Sales & auction types

Four ways to sell

When you create a sale, you choose its type, and Selloff adapts bidding rules, screens and invoices accordingly:

• Auction: collects absentee, phone and online bids until the live sale, then records hammer prices in the room or through a connected live bidding platform.
• Offers: collects offers until a closing date, then assigns lots automatically or after manual review.
• eBay style: each lot has its own closing time, extended by a configurable number of minutes when a bid arrives in the final minutes.
• Retail prices: a fixed-price sale on behalf of consignors, at the starting or reserve price plus commission.

Everything a sale needs

A sale holds its dates (start, end, consignment deadline, viewing and pickup slots), its location with a map, its branch and time zone, and the user responsible for it. Name and description can be entered in each client language, with a slug for readable web addresses. You set the buyer's premium, the buyer's insurance and the bid increment scheme, and bids entered by staff can be checked against the increments.

Sessions and catalogues

An auction can be split into sessions, each with a lot range, date and time, currency and closing time for internet bids. Lots are organised in one or several catalogues per sale.

Options per sale include publishing the sale through the API, showing the current bid publicly, accepting offers on unsold lots after a live auction, and requiring a second user to confirm bids that were imported or entered manually.

Who uses it

Auction managers create and configure sales. The Auction Manager role can edit sale settings without full administrator rights, while the rest of the team works in the sale once it is set up.