To optimize the revenue that your auction brings in, you need to be intentional when setting each auction item’s starting bid and bid increment. When adding or editing an auction item in Qgiv, you may see recommended amounts for starting bid and bid increment.
This article explains how those recommended amounts are generated to help you supercharge your fundraising.
Contents:
Fair Market Value
In order to see recommended amounts for an auction item, you must first enter the item’s Fair Market Value. The Fair Market Value is what the item would retail for if sold on the open market. It’s a good idea to do some research and compare prices for similar items in order to determine this value.
The amount you enter here will display to bidders and will determine the recommended amounts you see for the Starting Bid and Bid Increment fields.
Please note: If you enter a value in the Custom Item Value Text field, that custom value will display to bidders instead of the Fair Market Value.
Starting Bid
Silent auction best practices indicate that the optimal starting bid for an auction item should be 30-50% of the item’s value. A starting amount in that range will generally give bidders a chance to win the item below market value, while still giving your organization a great opportunity to earn revenue on the item.
Once you’ve entered a value in the Fair Market Value field, the system will recommend a starting bid of 40% of that value or $5, whichever is higher.
Bid Increment
Our recommended bid increments are based on item value ranges to ensure that the resulting increments are nice round numbers. Rounding in increments of 5, 10, 25, 50, or 100 keeps the numbers simple and helps you and your bidders figure out their next bid with quick math.
Once you’ve entered a value in the Fair Market Value field, the system will get bidders to 70% of the item's value in 5-10 bids.
Please note: Recommended amounts will only display when you're first creating an auction item. They won't display when you edit an existing item.
We hope this tool makes setting up your auction a breeze! For more tips and best practices for pricing auction items, check out this blog post.