Why Don't Bidders Come Back After They Get Outbid?
Why don't bidders come back after they get outbid?
Because they did not know they got outbid. Not in time, anyway.
That surprises people, because every stallion service auction we run already sends an outbid email, free, and always has. The message goes out the second somebody passes them.
The message is not the problem. The timing is.
What is actually happening on the bidder's end?
Picture a real person instead of a bidder.
They put a bid in three weeks ago on a stallion they liked. Maybe they set a max. Then they went back to their life, because they have one.
Tonight they are at a movie with their family. Or watching a ball game. Or sitting in the bleachers at their kid's show two states over with a bad signal and a phone at eleven percent.
At 6:49 an email lands in their inbox saying they have been outbid.
Your auction closes at seven.
They are not ignoring you. They are just not looking at their email right that minute, and neither would you.
Is it the email provider's fault?
Sometimes, honestly. Email delivery is not instant and it never has been. Some providers hold mail for a few minutes, some for longer, and some quietly drop it in a promotions folder where nobody looks until Saturday.
None of that matters much when the message is "your registration is confirmed." It matters a great deal when the message is "somebody just outbid you and there are eleven minutes left."
An email read tomorrow morning is not much help if your auction ended last night.
So what actually reaches somebody in eleven minutes?
A text message. That is genuinely most of the answer.
People read texts. Not eventually, not when they next sit down at a computer, but within a few minutes, almost regardless of where they are or what they are doing. It is the one channel that still gets that.
This is why we built Text Message Alerts into Stallion Auction Amplified for this season. A bidder opts in on your auction site, and when somebody passes them they get a text with a link straight back to that stallion. They can be in the parking lot of the movie theater and still get back in.
It runs $399 for the season, October 1 through March 31, and the details are at bigskyinternetdesign.com/amplified.
But before you spend anything, there is a fair amount you can do yourself.
What can we do about it without buying anything?
Remind people, more than feels necessary. The day your auction closes, and again a couple hours out. Post it where your people actually are, which for most associations is Facebook, not email.
Publish the closing time as a number. Seven o'clock Friday, not "Friday evening." People plan around numbers.
Tell bidders to whitelist your auction emails. One sentence in your registration confirmation asking people to add your address to their contacts. Costs nothing, and it genuinely helps the emails you are already sending.
Say out loud when bidding is heavy. A post saying three stallions are getting a lot of action will pull people back faster than any notification, because now it is a competition and nobody wants to lose one they had their eye on.
Frequently asked questions
Do you have to have a smartphone for text alerts?
No. It is a plain text message, so it works on any phone. There is nothing to download.
Do bidders have to sign up for it?
Yes, they opt in themselves right on your auction website, and they can stop any time by replying STOP. Nobody gets texted who did not ask for it.
Will this annoy our bidders?
The people who opt in are the people who want to be told. In our experience the ones who ask for outbid alerts are your most engaged bidders, and they are the ones you most want to hear from you.
Do we still get the outbid emails?
Yes. Those come with every auction we run and always have. Texts are in addition, not instead.
What about people who set a max bid?
They get passed too, and that is exactly the group most likely to have stopped paying attention, because they felt covered. A max bid is not a guarantee, it is a ceiling, and when somebody goes over it the only thing that helps is finding out in time.
Let us talk
If you are running an SSA this season and want to think through the timing side of it, call or text me at 979-217-1544.
Tom Bruch has built websites since 1998 and is the owner of Big Sky Internet Design.