What the auction rules do

AI: Connect an AI agent and have it search and summarize the help for you.

Every auction has two settings pages, both under More in the auction's menu:

Rules: dates, fees, and who can take part.
Custom fields: what sellers fill in when they add a lot.

You can change almost anything while the auction is running. Invoices recalculate to match.

Grey how many auctions on this site use a setting

Tip The rules page shows the settings most auctions change. The rest are under Advanced settings, which opens by itself once you've changed something in there.

The rules text

Rules Used by 99% of auctions is the text at the top of your auction page. Put in it what people ask about:

what can and can't be sold,
how to pay, and whether you take cash,
a link to your club's website or Facebook page.

Club rules the site doesn't enforce go here too. "No more than 3 bags of the same species" is a rule for people to read, not a setting. If someone breaks it, remove the extra lots.

“It doesn't matter how long your rules are, no one will read them anyway.”

Tip Don't put dates or locations in the rules text. They'll be wrong when you copy the auction to next year's. Edit the pickup location instead.

Dates

Setting	Online	In person
Lot submission opens	Sellers can start adding lots. Nobody can bid yet.
Lot submission ends	Sellers can't add or edit lots after this. Admins still can, for anybody.
Bidding opens	Bidding starts.	The time on your flyer: when people should be in the room.
Bidding ends	Bidding stops. Has to be at least an hour from now.	Not used.

Tip Midnight is the start of a day, not the end. An auction set to end at 12:00 AM on the 14th ends the moment the 14th begins: a whole day early, if you meant the evening of the 14th. Use 11:59 PM.

"People can't add lots" almost always means lot submission has closed. Check that date first.

Fees and the club's cut

Four settings decide what the club takes. They add together.

Setting	What it charges
Club cut Used by 78% of auctions	A percentage of each sale. User cut is the same number from the seller's side: a 30% club cut is a 70% user cut. Fill in either.
Lot entry fee Used by 20% of auctions	A flat amount per lot that sells.
Unsold lot fee Used by 6% of auctions	A flat amount per lot that doesn't sell. Online and in-person auctions count these differently; each running guide says how.
Registration fee Used by under 1% of auctions	A flat amount on every invoice, buyers too. Some clubs charge non-members $5 this way.

How "$1 + 30%" works out on a $10 lot:

	Everyone
Sold for	$10.00
Club cut	−$3.00 (30%)
Lot entry fee	−$1.00
The seller gets	$6.00

A percentage earns the club more from the rare stuff.
A flat fee hurts people selling $2 bags of plants.
Many clubs do both: a small flat fee plus a percentage.

Set a $1 unsold lot fee and the guy who lists a pair of common guppies at $40 thinks twice. Without it, a lot with a silly price is free advertising: he watches who asks about it, then sells to them in the parking lot.

Donation threshold Used by 5% of auctions: a lot that sells for this much or less becomes a donation, and the whole price goes to the club. With a $1 entry fee, a $1 lot leaves the seller nothing anyway. Most auctions leave it blank.
Tax Used by 1% of auctions: a percentage added to what buyers pay for lots. Whether your club has to charge tax, and at what rate, is up to your club.

Tip Changed a fee after the auction ended? Every invoice recalculates. If you've already paid some sellers, write down their totals before you change anything.

AI: Ask "what do we charge sellers in the spring auction?" or "make the club's cut 20%".

Charging some sellers less

Alternate split 3% of auctions change this gives some sellers their own, lower fees. Usually that's club members. Sometimes it's a vendor table.

Tip You pick the people. Click a person on the Users tab and tick the box.

Tip Run the auction's people from your club's member list (Manage users through club, below) and pick Club member discount. Paid members then get the discount automatically, and renewing at the door gets it too.

The lower fees are Alternate club cut Used by 44% of auctions, Alternate lot entry fee Used by 7% of auctions and Alternate registration fee Used by 0% of auctions. Set both club cuts: an alternate club cut left at 0% means members keep every penny. Alternate user cut is the same number from the members' side.

Alternate split label 90% of auctions change this is what those people are called on invoices and the Users tab.

The alternate fees aren't in the summary at the top of your auction page, on purpose: most clubs don't want to publish a vendor's rate. To tell members, put it in the rules text.

Club member discount Used by 0% of auctions is something else: a dollar amount off the invoice of any paid club member who bought at least one lot. There's no percentage discount for buyers. It's too easy to set one that loses money. For a one-off, add a discount to that person's invoice.

Pre-registration discount

Pre register lot discount percent Used by 7% of auctions takes points off the club cut for lots sellers add themselves. With a 30% cut and a 10% discount:

A seller who types in their own lots pays 20%.
A seller whose lots you type in at the desk pays 30%.

What counts is who added the lot, not when. Ten minutes before the start still counts. An admin adding lots for somebody else doesn't, even a week early. Pre-registered lots have a star on the invoice.

It stacks with the alternate fees. Club cut 30%, alternate club cut 20%, discount 10%:

Seller	Who added the lot	Club takes
Not a member	An admin	30%
Not a member	The seller	20%
Member	An admin	20%
Member	The seller	10%

10% is enough to get most sellers doing their own typing. That saves your desk hours, and lots sellers add themselves sell for about 5% more on this site.

Bidding

Minimum bid 40% of auctions change this: the lowest price any lot sells for. Sellers can ask for more on their own lots if the custom fields allow it. In person, admins can still record a sale below it.
Only whole dollar bids 1% of auctions turn this off: bids and prices in whole dollars. Leave it on unless you sell a lot of $1.50 bags.
Allow deleting bids Used by 1% of auctions: bidders can take back their own bids until the auction ends. Off by default: a bid you can take back isn't really a bid.
Allow push notifications for watched lots 6% of auctions turn this off: in person, people watching a lot get a notification when it comes up.

Each bid has to beat the last by 5%, rounded down to the dollar, and by at least $1. On a $40 lot the next bid is $42; on a $3 lot, $4. With Only whole dollar bids off, it's 5% to the cent, at least 1¢: the next bid on that $3 lot is $3.15. There's no setting for fixed steps.

Online bidding 50% of auctions change this is for in-person auctions: people can bid on the site between Online bidding opens and Online bidding ends. Most should leave it off. Running an in-person auction says when it's worth it.

AI: Ask "turn on buy now" or "raise the minimum bid to $2".

Lots

Max lots per user Used by 45% of auctions: the most lots one seller can add. Admins can go over it.
Allow additional lots as donation 10% of auctions turn this off: at the limit, sellers can keep adding lots as donations.
Use seller dash lot numbering Used by 56% of auctions: lot numbers like 110-3 (seller 110's third lot) instead of 1, 2, 3. Only changeable before the first lot. Most clubs are happier with plain numbers.
Automatically add images to lots 7% of auctions turn this off: a new lot gets a photo from an older lot with the same name, from any auction you or your admins ran.

Does a lot limit cost you anything? A seller's lots here, in the order they added them, for sellers with 20 or more in one auction:

Lot	Lots	Sold	Typical price
1st to 10th	5,810	93%	$10
11th to 20th	5,810	92%	$10
21st to 30th	3,611	90%	$10
After the 30th	5,384	82%	$8

With seller-dash numbers you can see whose bag it is at a glance. Bidder numbers can be words, so seller JS gets lots JS-1, JS-2 and so on.

AI: Ask "let everyone bring 20 lots".

Who can join, buy and sell

Promote this auction Used by 63% of auctions: lists your auction publicly and tells nearby people about it once. Off, only people with the link can find it.
Only approved sellers Used by 4% of auctions: new people can't add lots until you tick them on the Users tab.
Only approved bidders Used by 6% of auctions: new people can't bid until you tick them. People you add yourself, and anyone who's paid an invoice in one of your past auctions, are approved already.

Tip Copies are never promoted, so tick it every time.

Both apply to people as they join. Turning one on doesn't take anything away from people already in the auction.

Want a members-only auction? Leave it unpromoted and send the link to members.

Tip Or leave it public: public auctions are how a lot of clubs find new members.

Require phone number Used by 15% of auctions: people have to give a phone number before they can join.

Copy users when copying this auction Used by 25% of auctions: copying this auction brings everybody in it along, with the same bidder numbers.

Tip There's a much better way: Manage users through club. Edit a person in one auction and you've edited them everywhere, and there's no separate member list to keep up to date. Copy users is still around for older auctions; there's no good reason to turn it on.

Invoices and payment

Invoice payment instructions Used by 20% of auctions: shown on every invoice and in the invoice email. "Bring cash or a check to pickup."
Invoice notifications 12% of auctions turn this off: emails people their invoice when you mark it ready or paid. Leave it on.
Ask for feedback 0% of auctions turn this off: asks people "How was it?" with two buttons, on their invoice and in the invoice email. Online auctions ask in an email of their own a day after pickup instead, since their invoices go out before anyone has picked anything up. What they said is under More, Feedback.
Invoice rounding 14% of auctions turn this off: rounds each invoice to a whole dollar, always in the person's favour. It saves making change.
PayPal payments Used by 0% of auctions and Square payments Used by 2% of auctions: a pay button on every invoice. You only see these once an account is connected. Card payments has the details.
Add membership fee to invoices for expired members Used by under 1% of auctions: in club-managed auctions, adds your membership fee to the invoice of anyone whose membership has lapsed, and renews them when they pay. You can take it off any one invoice.

Tip Invoice emails are also how the site finds out an address doesn't work. On the Users tab, a red next to a name means email to that address bounced, and means they opened their invoice from the email, so the address works. Filter the tab by Only invalid email to see who needs fixing, or by Only verified email.

The club

Club Used by 55% of auctions: which club runs this auction. Only clubs where you're an admin, or can manage auctions, are in the list.
Manage users through club Used by 1% of auctions: your club's member list is the auction's list of people, with their club bidder numbers. Automatically add, but require check-in also makes people check in at the door before they can bid. Only changeable while the auction has no lots and no invoices.
Allow users to self-check in with the app under 1% of auctions turn this off: people with the phone app can check themselves in when they arrive. Turn it off if you hand out bidder numbers at the door.
Send club welcome letter 0% of auctions turn this off: whether people this auction adds to your club get its welcome letter. Turn it off when most of them are only here to buy; they get it if they pay dues.

Extra fields on lots

These are on Custom fields. The defaults suit most auctions. Every field you add is one more thing a seller fills in, 200 times.

Allow bulk adding lots 9% of auctions turn this off: sellers type in several lots at once, one per row. Off, they add lots one at a time, with more detail. Admins can always add in bulk.
Seller set minimum bid 37% of auctions change this: sellers can set their own minimum. "Required for all lots" makes them.
Buy now 63% of auctions change this: sellers can set a price that sells the lot straight away.
Use category field 0% of auctions turn this off: Cichlids, Livebearers, Plants and so on, picked from the lot name. Leave it on for a fish auction: people browse by category.
Use scientific name field 0% of auctions turn this off: suggests the species as the seller types. It prints on labels and feeds breeder award points.
Use quantity field Used by 51% of auctions: a Quantity box on the lot form, for "3 guppies" as a number instead of in the name.
Use description 1% of auctions turn this off: a longer description box, with formatting. Turn it off for a shorter lot form. It isn't on the bulk add form either way.
Use reference link 2% of auctions turn this off: a box for a link, like a care sheet or the seller's own page. A YouTube link plays next to the photos. Not on the bulk add form either.
Use donation field under 1% of auctions turn this off: sellers can mark a lot as a donation.
Use Breeder Points field 12% of auctions turn this off: an "I bred this" box, for a badge on the lot and breeder award points.

Four fields you name yourself

Field	What it is	Example
Use custom text field Used by 12% of auctions, called Custom text field name 9% of auctions change this	Free text	Collection location, a killifish population code
Use custom checkbox field Used by 9% of auctions, called Custom checkbox name Used by 11% of auctions	A yes/no box. You can filter the lot list by it.	"CARES species"
Use custom dropdown field Used by 0% of auctions, called Custom dropdown name Used by 0% of auctions	Pick one from a list you write	Which club brought the lot, in a joint auction
Use custom random field Used by under 1% of auctions, called Custom random field name Used by under 1% of auctions	Each lot gets one of your options at random	"Table 1" to "Table 12", to spread lots across tables

Custom fields print on labels and are columns in the lot spreadsheet.

Tip Running a joint auction with three clubs? Add a dropdown called "Club" with each club's name. Sellers pick theirs, and the lot spreadsheet adds up each club's share.

AI: Ask "add Wild caught and Tank raised to the dropdown".

Things there's no setting for

Renaming an auction. The name is the auction's link. Copy it (More, then Copy to new auction) with the right name, then delete the old one.
A percentage off for buyers. Add a discount to the invoice.
Bid steps by price. Every bid is 5% over the last, at least $1, or 1¢ in an auction that takes cents.
Raffles. Gambling law differs everywhere. Run it on paper and add the tickets to invoices.
Bumping a lot to the top of the queue for a fee. Every club does this differently, so there's no setting. An AI agent can do it for you; see bumps.