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.

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.

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.

Very positive! BiddingOwl.com is a solid auction platform with a dedicated support team behind it.

Loved the ability to test it out, then convert it into my live online auction event. Easy setup with knowledgeable, responsive support when questions arose. Bidders can view items larger to see details and receive an email or text message if outbid.

I look forward to the new release coming soon. Hoping for more customization of fonts, colors and backgrounds. Also the ability to change the title of “Fund-a-Need and More” non-biddable items, easily reorder them, and see an improved user-friendly interface for checkout.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Overall our experience has been very good from the set-up to the final invoicing!

We like the 'look' of the auction pages! It is an improvement to be able to add 5 photos to each item. Also, the bids are easy to make and bidders can be reminded if they lose a bid. Support is very prompt and helpful!

Some of the instructions are a bit hard to understand-ie at the top of Item Management.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Overall, the experience was great. our organization is small and not terribly tech savvy, we were able to build our own site with little difficulty. When we did run into something confusing we were able to call customer service and get help. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] was amazing customer support and walked us through and helped us clean up our page to look even more amazing.

Ease of building our personal site. Overall look of auction was pleasing to our bidders. Ability to print reports and import bidders from our other software. could custom set bidding times for items. Can do mass email/text to all bidders. Customer service team were very response and super helpful. No upfront cost and reasonable rate of 4.9% for non-profits after auction closes.

Integrate live feed, we had a live event on Facebook in addition to our online auction. Bidders had to go between the site and live online event.

Lets you plan online auction with less hassle. Adding items for auctioning is simple and you can add them prior to the day of auctioning. It also reaches a wider audience in the most convenient way. Online auction is way simpler thanks to BidOwl and smart devices.

One of the best thing about online world is being able to reach many people, and working with this software just shows how sometimes you can limit yourself when you stick to traditional systems of handling business. The software lets you track the entire auction process in real time. You can tell how you're performing and track progress to identify trends. Reports on auction activities can also be saved for future references in case you want to know which direction is best for your next online auction. No one is good at everything and you have to learn and try new things. Great customer support makes it possible to wrap your head around the tool and be able to take off just in good time. It's also cost-effective, which lets you focus more on revenue maximization. Since you can reach a wider audience, good planning and execution can get you tremendous results It's very user-friendly. Adding items for auction on the tool is much simpler with templates. Also, you can add items prior to the big day so your bidders can get to know what's available.

There should be an option that lets you print bidding sheets. Drag and drop feature isn't available. Would be a good thing to have.

This is absolutely wonderful. The layout is so easy on the eyes. Other online auction sites lay out the items in a way that is messy or confusing. This is clean and clear and attractive. Technology is not a strong suit for me, I have had to call the help desk 3 times in the last 18 months. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] is wonderful. She picks up the phone right away. She is patient and knowledgeable and kind. At first I was hesitant to use a site that charges a fee. But, I soon realized that the nominal fee is worth it.

This is so user friendly. I also love that I can reach wider audiences with an online auction than a regular silent auction as I've used in the past.

I guess I wish that the registration process for bidders was a tiny bit easier. I worry that some people hesitate to register.

We have used this for our yearly on line auction for 4 years with great results. It is our biggest fund raiser of the year. It is a way to raise money that is successful for our rescue and people have a lot of fun using Bidding Owl. They have told us they look forward to this auction every year.

It is easy to use and the customer service is top notch! This is the 4th year we have used Bidding Owl and have been more than pleased each time.

In all honesty I can't say that there is anything that we have not been pleased with while using this service.

Bidding Owl has allowed our Foundation to extend our Fundraising across the Province that we serve, which is a great boost for us.

The best part of my personal experience has been the friendly, efficient, and helpful staff who have responded to any of my questions.

There are a couple of aesthetic things I would like to see changed (eg. removal of categories not used in our on-line auction), and I would like to be able to load more than one picture at a time. However, these are insignificant against the overall ease and efficiency of the program.

Our overall experience with Bidding Owl has been very good, and includes great customer service and response time. I highly recommend for convenience, cost and service.

We continue to use Bidding Owl every year for our online auction. It's very efficient and easy to use. I can also use information from past auctions to carry over items and other information from previous auctions, which saves a lot of time and effort.

Not a lot of cons, though I would like to see some new auction themes added.

This is our school's third year using BiddingOwl.com to run our online auction and to sell our auction tickets. It works perfectly for our needs and charges a very fair price. The customer support is great.

I love that there is no subscription fee. The costumer support is great and I love that you can "reset" your auction if most items stay the same from year to year, rather than having to re-enter all items every year.

The close out process took me a little bit to figure out (although I am not super tech savvy).

The site is pretty user friendly. I love that we can run a fundraising auction without an upfront cost. They just take a small percentage of our earnings. Customer service has been amazing whenever we need help.

It is a great way to fundraise without spending money upfront.

You cannot look back at past auctions to see items.

The software has comparable tools to those that charge large membership fees. This is the perfect tool for organizations that want to streamline bidding.

There is nothing I don't like about this program.

I like the ease of usr and abilty to reuse information. Time is so important when you are a small operation.

I wish I could reset the auction mysrlf but the customer service is prompt and very helpful.

Super happy with Bidding Owl and will use them again in the future for online auctions! Highly recommended! Good price of 5% for nonprofits too!

Bidding Owl was easy to understand and use. As a first time user of an online auction site (and first time for the nonprofit), Bidding Owl was my first choice and we are so happy with the outcome! The ease of uploading information and pictures of your auction items and the invoices with totals made our auction successful and organized. Customer service was also super helpful in answering questions and getting back to me quickly!

The only critique I have is the shipping costs. I expected it to be optional for the bidders/winners and unfortunately they were charged for shipping regardless if they picked up their items. Waiting to hear back from customer service about this one!

Fabulous return for investment! Would recommend and use again. Great value!

This online bidding software is very easy to use and set up. Photos are easy to load and it's easy for Bidders to register and customizable for notifications. Great value!

Not quite as many features as some other auction software companies, service went down twice during event, but we are using again. Great technical service, and all worked out well in the end.

it has a wider audience than just who we market to.

still is a bit archaic. You can't drop photos into it. It needs major updating.

The need to find an alternative way to auction off some items and give us a little cash led us to this platform. It has been an easy and effective platform and technical support is wonderful. We couldn't be happier with our experience.

We were able to set up this online auction very quickly which was necessary because of the virus precautions that forced us to reschedule our auction to the fall. We put together items that would expire by then. The set up was extremely easy and quite intuitive to use.

Using just photos in the scrolling banner is a great feature, but wasn't explained how to do that in any tutorial available. The technical support staff available both by phone and by e-mail were awesome however and were quickly able to resolve any questions I had, including this one.