Can I reopen an auction to sell unsold items?
Options for Unsold Items
After the auction has closed some items may not have sold. These are the options to consider.
Option 1: Change to Buy Now Items
1) Edit items without bids and change the item type from auction to Buy Now.
2) Enter the fixed price for the item(s) and save.
3) Consider hiding the auction items that have already sold. This can be done via Bulk Update. In Items > Advanced Options > Bulk Update. Change the visibility field to hidden and save to apply changes to all items selected.
4) Next communicate with the potential purchasers. Bulk messages can be sent via the Communications Section or individual messages can be sent via the Partciipants section.
Option 2: Create a New campaign
1) Create a new campaign and transfer the unsold items into the new campaign.
2) In the destination campaign Go to Items > Advanced Options > Transfer Items.
3) Open the auction and set the close time in Control Panel > Auction Controls.
4) Next communicate the new campaign link with prospective bidders and instruct them to simply login to the new campaign to bid. Bulk messages to all participants can be sent from the original campaign (Communications Section) including the link to the new campaign.
Option 3: Re-Open the Original Auction
Proceed with care and caution if choosing this option.
1) Hide all auction items that have already sold.
2) Next, In Control Panel > Auction Controls open the auction and set the close time. Make sure to uncheck the box to ensure that end of auction messages, which include prompts to pay, are not sent when the auction closes. If the box IS checked, the winners of all auction items (including the hidden auction items and including those that have been paid for) will receive a message with details of items won, prompting them to view their invoice and pay.
3) Next, communicate to prospective bidders that the auction for unsold items has re opened.
4) Once the auction has closed, prompt ONLY the winners of the unsold items to pay. Do this by via the Checkout Console and click Send Payment Reminders. This will send prompts for payments to ANY winner with an invoice with an amounts owing.
Alternatively, in Checkout Console search the name of each winner and click to send payment reminders individually.
