Your Logo will be added to upload queue, but the upload won’t begin until after your click Save Auction. Don’t do that yet, there are still required fields remaining inside the Dates tab you must fill out before clicking Save Auction.

Step 4 – the Dates tab

After setting or skipping the Logo tab, click on the Dates tab. Inside the Dates tab, you will set the Auction/Bidding Start and End Dates and Times, Auction Viewing and Auction Clearance Dates, as well as unique features like Stagger End Times.

The Dates tab is divided into three sections; Auction Start & End, Auction Viewing, and Auction Clearance.

Auction Start & End section

1. Time Zone * – Your Time Zone is set by your Auctioneer profile’s Default Time Zone, so you can leave this setting as is. Bidder’s will see the Auction’s Start and End Times in their profile’s chosen Time Zone or the Time Zone setting on the device.

2. Auction Starts * – This is the Date and Time that sets when bidding will open for this Auction. Click the Date field to open the Date Calendar panel and select a Date, then click the h (hour) dropdown to set the Start Hour, and the m (minute) dropdown to set the Start Minute (00 is the default, on the hour).

3. Stagger End Times (Optional) – This enables you to set soft-groups of Items and stagger the closing times of those grouped items, so that all items do not end at the same time (the Auction Ends Time). We heavily recommend this for Auctions containing 100 Lots or more.

• If you do not want to use Stagger End Times, leave the Stagger End Times checkbox unticked.
• If you do want to enable Stagger End Times, tick the Stagger End Times checkbox, and the By dropdown and Every field will now appear.

By – By is a dropdown that sets the Stagger Timeframe between each Lot Grouping, options range from as little as 10 seconds to up to 60 minutes.

Every – Every is a number field that sets the Stagger Lot Grouping Rate, essentially the number of Lots in each soft-grouping. E.g. if you have 250 Lots and the Stagger Rate to 3, each 3 Lots will share the same End Time.

For Example: You could stagger items by 1 minute per 1 lot (so that each item ends 1 minute apart). Or, you could stagger lots in batches, such as 200 items closing every 30 minutes. We recommend matching the Every setting to the default Lots per Page setting on your Portal (usually 30 Lots per page).

4. Auction Ends * – This is the bidding closes Date and Time for this Auction (if you use Stagger End Times this will set the baseline End Time). Click the Date field to open the Date Calendar panel and click any of the dates to set your End Date, then click the h (hour) dropdown to set the End Hour, and the m (minute) dropdown to set the End Minute (00 is the default, on the hour).

5. Auction Viewing (Partially Optional) – This is where you can enter in any Inspection/ Viewing Days (if applicable) and set if your Inspection/Viewing Days require an appointment.

• If you will have inspection days – Enter in the date span and times for inspections in the Viewing Starts and Viewing Ends fields. You can also leave By Appointment Only – No ticked or tick By Appointment Only – Yes with Dates to specify both the Viewing Dates and requirement for an appointment.
• If you will not have inspection days, click the By Appointment Only – Yes checkbox and enter a note in the Comment on Viewing box that there will be no inspection days for this Auction.

6. Auction Clearance – This is optional. You can enter in days for the collection/removal of items (if applicable) by entering a date span and times, or simply typing a custom comment into the Comment on Clearance box. All Auction Clearance fields are optional and can be left blank.

Step 5 – the Location tab

Once you have finished setting your Auction Dates, scroll up and click on the Location tab. The Location tab will set the Site Address for this Auction, this can be either the Site of the Auction itself, your Office Address, or the Collection Point for this Auction.

1. Use Auctioneer Address (Optional) – Tick the Use Auctioneer Address checkbox to automatically fill in your default address based on your Auctioneer profile’s Default Address. Otherwise, you can enter your Location details in manually, field-by-field. Only Country * and County/State * are required fields, the rest can be left blank.

After setting your Auction Location, you can click the green Save Auction button or proceed to the Documents tab to continue.

Step 6 – the Documents tab (Optional)

After setting your Auction Location details, click on the Documents tab. The Documents tab enables you to upload and attach documents relevant to your Auction, such as Word Docs (.docx), Adobe PDFs (.pdf) and CSV Spreadsheets (.csv) at the Auction level. These Documents can then be downloaded and viewed by your Bidders from the Essential Information panel for this Auction on your Portal.

This step is entirely Optional, Documents can also be attached on a per-Item basis after your Items are converted from Ghost to Real Item status.

1. Uploading Documents – If you choose to attach Documents to your Auction, click the blue Choose Files button and select the document(s) in your File Explorer or Finder that you would like to upload and attach to the Auction, or drag and drop the document(s) from your File Explorer/Finder into inside of the dashed border area.

Step 7 – the Contacts tab (Optional)

After uploading to or skipping the Documents tab, click on the Contacts tab. Contacts allows you to assign a Contact profile to that Auction, your Bidder can find their details in the Essential Information panel and call or email with queries.

1. Assigning a Contact to an Auction is optional, otherwise you can tick the checkbox for any of the available Contact profiles inside the Contacts tab to assign them to that Auction.

Step 8 – the Supporting Content tab (Optional)

After assigning or skipping the Contacts tabm you can proceed to the Supporting Content. Supporting Content houses your default Auction Content, namely:

• Your Terms and Conditions
• Your Collection Details
• Your Payment Terms
• Your Registration Message
• A optional 5th Custom Content box (Defaults to Auction Collection Information)

Editing your Supporting Content is optional, we recommend opening our Setting Auction-specific Terms and Conditions guide, as well as our Auction Supporting Content Explained guide.

1. Supporting Content – This is optional. Unticking the ‘Use Auctioneer Content’ checkbox allows you to edit or add any sale-specific Payment or Collection Information.

Step 9 – Click the green Save Auction button

Once you have set your Auction details and filled in every required field, click the green Save Auction button at the top-left of the menu.

If you have filled out every required field correctly, you will land back on the View Auctions page and see the yellow Auction Created confirmation message at the top of your screen.

Common Mistakes and Correcting Errors

If you have missed any or filled in required fields incorrectly, you will see a red error section appear below the Save Auction button, containing the details of which fields have not been filled in or not filled correctly, and a Show Error hyperlink at the end of each error:

Click Show Error and the Dashboard will open the relevant tab, highlight the field that must be corrected and display instructions on how to fill it in or correct your error:

Once you have fixed the errors listed, click the green Save Auction button again.

FAQ – Creating Timed Auctions

Q: I don’t have all the Auction details yet, can I still create an auction?
A: Yes, all of the fields in the New Auction menu can be filled with placeholders and edited later on.

Q: I hit save Auction and no new Auction has appeared on the View Auctions page?
A: Make sure you have the Preview status ticked and applied in the Modify Filter panel, this can be found at the top-left of the View Auctions page. Click the yellow Modify Filter button, tick the checkbox next to PREVIEW under the Status section, then click the blue Apply button. Your Auction should now appear inside the Auctions table.

Q: I’ve enabled the Preview status filter, but my Auction still isn’t there, what do I do?
A: Tick the Draft status as well. If your Auction is in Draft status, click the blue Edit button under the Actions column or click the Auction title, then click the green Edit Auction button. Once the Edit Auction menu opens, untick the Save as Draft checkbox at the top-left of the menu, next to the green Save Auction button. Click Save Auction after that, and your Auction should now show as in Preview status on the View Auctions page.

Q: I didn’t have any Auctions showing in Draft status, what did I do wrong?
A: If you hit Save Auction and your new Auction did not appear on the View Auctions page, you’ve most likely exceeded the Auction Title character limit, which can risk corrupting your Auction. Click New Timed Auction again, and ensure your Auction Title/Name of Auction is 234 characters or lower (We recommend 150 characters or less).