Learn about MemberHub’s auction options and how to customize them for your Experience.
Running an online auction may seem complicated, but MemberHub provides many tools and customizations to help your auction proceed smoothly and efficiently.
Types of Auctions
MemberHub offers two auction types: English style and proxy-bidding. Learn which type may be best for you in this Knowledge Base article: What’s the difference between an English style auction and a proxy-bidding auction?
Costs
MemberHub offers a few different pricing options to help cover the costs of your fundraiser.
- Our Pricing Page provides detailed pricing information.
- Auction-only fundraisers must be run using our Advanced Pricing option.
Item Limits
You can add as many auction items as you like, and you can customize how your items are organized.
- If you have a lot of items, consider putting them into categories so donors can quickly find what they’re interested in:
- If you want to highlight a particular auction item, you can create a link specifically for that item. This KB article guides you through that process: How to create a unique link for your auction items
Promoting Your Auction
MemberHub has tools to help you get the word out about your auction and make it easy for people to participate.
- Share the link to your auction through social media or email to increase exposure to potential donors. Further instructions are located in this KB article: How to find and share your experience link.
- Enable Text-to-Give, a free tool that allows people to text and receive a link to the experience on their phone, to make it easier for donors to access your Experience page. Learn how to set this up with this KB article: Promote your experience with text-to-give.
- Add a livestream element to boost engagement. This KB article can give you some ideas: How to turn your fundraiser into a live virtual event.
Bidding Process
MemberHub helps you manage all steps of the bidding process on one site.
- Donors bid directly from your Experience page.
- When donors place their first bid, they’re asked to enter their credit card information and create a MemberHub account. This makes it easy for donors to increase their bids later if they are outbid.
- Donors can bid as many times as they want on as many items as they’d like.
- MemberHub only charges the winning bidders after the auction ends.
Buy it Now
You have the option to let a bidder buy an item immediately if they don’t want to risk losing the item to another bidder. Buy It Now allows donors to skip the bidding process and purchase an item for a set price. Buy It Now can also be enabled or disabled at your preference. See this KB article to learn how: Can I add Buy It Now to my Auction Items?
Outbid Notifications
Donors can choose to receive outbid and winning notifications by email and by text.
- Donors automatically receive email notifications when they’re outbid, but donors can also opt in to text notifications when they place their first bid and create their account:
- Both email and text notifications include a link that allows donors to update their bids easily.
- If you choose to let our system notify the auction winners at the end of the experience, donors who opted in to outbid notifications will also receive a text notification for their win.
Tax-Deductible Receipts
Once the auction is completed, we charge winning donors’ credit cards and send them a receipt. If you include the auction item’s fair market value, the receipt also acts as a tax receipt. This KB article provides further information on fair market value and how it applies to tax deductions: How to designate ‘fair market value’ for auction items to appear on the winner’s receipts.
Additional Resources
- Speak to our customer service team by emailing support@memberhub.com