How do I disable prebidding?

By default, both timed and live auctions in BidWrangler allow for bidder's to enter a prebid, which is simply a max bid entered before the auction's start time. In some cases, an auction company may choose to publish an auction and its catalog, but want to disable prebidding for the auction. This is relevant for both timed and live auctions. By taking the following steps, you can disable prebidding, and then enable it when you are ready to begin the auction.

Please note that disabling prebidding completely disables the ability for bidders to register for the auction.

How to Disable Prebidding

From your Admin Portal, navigate to the Auctions page. Find the relevant auction and click on the name of the auction or pencil button to edit the auction.

Scroll down to "Live Auctions" and click the "Offline Auction?" button (note: you can use this feature with both live and timed auctions, though it is more frequently used with live auctions).

With the "Offline Auction?" button enabled, the auction is considered a live sale, which means that only the start time is used to show that the auction is active. If the start time has passed more than 24 hours, it will be considered complete, so please make sure the start time is in the future.

Scroll to the bottom and click save. All bidding is now disabled for this auction.

Re-Enabling Bidding

To re-enable bidding, be sure that if it is a timed or timed-to-live sale, that it is configured to do so when the offline auction feature is disabled. All settings, closing speeds, start and end times, etc. should be correct before saving.

Prebidding and other appropriate bidding is now enabled.