What is an Auction?
An auction is a dynamic system added to your site that allows visitors to suggest bids for a listing. This feature is particularly beneficial for sites selling limited numbers of products, creating a competitive environment that can drive up the final sale price.
Setting Up the Listdom Auction Addon
Once the Listdom Auction Addon is installed and activated, a new section will appear under the Addons tab in Listdom → Settings. Here, you can configure the addon to suit your needs.
The options on this page are:
- Guest Offer: Enabling this option allows guest users to place offers, opening up the bidding process to a wider audience.
- Offer Comment: This option lets users add comments along with their offers, providing additional context or information that might influence the listing owner’s decision.
- Sort Offers By: You can set a default sorting option for displaying offers on the listing details page. Currently, offers can be sorted by amount or date.
User Interface and Management
After configuring the addon, new sections will appear on the listing details page to facilitate the auction process.
Frontend Features
On the front end, users can see the auction section within the listing details page. This intuitive interface allows users to easily place their bids and add comments if permitted.
- The submitted offers by any of the site users.
- New offer amount
- New offer comment
Backend Management
Both the listing owner and admin can see and accept offers from the edit listing page. To accept an offer, just select it and update the listing.
How To Manage The Offers
The offers are also listed in the Listdom → Offers menu.
The available options on this page are:
1. Offers Table
A list of the created and submitted offers in different statuses. The columns of this table are:
- Title: The title of the offer. The offers submitted by the users on the listings by default include the offer amount and its submitter email address.
- Listing: The listing on which the offer has been submitted.
- Amount: The amount of the offer.
- Status: The status of the offer that can be “Accepted” or “Not Accepted”.
- Date: The publish or the last modification (for non-published status) date of the offer.
If you don’t see some of the columns, click on the “Screen Options” on the top right of the screen and mark the needed column names to display them. To edit an offer, click on its title. Also, you can use the options under the title to Edit, Quick Edit, or Trash the offer. Also, you can use the “Bulk Action” dropdown above the table to edit several offers at once.
2. Filters
Use these fields to filter the offers according to their dates, and statuses.
3. Statuses
Here the different statuses of the offers that have at least 1 offer included are displayed. The “All” item is not a status. The “All” refers to all of the offers. There are other statuses too:
- Published: The published offers.
- Draft: The draft offers.
- Pending: The offers created by the user on the listing page need the approval of the site admin to be displayed in the offers list.
- Trash: The trashed offers.
4. Search Form
use this form to search the offers.
5. Add Offer
To add a new offer hit the “Add Offer” button to open the “Add New Offer” page. On this page, you can create an offer manually. The available options on this page are:
Add Title: Enter a name for the offer.
Publish: It’s the final option you must get to. After finishing all of the configurations of the listing, click on the publish button. Other options in this section are:
- Save Draft: Before publishing the offer, you can save it as a draft and get back to it later.
- Status: Choose the status of the listing to be:
- Published: Available after the offer is published.
- Pending Review: It is used for the offers that are pending the admin approval.
- Draft
- Visibility: Select the visibility condition. Available options are:
- Public: The default, viewable to all.
- Password protected: Clicking this radio button followed by “OK” causes a further text box to appear, into which you can enter a password.
- Private: This option hides the content from the public completely.
- Published on / Published immediately: Select the publish date and time.
What Happens After an Offer Is Accepted?
Once an offer is accepted, the auction closes automatically, and the bidding form is removed. This ensures a smooth and efficient end to the auction process.
Notification Hooks
The Listdom Auction add-on adds some new hooks to the Notification Hooks. They are:
- New Offer
- Owner Offer Notification
- Offer Accepted
- Offer Unaccepted
You can send emails and SMS when each of these events happens. To learn more about hooks, read the Listdom Notification documentation.
Manage the Auction add-on visibility
The Listdom enables you to control the visibility of the Auction add-on sections on the listing pages at different levels.
Disable it for all of the listings
To disable it, go to Listdom → Settings → Details Page, and under the Elements section find the Auction. Click on the check icon ✓ to disable the Auction section on all of the listings. Note: The Auction section will remain on the Add / Edit listing page but won’t be displayed on the front end.
Disable for a specific listing
You can disable the element for each listing individually. To do that navigate to the Display Options section on the Add / Edit listing page of the desired listing and disable the Auction element.
Disable it on the Frontend Dashboard
To disable the Auction field on the Add listing form of the Frontend dashboard, Navigate to the Listdom → Settings → General → Frontend Submission tab and disable the Auction element.
👉 The Display options and the Frontend Dashboard are available in the Listdom Pro Add-on.
