How to Run Unique Auctions in your WooCommerce Shop?

Online Auctions are gaining popularity in recent times as they are becoming one of the preferred ways of running auctions. In this article, we will explain the following,

– What are Unique Auctions, what are its benefits and its types
– How to Run Unique Auctions in your WooCommerce Shop

What is Unique Bid Auction

Unique Bid Auction is one of the types of Auctions and it is similar to the type of strategy for choosing the winner. In Unique Bid auction, the winner will be chosen based on the bidder whose bid is either the lowest unique bid or the highest unique bid.

Advantages of Unique Auctions
– In Unique Bid Auctions, the winner will be chosen based on the bidding strategy used by the bidders. So, your customers will be more interested to participate in the auction.
– You can optionally choose to collect a refundable or non-refundable bid fee from your users for placing the bid in Unique Bid Auction.
– It helps in gaining more traffic to your site.

How Unique Auction Works?
Unique Bid Auction is different between other Auction types because it allows only unique bid value to be chosen as the winning bid. Also, Bidders cannot know other bidder’s bids until the auction has ended. Once the auction has ended, the winner will be announced and all bidders can view the bids placed by other bidders. Unique bid auction can further be divided into two types

(i) Highest Unique Bid Auction
(ii) Lowest Unique Bid Auction

(i) Highest Unique Bid Auction
Highest Unique Bid Auction is one of the types of Unique Bid auction. In this auction type, the user will have to place their bids without knowing what the other users may have bid. Once the auction end date has been reached the user who placed the highest Unique Bid will be chosen as the winner.

Example

Bid Value         Number of times bid value placed
10                              5
40                             3
50                             2
60                             3
80                             1
100                           1
110                            3

In above table, you can see the value of the bids placed and the number of times a same bid value has been placed.
As per the example, the bid value “100” is the highest bid placed and it has been placed only once(Highest unique value). So, the user who has placed the bid value “100” will be chosen as the Auction Winner.

(ii) Lowest Unique Bid Auction
Lowest Unique Bid Auction is one of the types of Unique Bid auction. In this auction type, the user will have to place their bids without knowing what the other users may have bid. Once the auction end date has been reached the user who placed the lowest Unique Bid will be chosen as the winner.

Example

Bid Value        Number of times bid value placed
10                          5
40                         3
50                         2
60                         3
80                         1
100                       1
110                        3

In above table, you can see the value of the bids placed and the number of times a same bid value has been placed.
As per the example, the bid value “80” is the lowest bid placed and it has been placed only once(Lowest unique value). So, the user who has placed the bid value “80” will be chosen as the Auction Winner.

How Unique Bid Auction uses in Your WooCommerce Store

Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce is a Premium WooCommerce Auctions Plugin which is available in WooCommerce.com. Using this plugin you can create and run Unique Bid auctions in your WooCommerce shop. The plugin supports two types of Unique Bid Auctions,

(i) Normal Unique Auction(Highest Unique Bid Auction)
(ii) Reverse Unique Auction(Lowest Unique Bid Auction).

(i) Normal Unique Auction(Highest Unique Bid Auction)
In Normal Unique Auction, the winning bid should be unique and highest value.

(ii) Reverse Unique Auction(Lowest Unique Bid Auction)
In Reverse Unique Auction, unique and lowest value is the winning bid.

Features Supported by Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce to Run Unique Bid Auctions
– Using this plugin you can create the both Normal Unique Auction(Highest Unique Bid Auction) and Reverse Unique Auction(Lowest Unique Bid Auction)
– Bidders cannot know the bids placed by other bidders until the auction has ended. Once the auction has ended, the winner name will be displayed and all bidders can view the other user’s bids in the Auction Bid Details tab on the product page.
– My Bids tab available on the product page to allow the users to view their placed bids for the unique bid auction.
– Option available to customize the messages in Unique Bid Auction.
– If none of the unique value is available then the auction gets failed. Relist option is available to re-start the auction again if the auction gets failed.

You may find the following articles helpful
Top 5+ Best WooCommerce Auction Plugins

Top 5+ Best WooCommerce Auction Plugins

Are you planning to run an auction-based online shop similar to e-bay?. Then WooCommerce Auction Plugins can help you in setting up a WooCommerce based Auction site.

Advantages
– Allow users to bid your products
– You can sell products by setting a minimum start price
– Allow users to see live updates about the auction
– It increases your site traffic
– It increases your sale and profit margin

In this article, we have listed Top 5+ Best WooCommerce Auction Plugins which are as follows,
1. Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce
2. YITH Auctions for WooCommerce
3. WooCommerce Simple Auctions – WordPress Auctions
4. WordPress WooCommerce Marketplace Auction Plugin
5. Ultimate WooCommerce Auction Plugin
6. BuddyForms WooCommerce Simple Auction

1. Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce

Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce is a premium plugin which is developed by Flintop. It allows you to enable and manage online auctions system on your WooCommerce shop.

Some of the notable features offered by this plugin are as follows,
– It supports various auction types: normal, reverse, sealed, proxy and unique
– It allows you to set starting bid, bid increments, the reserve price, the “buy it now” price, auction start and end times, and the item condition of the Auction product
– You can force your users to register for the auction to participate and place their bids(registration fee is optional)
– Option available to charge a one-time bid fee to participate and place their bids in the auction
– Bidders can add auctions to a watchlist and they can see the added auctions in the watchlist tab on their auction dashboard
– Available Widgets, Badge for auction products, separate postable for site admin to manage auctions products, auction dashboard for users
– Sends automated email notifications — with editable email templates
– It has ajax live current bid and auction history updating
– Customizable messages and localization

2. YITH Auctions for WooCommerce

YITH Auctions for WooCommerce is a premium plugin which is developed by yith. Using this plugin, you can enable an auction system on your WooCommerce store.

Features offered by this plugin are listed below,
– You can set a minimum start price
– You can notify the user about the auction duration
– Allow users to view the complete auction
– Set the reserve price if the minimum requested amount won’t be reached
– You can set pre-set price to the product for the users to buy immediately
– You can manage how to show the products sold by the auction in the shop
– Notify users about the auction status by automatic emails

3. WooCommerce Simple Auctions – WordPress Auctions

WooCommerce Simple Auctions – WordPress Auctions is a premium plugin which is developed by wpgenie. It allows you to enable and create auction website or Ebay clone with regular, proxy, sealed (silent) and reverse auctions along with your normal products. You can set a start price, price increment, reserve price, buy it now price to the product.

It offers some major features which are listed below,
– You can set start and end time for the auction
– Normal, reverse and sealed (silent) auctions, proxy/auto bidding
– It allows you to define start price, price increment, reserve price, buy it now price
– You can control how to display auctions
– Widgets with ending soon, future, latest, featured, recently viewed, etc
– You can filter the product list for auction
– It has ajax live updating for current bid and auction history

4. WordPress WooCommerce Marketplace Auction Plugin


WordPress WooCommerce Marketplace Auction Plugin is a premium plugin which is developed by webkul. It allows you to create and add products for auction and allow the buyers to bid on the products. It has four types of auctions they are standard, incremental, automatic, and reserve auction.

Notable features offered by this plugin are as follows,
– Allow seller to add standard, incremental, automatic and reserve auction
– Email option for every outbid customer bid placed
– It allows all types of actions to apply in a single product
– Allow customers to place the standard bid as well an automatic bid
– Option to show bidder name, bid, and details under automatic bidding
– Option to show the current bid

5. Ultimate WooCommerce Auction Plugin

Ultimate WooCommerce Auction Plugin is a free plugin. Using this plugin, you can add your selected products as auctions on your WooCommerce store.

Features offered by this plugin are listed below,
– Registered user can place bids
– It has the option of buy now
– You can set the reserve price for your product
– It allows you to show the auctions in your timezone
– You can edit, delete & end live auctions
– Option for re-activate expired auctions
– Ajax admin panel for better management
– You can set incremental bids for auctions
– It allows you to cancel last bid
– Option for email notifications to bidders for placing bids
– Option to sent email for payment alerts
– Count Down Timer for auctions

Check out the PRO version which offers more features.

6. BuddyForms WooCommerce Simple Auction

BuddyForms WooCommerce Simple Auction is a free plugin. It allows you to create and manage auctions from frontend by using simple auction form elements in the Form Builder.

Some of the important features are listed below,
– It allows you to create auction type
– Option for auction proxy
– You can set the start price of the product for the auction
– Bid Increment
– Option to set reserve price
– You can set From and To the date of auction