Which software to use to launch an online auction website

When you want to launch an online auction website, the main things to look is online auction software. This piece of software will install in your server and transform your website into an online auction website, like ebay, or similar. There are also other hosted services, which offer your auction functionality as a service, something like online auction as a service. We do not recommend those, because of several reasons which we will detail a bit later in this article. We have also covered some thoughts on auction websites here. When it comes to auction websites you have two possibilities:

1. Proprietary auction software

This type of online auction software is the most desired, because it will give you the most control for the website. Usually you pay the auction script upfront and install in your website. That means you will own your database and customers, as opposed to the hosted one, which depends on that company. In this case you can either use a stand alone script, or a wordpress auction theme which might be cheaper and similarly featured. We would recommend the WordPress route any day of the week as its very good alternative, and cheap one too. I will detail below the pro statements for why this approach is better:

• you own your database and website
• you do not depend on any one else
• you just pay the buying fee, usually one time fee
• you do not need to pay a commission or monthly fee
• possibility for customisation from other developers
• your site will not stop when you dont want to pay anymore
• find out more about the auction theme here

What type of auction websites I can launch ?

• car auction with the car auction software
• charity auction
• reverse auction software, but you might try this instead
• silent auction
• sealed bidding software
• non profit auctions
• auction for clerking
• real estate auction
• penny auction
• dutch auction
• wp auction
• multi vendor auction
• marketplace auction

What main features should I look for ?

• anti snipping software feature
• buy now feature
• make an offer feature
• tokens or coins buying for bids software
• commission and monetisation features
• payment gateways: PayPal, Stripe, Authorize, CCBill, 2checkout

How to do an online auction for free ?

This is a sensitive subject as the auction software industry is something that requires a lot of work and programming. There isnt anyone to put all that effort into making a free auction software solution. Plus the support will not be great at all, and you will be stuck with a product that will not function correctly, and with very little support. Its better to choose a paid option because of these big reasons: support and features.

2. Online auction as a service

This is the second possibility through which you can have an online auction website. The software behind this is hosted in a third party server. Although this can be more convenient for you, we do not recommend this solution because you depend totally of your provider. Also they will require you to pay a monthly fixed fee or commission percent out of your sales. See below the pros and cons for this approach:

Pros:

• easy setup, usually offered included
• more tight support
• much more easy deployment

Cons:

• pay a monthly fee or commission fee
• you do not own your website
• you are trapped in a proprietary system
• other developers cannot do work on your site
• if the provider shuts down, your site will go down

Thats why we really recommend to go for the first approach where you actually buy the auction script. The wordpress auction script which is based on php, is offered by sitemile can be found here. And also another auction software script comes from PREMIUM AUCTION SOFTWARE