Silent Auction Pro - Creating Auction Items Help Page

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Auction administrators can create auction items using the options found under the Auction Items & Catalog menu option.

An auction item can consist of one or more donations. If two or more donations are combined to create a single auction item, this is referred to as bundling in the Silent Auction Pro™ software. A single donation also can be converted to an auction item through the Bundling page, or several individual donations can be automatically converted to individual auction items using the 1 donation : 1 auction item (Create auction items from single donations). These methods are explained in the Creating an Auction Item Bundle and 1 Donation : 1 Auction Item help pages.

Donations that are used for raffle items or other purposes that are not intended to be sold as an auction item do not need to be converted to auction items. Donated items that you do not intend to convert to auction items may be set to the status "Not for auction" and they will not show up on the auction item creation pages.

Using on-paper bundling resources

There are typically two phases to creating bundled auction items; organizations often create a plan on paper before manipulating donations within the Silent Auction Pro™ tools and database. The Auction Item Bundle Resources section of the Create & Edit Auction Items menu option provides links to an Excel worksheet (Bundling Worksheet) and to the list of donations (Donations Report for Bundling).

Making bundling decisions

During the on-paper bundling phase, a small group of people can use a list of all the donations along with the bundling worksheet to decide the following:

Which donations should be bundled into an auction item and which donations stand alone?
Example: A limo ride, dinner for two, and bottle of wine are donations that are bundled to become a single auction item; season tickets to the symphony stand alone as a single auction item.
What Auction Type should be assigned to the auction item?
Example: Will this item be offered as part of the silent auction? a door prize? a raffle prize? and so on.
To which section does each item belong?
Example: For larger silent auctions with a significant number of donations, auction items can be separated into different sections that are progressively closed during the night of the event. You can create excitement and more bidding activity by counting down the time until a section closes; this helps stagger the data entry tasks for the auction assistants who are entering the bidding results.

Associating blocks of numbers to auction types

Assigning blocks of numbers to different types of items helps keep an event organized, particularly when working with large events. This allows you to easily identify and separate items and simplifies the bundling entry phase. For example, number silent auction items as 1–299, raffle prizes as 300–399, door prizes as 400–499, and live auction items as 500–600.