Does the Handbid Mobile Auction platform support Buy-It-Now?

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‍A Buy-it-Now, Instant-Purchase is an option some silent auctions offer that allows a bidder to purchase the item outright for a specific price.

We offer a buy-it-now option in Handbid. However, we really caution our auction hosts to be careful with using it. A Buy-it-Now option, if not implemented properly, can be detrimental to your auction and here is why:

Why you should incorporate Buy-it-Now in your auction

1. You could be leaving money on the table

• The purpose of the auction is to maximize revenue and its possible that you could set your buy-it-now price at a level that is below what a bidder would ultimately be willing to pay. Why take that risk?
• If you have multiple bidders after an item, they may very well bid it up. When this happens, emotions and competition can often lead bidders to pay more than they originally wanted. If you have a buy-it-now option, you would eliminate this opportunity.

2. Most auction hosts do not know where to set the Buy-It-Now price

• If you make it too high, people won't execute it anyways. Based on the fact that it is not often exercised by bidders, we assume that most auction hosts probably set these prices too high.
• If you set the price too low, you leave money on the table as we already discussed. Why take the risk that could be leaving money on the table?

3. With proxy bidding, you don't need a buy-it-now option

• Many auction hosts that buy-it-now options appeal to those bidders that absolutely want to win an item but don't want to be bothered with running back and forth to bid sheets. We think that electronic bidding and proxy bidding both together are a much better way to solve that problem. With proxy-bidding, a bidder can set their maximum value and let the auction system bid for them up to that amount. In this scenario, they are bidding up to an amount that they are willing to pay, which could be higher than that buy-it-now price!

We originally had no plans to implement this feature, but we had a number of clients that simply wanted to move inventory fast through a buy-it-now option. So we built it. You can implement this in Handbid by setting a "butItNowPrice" on a biddable item.

Have any other questions about Buy-it-now or for sale items? Need silent auction ideas? Let us know by leaving a comment below or contacting us at www.handbid.com!