[idar]

The company I work for is wanting to put up an auction page as a fund raiser for our local American Cancer Society Relay for Life. We have a web site to put this on, and I can build the page. What I am not sure about is how to set it up to receive bids. Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to do this. Thanks,
Idar

[awatson]

Depends on the nature of the auction and how many people you think will use it. Perhaps the easiest if it's a "secret bid" style auction would be to just put an email link on the page and tell people to email their bid to you (or whoever), and then track it in a spreadsheet or something.

Otherwise, you'll probably need some custom code to let people create accounts, post a bid, see bids they've posted, be notified if they win/are outbid, etc.

[idar]

I was thinking we'd probably have to let them email the bids in, but, heck, it don't hurt to ask. Would there br an easy way to keep the bids updated? Or will I have to just go in and change them as we get the bids? I wouldn't mind doing that, but I'm the only one here that has ANY IDEA about how to do that, and I know it's not hard, but I also know the people I work with.........

We have no idea how many people will use it, but we figure it will mostly be a 'local' auction.

[awatson]

If it's going to be relatively small, then email's probably the best bet. You could do a create a simple php system that stores their email and bid amount and other info in a database, and keep everything up to date that way.

Another option that occurred to me would be to install a blog system like wordpress - create a post for each auction and have the users "bid" by leaving a comment on each post with the amount they bid. You could set it so that posts have to be approved before being visible, if you don't want people to see each other's bids.

[idar]

Originally Posted by awatson

If it's going to be relatively small, then email's probably the best bet. You could do a create a simple php system that stores their email and bid amount and other info in a database, and keep everything up to date that way.

Another option that occurred to me would be to install a blog system like wordpress - create a post for each auction and have the users "bid" by leaving a comment on each post with the amount they bid. You could set it so that posts have to be approved before being visible, if you don't want people to see each other's bids.

That sounds like an idea. I could link it off our webpage. I think I might check into that.
Thanks.

[idar]

I've gotten the auction page up and running. There is a link in my signature.

take a look and see what you think (bid on something while you are there, its for the ACS)

thank you for the help and suggestions, they really did help clear my mind on what I needed to do.