Planning your Live Auction
All fundraiser chairs have been there, scrambling at the last minute to finalize the Live Auction list. What types of items belong on the Live Auction? What is the right number of items? Should I use consignment items? What details do I include in the display? How do I order my items to maximize funds raised? Time spent analyzing and planning up front will help raise more money for your cause.
What items belong on a Live Auction?
Many event planners are conflicted when it comes to deciding where to place items at the event. Your volunteers have been awesome, and you have piles of gift cads, baskets, certificates, and everything in between. Where do you start deciding how to separate silent and live auction items?
At a typical fundraising auction, only 15-18% of the crowd will engage in the Live Auction. A great place to start is my analyzing past events. Do some research and find out who the big buyers were in years past. Analyze their interests. Did they purchase sports tickets, a vacation package, a dinner package, or a sentimental item? This information will help in your evaluation of the items you have to place on the auctions. One key thing to remember, women often influence the purchasing patterns of their spouses. When you are analyzing that list of prior year spenders, also think about what you know about their spouses. They often are making the big spending decisions behind the scenes. I like to say, “Women may not raise the paddle, put they often push the pedal!”
Another easy piece of data to consider is price point. A great place to start with separating your live from silent auctions is by value. You want your Live Auction items to really have that WOW factor. The items need to be desired, and people need to be willing to pay for them. If they are not desired, the crowd will tune out, the volume will increase, and the chatter in the room will take over. Auctions get fun when people are bidding $1,000+ on items. The crowd will cheer on bidders, get excited that the charity is making money, and be on the edge of their seat waiting to see who ‘wins’ the hot items. Make sure you have items for the crowd to get excited about!
If you have a lot of smaller valued items, don’t be afraid to get creative and group them together to form an experience. In the day and age of Marie Kondo and getting rid of stuff, the last thing people want to do is haul home basket after basket of more stuff! They will, however, spend money to try something new, or spoil themselves a bit knowing the money will go to their favorite charity.
Bundle restaurant gift cards, hotel stays, and sports tickets together to form a ‘Weekend Getaway Downtown’ date package! Bundle salon gift cards, salon products, restaurant gift cards, and a few bottles of wine to make a ‘Ladies Day’ package. The sky is the limit and you will be amazed at the excitement around these experience items!
How many items should I have on a Live Auction?
The number of items on a Live Auction really depends on the program for the night. Remember that only 15-18% of the crowd participate in the Live Auction. If it drags on too long, over 80% of the people at the event will become bored and start chatting. A Live Auction should never last longer than one hour at a fundraiser. Ideally, it would be closer to 30 minutes. The Auctioneer should spend 3-4 minutes per item, so do the math – 10-15 items is really the most you want to have.
So, don’t waste your time procuring more and more items for the Live Auction thinking that is the way to make more money for your cause. Instead, spend time analyzing how to divide up items among the silent and live auction. Many items will actually make MORE money on the Silent Auction, especially if you are using a Mobile Bidding technology like Bid Partner. Spend your time analyzing attendees and gathering any information you can about prior years, bundle items to form experiences. Use data and creativity to make good auction decisions!
Should I use Consignment Items?
The simple answer is, only if you have a hole you absolutely have to fill. There are many national companies who are in the business of selling consignment items and vacation packages to non-profits. They do a great job of setting you up with everything you need to offer a flashy and fun item to your event-goers. They also take the stress off the event planner by handling all the details of the vacation for the purchaser. Sounds like a no-brainer, right?
There are a few reasons you want to avoid using consignment items as your auction. The biggest is that donors are then spending money on items that you, the charity, have to turn around and pay for, likely taking away money that donor would have spent on other items.
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say a local jeweler offers to sell you, on consignment, a pair of diamond earrings at a cost of $800. They retail for $1,200 in the store so you think this is an easy money-maker! Now it’s auction night, and the auctioneer gets the bidding going on these earrings. There are a few interested parties in the room. The earrings sell for $1,100. The buyer is so excited to present them to his wife, and they leave feeling great about their generosity at the event. The event planner has to turn around and give the jeweler $800 for the earrings that sold for $1,100, leaving only a $300 profit. Any money is good money to a charity, but $300 becomes $1,100 if that donor had purchased a package that was entirely donated. Then BOTH the purchaser and the event planner go home happy!
One thing that does make consignment items more lucrative is if the consignor is willing to offer multiple sales of the item. For example, if the above jeweler was offering to sell you three pair of diamond earrings at $800 each, and you had three bidders bidding on the item, you could offer a set to the other two bidders at the sell price of $1,100. This quickly increases your profit to $900, making the consignment item much more attractive to the charity. Be sure the details are very clear with the consignor and that you know exactly what they are offering!
Consignment items also come in handy when you have a large hole in the auction. Maybe all you have procured is the same five items you’ve had the past ten years. You are in desperate need of something new that really WOWs the crowd. This could be a good time to try a vacation package on consignment.
What information do I display for Live Auction items?
The number one mistake we see is event organizers posting the value for Live Auction items. This creates an artificial ‘glass ceiling.’. You want to encourage guests to make purchases for the good of the cause, not because they are receiving a deal. If you have information on Live Auction items on table tents, in frames, or in a presentation, keep the information minimal. Even if the value is obvious, list it as ‘priceless’ so bidders would need to do some work to find the actual value. Use your space to note exciting details about the item. Save the specifics, such as any exclusions or expiration dates, for the event program or on the bidding device if using mobile bidding technology such as Bid Partner.
What Order is Best for Live Auction items?
To keep the event moving, the Live Auction should begin immediately after the last dinner plate is served. If you have a program, that should take place prior to the start of the Live Auction. The key is to keep things moving, building up to the Live Auction. You want your bidders to be eager and ready to spend money, not tired and ready to go home.
Use the below chart as a guide for ordering your auction items.
Start with any dessert or sweets you are auctioning off. The new, hot trend is to withhold dessert, or serve only a very small dessert (such as cookies or brownies), and then auction off lavish desserts. Often, a group of people at a table will go in together to purchase the dessert and then share the cost. The event organizers then bring plates, forks, and serving utensils to the table so the buyers can enjoy it right at their table! This can be a huge moneymaker, especially if the desserts are donated. Often local bakeries are happy to donate items, or sell them at a discount to support the fundraiser.
After the dessert auction, move to a hot item. A great place to start is a repeat item that did well in prior years. It’s likely the prior buyer will be in attendance and will possibly kick-off the bidding. This does the ‘selling’ for you, demonstrating that the item is a great buy! From there, move to dinners or experiences. Personal dinners at homes of guests who may have a specialty are a popular item, but they tend to do well only if the donor is in attendance at the event and can come up and do a short intro to really “sell” the item. If they have a specialty cuisine from a certain part of the world, have them donor dress the part to help create excitement!
The middle of your auction, or top of your bell, should be your highest valued item. Hopefully, it is also a very desired item. You want to have multiple interested bidders in the room to help increase the bidding. If the item is new to your auction, you will want to do some pre-selling prior to the event to increase interest and ensure that there is active bidding event night! Many event planners make the mistake of saving the high-prices items for the end. The issue with this is that those who are NOT the winning bidder are left with money in their pockets. By auctioning off that high-prices item mid-auction, you have many more options for them to spend that money.
After the highest valued item, move on to other high-interest items, then to lower valued items, closing with the Fund-a-Need. Saving the Fund-a-Need for the end ensures everyone in the room has a chance to contribute. If they didn’t win the item they were bidding on, they can still support the cause. And every penny given to the Fund-a-Need is tax deductible, whereas with Live Auction items, buyers can only deduct the difference between the value of the item and what they paid.
Take the Time to Plan
Whether it’s your first time planning a big event, or you’ve been doing it for so many years you could plan a major gala in your sleep, spending some time analyzing and planning your Live Auction will literally ‘pay-off’ in the end. Implementing these simple strategies will help you raise more money for your organization. Good luck!
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Sara Rieland is a Fundraising Consultant and Auctioneer with Bid Partner, a Minnesota Based Mobile Bidding Company. Sara has over ten years’ experience in planning, executing, and evaluating both small and large fundraising events. She is a graduate of Continental Auctioneer School, and is a licensed auctioneer in the State of Minnesota, as well as a member of the Minnesota State Auctioneers Association. For more information about Bid Partner mobile bidding technology, visit www.bidpartner.net.