Online Auction Website Design Best Practices
With the recent advancements in the online auction software industry, auctioneers can now run timed online auctions and live bidding events entirely online. Modern online auction platforms allow users to bid from anywhere using real-time bidding software and mobile-friendly auction websites.
More than ever, people are staying in and purchasing from the comfort of their own home. Not only is the E-Commerce competition high but also the Auction Industry is seeing high competition. One thing that can drastically set you apart is your website. There are many design techniques to incorporate and ensure simple and easy navigation and a great user experience. Let us go over some.
Essential Online Auction Website Features
Once you understand your auction’s business model, you must focus on the website’s key functionality. Auction websites look very similar to an E-Commerce website.
Simple and Easy Navigation
The user must be able to navigate to any page of the online auction website easily and have good flow to get the user from point A to point B. Products should be separated into categories with advanced search functionality. This helps users to search listed products by category, keyword, or product name. You can also add other advanced filters to sort the products for more define searches.
Photo Gallery
Adding quality images and descriptions is a major selling point for your online auction website. Ensure the quality and image sizes are being reflected for the best user experience. We have just introduced an AI auction lot-generation feature called AScribe that creates titles and descriptions from the images you’ve uploaded. Auction lot generation will rapidly increase the ability to catalog your auctions more efficiently. High-quality auction catalog images help increase bidder engagement and improve conversions on online auction platforms. By spending less time writing titles and descriptions, photography can be a primary focus to enhance your auction catalog further.
Hassle Free Payment
Users want and need to feel protected while navigating through your site let alone making purchases through it. Modern auction management software should support secure online payments, buyer’s premiums, invoicing, and automated checkout processing.
Automated Notifications
Creating a website that sends notifications to all members when inventory is updated, when an auction is over, or when an item is sold is crucial to retaining bidder engagement. Also sending out automatic emails to both buyers and sellers about important details, dates, or general information. You can also use this to highlight products or items on your site.
A Do and Don’t Check List for your Auction Website
Do:
Incorporate Easy-to-Use Navigation– Your website visitors need to be able to find out exactly how to use your website’s navigation within a few seconds of them being on your site.
Optimize For Speed– Your website’s speed is incredibly important. Visitors are more likely to abandon and find somewhere else if your site doesn’t load within a few seconds.
A couple of suggestions to improve your site speed:
- Optimize your site’s images. You can resize and compress your images with several free online tools.
- Properly manage and compress scripts and plugins.
- Don’t overdo it on custom web fonts
Provide A Clear Call to Action– Enhance the user experience and your click-through-rate. To really execute this, you will want to provide clear, large, call -to-actions for every step of the buyer and seller’s process.
KISS: Keep It Simple, Safe, and Straightforward- Keep your site’s design simple. It will create a more professional, presentable, readable, and interesting content.
Do Not :
Don’t Use Flash– Today, Flash is not supported on many mobile devices- meaning your mobile users will not have the same experience as desktop users. Most online auctions will use HTML or CSS (quick, easy alternatives to Flash) instead.
Skip the Splash Page– A splash page is seen before a user can access a website. They usually have a “continue” button that enters to their actual site. Today, any extra steps deter users to exit the page.
Don’t Use Self Playing Audio or Video– Make sure there is no audio or video playing automatically. Users typically do not know where it is coming from let alone turn it off. Resulting in them exiting the page.
Don’t Bury Your Most Important Content– You want to highlight your top inventory, upcoming auctions, and any incentives for selling with you. Your home page should be displaying your most important & attractive information.
Don’t Forget About Mobile – A big one! This should not be overlooked. Many people are accessing your site through mobile devices or tablets. Optimize your site for mobile so visitors get an equally friendly user experience and continue on your site.
*Check out our How to Make a Mobile Friendly Website blog that gives you quick pointers on this topic.
FAQ
What features should an online auction platform include?
An online auction platform should include real-time bidding, auction catalogs, secure payments, bidder notifications, and mobile-friendly design.
Why is real-time bidding and notifications important in online auctions?
Real-time bidding improves bidder engagement by instantly updating bids, auction status, and countdown timers during online auctions. Allowing notifications to be sent out for various actions will keep their engagement at a higher level.
Can online auction software support multiple sellers?
Yes, many online auction software platforms support multi-seller functionality, allowing auction companies to manage multiple consignors and inventories.
We hope that this read gave you a better understanding for creating an optimized and user friendly online auction website. It is important to incorporate these steps to ensure simple and easy navigation with a great user experience that keeps visitors visiting your site! And who doesn’t want that?!