All BiddingOwl.com Reviews

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Heather

2 - 10 employees

Used unspecified

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

Reviewed June 2023

Bidding Owl was the Easiest to use!

User Profile

Melanie

Verified reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed October 2019

Super easy and fun way to set-up an auction to fundraise for our non-profit

Bidding Owl made our online auction run smoothly. It was easy to set-up and manage plus our bidders had a positive experience as well. Would definitely use Bidding Owl again.

PROS

Easy step by step process to set-up an auction. Allowed for multiple pictures of the items. Easy to use and manage the auction. Easy to close out the items and locate shipping information for winning bidders. Connects with PayPal for easy and quick payment.

CONS

We had one bidder who backed out of the purchase and I couldn't locate a place on the bidding site to cancel his bid and select the next highest bidder. I had to call customer support and they handled it quickly.

Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com

We couldn't upload multiple pictures of our auction items on the 32auctions site. Some of our items had several components so we needed to have more than one picture included. With Bidding Owl we could include multiple pictures of the items which I believe helped the items to sell better.

Brynn

Education Management, 2-10 employees

Used more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed January 2020

Easy to Use Auction Website

We are very pleased with BiddingOwl.com because it permits us to hold an auction without organizing a live event. We've often debated whether or not our population of parents would be likely to attend a live function and how successful that would be, so the online-only auction is a great solution for us.

PROS

I've used BiddingOwl.com for two annual online auctions for my children's school, and am setting up our third auction now. I love how easy it is to use, and that I can also re-use last year's setup by requesting that the old bids be deleted. This saves a ton of time because a lot of our auction items are repeated. I also like the layout and appearance of the webpage for users. It is very simple for bidders to create their account and start bidding. The notifications sent to bidders when they are outbid is also helpful for promoting continued engagement with the online auction.

CONS

I do rather wish there was a way to sort my items a little more easily. They display according to item number, and I like to group all of the items from each grade together. I wind up shuffling the item numbers around quite a bit to get everything in the proper order. Also, it would be nice to be able to rename the portion of the URL after the slash...I didn't think about that when I used the whole name of our school, which is quite tedious to type and promote after "www.BiddingOwl.com/".

TYLER

Non-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

Used less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

3

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed February 2020

Makes auctions so much easier

We've been able to (more easily) raise a lot more money through out online / fundraising auctions when using this software. We've also had comments from our supporters that it has made things easier on their end.

PROS

We don't do many auction based fundraisers throughout the year, but we still always dread them as they approach. That is, we did, before finding biddingowl.com. Gone are the nightmares of using a paper-based auction system that we spent oodles of time organizing, tracking, reconciling, etc. Bidding Owl makes it easier for us to organize, but also for our users to engage in the auction. With tools like the 'auto bid up to a certain amount', people are more willing to spend money, meaning we raise more.

CONS

It's not the most visually appealing software on the market. Granted, we haven't used other auction tools specifically, but the ui / visual design of the software just feels a bit dated. Like early 2000s look. Design trends across the industry have moved on, and there's little excuse these days for not having a service that is visually attractive for the users to engage with.

Vendor Response

Thank you so much for your review! We appreciate your great comments and constructive feedback. We agree it is time for a refresh of the site. We are currently working on a refreshed look while keeping our user-friendly platform. We have listened to our auction chairpersons and bidders and will even be adding some additional enhancements! Thank you for letting us be part of your success!

Replied February 2020

LORNA

Non-Profit Organization Management, 1 employee

Used less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed October 2020

So glad we found Bidding Owl!

Although our organization supports work that involves over 250,000 kids in Africa, we have no paid employees (not an option to select at the beginning of this survey). So we wanted something that would be easy for multiple people to use. The reason we went with BO was because they actually had a phone number and somebody to talk to. They have EXCELLENT customer service, always getting back quickly, even providing an emergency after-hours number.

PROS

We tried an online auction for the first time, due to COVID closing down the school where we usually had our physical auction. This product was very user-friendly and intuitive. The tutorials were helpful as well. The item presentations looked very professional, with pictures and as much space as you needed for descriptions. I could even cut and paste pictures and descriptions from websites for items that could be found online. People said they found it easy to sign up. We ran the auction for a week and people enjoyed being able to bid from home. There are also options for "text me if I'm outbid" and putting in a maximum bid that you will automatically go up to. People found it fun to get those alerts! We had people participate who normally wouldn't have attended an auction in person.

CONS

The biggest issue was the inability to add a donation at checkout. BO says they are planning to add this feature in an upgrade next month. The other issue was multiple "you won an item" notifications at the end, and it wasn't very intuitive to see how to get to the payment page. I believe this is also going to be streamlined in the upcoming BO software update. Almost all of our people paid right away so we didn't have to chase down anybody for payment. We set up two options for pickup at a specified location - a weeknight and a Saturday.

Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com

We looked at many online auction websites but BO was this was the only one with a phone number to ask questions. We were sort of afraid to try an online auction but BO put us at ease & showed us how simple it was.

Anonymous

11-50 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed March 2019

Bidding Owl is a great, cost effective way to get your fundraising auction online.

I've been really pleased with the overall experience with Bidding Owl. I think its best feature is the customer service. They have helped me repeatedly, even when the problem is on my computer's end and not a site issue. I highly recommend Bidding Owl for a small to medium fundraising effort. Ours is a school parent club raising approximately $35k-$50k per year.

PROS

I find it really user friendly for the most part. I like the ability to include items that are in our silent and live auctions without being charged a % fee for them. Bidding Owl has really reasonable rates and amazing customer service. I love that we have our own auction site name that is easy for people to remember and to use in marketing materials. I would love to try mobile bidding, which I think is a great feature, but the location we've used for many years for our auction event has really poor internet.

CONS

There are certain features I wish would be implemented, such as the ability to rearrange images and the ability for bidders to right click on items to open them in new tabs. Other auction sites have this feature, and I wish BiddingOwl had it as well. I also really wish we could store people's credit card information to make checkout more streamlined at the end of the live/silent auction event. I wish there was more flexibility in editing our home page design.

Melissa

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2019

Bidding Owl is great for schools and non-profits

As a school group and non-profit we really needed a low cost auction solution. Not only was this low cost, but we increased our auction revenue so much over the standard paper and pen silent auction. Our parents and bidders loved it and loved being able to bid on their phones during the event. Just remember not to plan anything big at your event during the last 10 minutes of auction bidding, because everyone will be glued to their phones and having fun bidding. Proxy bid functionality is awesome, but lots of bidders still like to be in the moment and do it manually.

PROS

We liked that we could use it and test it out before buying. It is user friendly and we are able to quickly add new items to our auction. This is our second year using it and we really liked the option to carry over the listing from last year and edit, delete or add as needed. It saved a lot of time.

CONS

We wish the pictures on each listing could be larger or that the bidder could zoom in on them. I feel like all of our bidders can't see the amazing detail in our auction baskets. We also experienced a slight issue with bid increments and proxy bids. We set the bid increment on all of our auctions to $5, but the way proxy bids would outbid regular bids sometimes allowed a bid of $91 for example. It confused some of our bidders.

Rachel

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2023

Good option for nonprofit auctions

I have set up an auction with over 70 items single handedly, with a minimum of pain.

PROS

I like how Bidding Owl lets you set up an attractive auction website, with very straightforward and foolproof functionality. I also like how it is all inclusive, rather than nickle and diming you for each bit of functionality. Also, when I reached out to customer support with a concern by email, they got back to me immediately.

CONS

I would love to be able to list an auction item under two categories. I feel like by having to choose a category for each item, you run the risk that you will mis-categorize and lose a potential bidder. I also wish there was real time, live person, chat support.

Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com

I didn't want to be charged more for each bit of functionality. It felt sneaky.

User Profile

Jennifer

Verified reviewer

Education Management, 201-500 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed December 2018

Bidding Owl a great product!

I used this software for our elementary school online auction. It was great to use for bidders, visually really bright and pretty! The cost was wonderful too for what you receive! Im a huge fan!

PROS

I loved the ease of use for this product. Set up was extremely easy, support was quick very responsive and helpful! The product has reports you can run and emails you can send to bidders and winners. Easy to download to excel as well. I also loved that it works on your mobile as well for easy access. Great for the price.

CONS

Only con would be if it would ask users for their childs name as well so it would appear on the invoices since im using this for school.

Isabel

Museums and Institutions, 2-10 employees

Used monthly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed October 2023

Great for Online Auctions

Overall a great experience, we've used it multiple times and plan to again in the future!

PROS

BiddingOwl worked very well for our non-profit's annual auctions. It's easy to learn how to use and it was intuitive for our bidders too. It offers flexibility and customization, and the support system was fairly helpful. It's much less expensive than the other vendors we looked at and we are overall happy with how our events went.

CONS

I've had a few unhelpful replies from customer support. It can be tedious to edit all of your items, for example if you want to renumber them. A few bidders had trouble figuring out how to checkout. Uploading images sometimes produced errors.

Lisa

Fund-Raising, 1 employee

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed October 2023

School Auction

Overall using Bidding Owl has been a great experience!

PROS

The customer service!! JoAnne was friendly and helpful and answered all of my questions.

CONS

It is an older system but essentially works the same as other auction sites. Once you get the hang of it, you are able to set up your auction with ease.

Sharon

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2023

Fourth year and counting ...

Very good experience. Once all info is entered, we are set to go and it basically runs itself.

PROS

Easy to learn, GREAT customer service when needed

CONS

Adding pictures was time-consuming. I used the scrolling banner to list sponsors. Banner management did not allow for auto alphabetizing.

Tracy

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed October 2020

Great Customer Support

Customer service was THE BEST!!! No matter how many times I called with nit-picky questions, they were friendly and patient. They always had an answer when I screwed something up. I love that they can test the site to make sure everything works properly before going "live."

PROS

User friendly, and the fact that you had a live-body to talk to if you had questions. User defaults made the process fast.

CONS

Accommodating a Raffle (admission tickets) was a little tricky, but doable. Fund-A-Need was hard to find for bidders. I think we could've raised more money on Fund-A-Need had those items been more prominently displayed or found. I wrote instructions, but I have a new mantra: "Nobody reads, and nobody listens!" I'm going to put it on a T-shirt. Would like a "Bidding Owl" button to put on our website vs. the link. Just a little more fun.

Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com

Access to a telephone number and price.

Connie

Education Management, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed October 2018

Bidding Owl helped us make our Silent Auction the most successful ever!

Our auction raised 50% more than last year, thanks to Bidding Owl. This whole process made the day of our event so much more manageable, streamlined and FUN! Can’t wait to use Bidding Owl again next year!!

PROS

The software was very user-friendly and the Help options and videos were extremely helpful! If I couldn't find an answer, Customer support were a quick email/phone call away...and they were quick to respond! It was also a breeze for our bidders to navigate as well.

CONS

I suppose there were a couple times we weren't able to manipulate the grids the way we wanted to, but that's likely because none of us were too computer savvy. Having said that, it was surprisingly easy for us computer novices to get the information we needed. Again, Customer support clarified pretty much everything for us!

Kerensa

Education Management, 11-50 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2020

Outstanding customer service and great product

We are using Bidding Owl for our annual fundraiser. This is our 2nd year. Even easier then last year was with them. Very happy! Anytime I have a question I can easily reach them via email or phone. They are easy to talk to and truly seem to care about your business.

PROS

The customer service is outstanding. I like the site, it's easy to use on my end and customers end but having good customer service is a massive selling point for me.

CONS

Could use a few more features so make things a bit easier at time but this will not stop me from using their software again.

Reasons for switching to BiddingOwl.com

We were receiving terrible service from Bidding for Good and paying a hefty price for it.

Kelly

Libraries, 11-50 employees

Used monthly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed October 2022

BiddingOwl works great for our organization.

BiddingOwl.com has been an excellent host for our annual December silent auction. I even was able to look at other organizations auctions for ideas. Any time that I have needed help with the software or for setting up an event, the response time and quality of the response has been great!

PROS

We have a small group and the features of bidding owl, as well as their staff support, make the program very user-friendly. I highly recommend their software for online auction events.

CONS

There is a learning curve to quickly enter items for a silent auction, but only because the software has many features with options to help cater the site to your group's needs.

Reason for choosing BiddingOwl.com

I did research similar programs and selected BiddingOwl.com for it's clarity of pricing, as well as the pricing itself. As a small, rural, non-profit organization they suited our needs perfectly and reasonably.

Marina

Environmental Services, 201-500 employees

Used more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed November 2018

Basic and Useful Fundraising Platform

Customer service responses are timely and helpful. I would love to see an updated look for auction pages and more customization options.

PROS

User friendly platform to raise funds for our non profit organization.

CONS

Payment integration, there is always the concern that a bidder can commit to purchasing an item but not follow through with payment as it is collected through another platform

Laura

Primary/Secondary Education, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2019

Highly Recommend Bidding Owl

Our overall experience with Bidding Owl was fantastic! The customer service they offer is truly top-notch. They are polite, helpful and quick to respond. We look forward to utilizing this software again in the future.

PROS

Bidding Owl is incredibly user-friendly and offers a variety of options to customize the type of auction you are trying to build. I love how quickly we can add items, track bids and adjust features as needed.

CONS

We had a lot of donors, and the scrolling banner only offers a single-line scroll. 2 or 3 scroll lines to maximize the donor view would be a great addition.

Dylan

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed May 2018

AMAZING ONLINE AUCTION SITE

PROS

Bidding Owl was so incredibly easy to use! Its a great site to manage auction items, bidders, donors, sponsors and more for an amazing price. Bidding Owl's customer service was top notch! They were always there to answer questions and help us. Whether you are an online expert or novice, first time fundraiser or a professional fundraiser, you will love this site and software.

CONS

Nothing. The software was so easy to use and manage.

Annie

Veterinary, 2-10 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2019

Easy online auction option!

PROS

The ease of use in creating items, uploading pictures and seeing bidding statistics.

CONS

It would be nice to have an option to save the previous auction when starting a new one. I was able to export excel files with item and winner information though. It's also very simple to email customer support and they reset my auction to start a new one within 15 minutes!!

Eric

Environmental Services, 2-10 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed August 2020

Great support

PROS

I loved that the customer support was friendly and helpful! Also, the online layout of the auction was clear and simple.

CONS

We would love to have some video resources on how to make an account and how to bid so we could share those with our supporters who are new to using the site but want to participate in the auction.

David

Executive Office, 11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2018

Great for nonprofit auctions

We have always used spreadsheets and paper for our silent auctions before. Bidding Owl let's us get bids before the gala even started.

PROS

Their customer service is really helpful and responsive. They really care and it shows. I'm located in Thailand and they made the changes in currency symbols to allow us to use Bidding Owl.

CONS

There is a bit of a learning curve involved in using Bidding Owl to it's fullest. It's easy once you spend that time.

Nikki

Food & Beverages, 2-10 employees

Used more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed December 2018

Great option for non-profit fundraiser

This was a great online fundraiser for our outreach program.

PROS

Reasonable Rates, Great way to seek donations

CONS

Had a little trouble formatting pictures

Mike

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed October 2018

Perfect online auction software for our needs!

We went from manually running our silent auction to utilizing Bidding Owl and it was less work for us internally and we saw a 15% increase in the final auction net!

PROS

Very easy to use and much more economical than others we vetted.

CONS

Honestly haven't found a con yet. Some of our users needed some assistance getting going.

Melissa

Education Management, 2-10 employees

Used less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed February 2019

Perfect fit for annual non-profit

I'm using the site for my second auction...love it!

PROS

Easy to set up and easy for bidders to participate. Customer service gets back to you quickly!

CONS

Some participants still like the old fashion, silent auction sheets (which are provided), but using them makes things less convenient.

Showing 1 - 25 of 120 Reviews