Auction Workflow

The ultimate WooCommerce Auction pro plugin provides many features. Some of the pro features will Let your Users Add Auction, Proxy Bidding, Multilingual, Buyer’s Premium, Soft-Close/ Anti-sniping, Relist: Automatic & Manual, Variable Increment, Silent Bidding. Add separate pages for Live, Expired, and Future auctions using shortcodes and counting.

If you are not aware of how to install and set up our plugin then please refer to our Getting Started guide.

In This Article: 

• Admin Add Auction Product
• User Register
• User Place Bids On Product
• Auction Expiration(Starter Version)
• Auction Expiration(Business Version)

Please review the below YouTube video. We have created the video for a normal auction workflow. This video will cover bidders placing a bid on the auction product, Auction expires and the highest bidder becomes the winner, the winning email goes to the admin and winner, Winner places an order and makes payment.

Admin Add Auction Product:

If you are a user who doesn't want to bid only but also wants to add a product for auction then you can become a vendor and add your own auction or normal product, give commission to admin, and track orders. for that, you need to use multi-vendor plugins available in the market. read this guide on How a user can add products as a vendor.

For now, we will add the Auction product as an admin. To add a product as an admin, navigate to your site  Products → Add New. For more information go through this article on how to add an Auction product.

After adding a few products to your website the shop page will look like this.

If you don't know how to show your products on the site then read this article. admin can also end, edit, and delete the auction products. for that please follow this guide.

User Register:

Users can bid on your products and the winner will be able to check out the product. For that, your website needs users who can add bids on your product. First, enable the customers to create an account on your website. For that, you need to enable create an account option from WooCommerce → Settings and click on the Accounts & Privacy tab from there to enable the option as per the below image.

Now users can register on your website and can place bids.

Now users can register and log in to their account and able to place bids on products.

User Place Bids On Product:

The user will have a list of products that are added by the admin or vendors on site. The bidder needs to click on the product from the shop page to place a bid.

Clicking on the particular product will redirect to the Auction product detail page.

For more information on what is auction detail page please refer to this article. When the bidder places a bid on the auction product, the admin can view and delete all bids from the bid history table. Please review the below image. Admin needs to click the "delete" button, it will delete the bid of a particular bidder.

Auction Expiration(Stater Version):

Go to admin dashboard -> Auctions -> Auctions tab -> Live Auctions. Here admin can view all live auction products. The auction product can expire and declare the winner using the below way.

-> Auction expires automatically according to the end date and the highest bidder is declared a winner.
-> Admin can end the auction product manually. When the admin clicks the "End Now" button, the auction product expires and the highest bidder is declared a winner.
-> Admin can choose a specific winner on the auction product. All bidder names and bid values are displayed in the auctions menu. Please review the below image. Admin needs to click the "Choose Winner" button of a specific bidder. When the admin clicks the "Choose Winner" button, the auction product expires and the specific bidder becomes the winner.

The winner needs to check out the auction product and places an order. The winner can check out the auction product using the below ways.

-> When the auction expires, the winning email goes to the winner. It includes the checkout link.
-> Go to the product detail page. The Pay Now button will be activated on the product page and the user will proceed to checkout.
-> Winner can checkout the winning auction product from my-account -> Auctions -> Bids Won -> Click "Pay Now" button.
When the winner places an order, the order receipt displays below. It includes the product details, shipping, billing address, etc...

When the winner places an order, the admin received an order. Admin can visit order information. Navigate to  WooCommerce → Order as per the below image.

Auction Expiration(Business version):

Please review the below YouTube video. We have created the video for auto-order. This video will cover how to generate an order for winning auction products automatically. 

We have implemented auto-order functionality in the Ultimate WooCommerce Auction Pro plugin(business version). When the auction expires, the order will be created automatically for the winner. This functionality is disabled by default. Admin can enable it using the below setting.

Go to Admin dashboard -> Auctions -> Settings -> Extra Settings -> Auto create order after Auction expire. Please review the below image.

When the auction product expires, the winner is declared. The winner needs to check out the auction product and places an order.  If the auto-order setting is disabled, the checkout process is the same as explained in the auction expiration(starter version) section

If the auto-order setting is enabled, the checkout process is different.

Checkout process with auto-order: