What’s New?
Get ready for Bid Beacon’s latest release which is packed with exciting new features and enhancements! From minor tweaks to the login screen to brand-new Marketplace functionality, this release has something for everyone!
Start a Marketplace and Sell Your Goods Online
Bid Beacon has long supported the concept of merchandise sales, in addition to regular bidding, but until now, guests were not able to purchase items until the event ended. Now, items can have staggered end times and guests can purchase winnings while the event is still live! For administrators, the ‘Payment/Pickup’ tab is now always available so they can manage payments and the pick-up of items mid-event.
This means that Bid Beacon can be used for more than just online silent auctions! With these changes, you can now run a marketplace where you sell your merchandise, liquidate old inventory, host an estate sale, and much more! The options are endless and entirely up to you!
Introduced an Activity Tracker
Guests are going to love this! We’ve enhanced the guest experience by introducing an area that displays your total bids, any outstanding payments, and what you’ve already paid for. During an event, you can view your bid total, so you always know how much you’re on the hook for! Unless someone outbids you, that is! This feature helps guests keep track of their bids and payments during an event.
Stripe Express Banking Update
Administrators of a Marketplace, or an ‘Ultimate Risk-Free’ auction now have more visibility over their connected stripe account, making it easier to see how much they’ve earned. In addition, they can also refund guest purchases directly.
More Robust Square Checkout
This one is a bit techy, but it’s important! When setting up an event to accept payments through Square, you will notice an additional field for a webhook. What the heck is a webhook? This makes it easier and faster for Bid Beacon and Square to work together and share information. What does this mean? There is less risk of failed payments when checking out. Cheers, to peace of mind!
Simplified Login/Registration Screen
These improvements will get your guests bidding more quickly!
Overall, this release is packed with exciting updates that improve the guest and administrator experience. Be sure to check out the details to see how you can benefit from these new features!
Total Value of Items Calculator
Admins have always been able to set a monetary goal for their Bid Beacon event which is then presented to all their guests. We noticed many admins had a hard time determining on an appropriate goal amount which led to either setting an unrealistic goal, or simply no goal at all.
Over the years, we’ve seen that as an auction gets closer to reaching their goal, guests become more willing and generous with their bidding to help achieve the event’s goal. With that in mind, we wanted to make it easier for admins to set a realistic goal. On the Manage Items screen, we’ve added a Total Value calculator that adds together the approximate value set on all of your items. If items do not have an approximate value set, we include the starting bid for those items. Donation and Buy It Now items are also included in this total.
We hope this change will help our admins set achievable goals and raise more than ever before!
