This article will help you decide whether requiring a credit card to bid and purchase items at your auction event is a good fit or not.
Depending on your guests and the type of event you're hosting, it could either be a great idea to require credit cards for a seamless check-in and check-out process. However, in some cases it may make or break the guest experience. In any case, Handbid allows you to have full control over requirements set on the site for your guests. See our list of Pro's and Con's as well as some other settings that might be helpful for you and your guests.
Pro's and Con's of Requiring Credit Cards
- PROS to requiring a credit card to bid:
- This will significantly simplify checkout and payment as bidders can be remote or leave the event early and you can still process their payment.
- This ensures you don't lose out on funds because you cannot track down bidders/guests to pay for their item(s).
- CONS to requiring a credit card:
- There are some people who will not provide a credit card in advance. In addition, you may have some people who attend your event and do not participate in the silent auction, but end up raising their paddle for an appeal. In order to process that appeal in Handbid, you would need their card. Usually, these people are happy to provide their card at the end, but certainly not in advance.
- Your bidders will not be able to bid at all at an event if they don't have a smartphone and have not put a card on file at registration. If you require a card, then make sure you have people up near the bidding area that can get a card on file for those iPad bidders who did not provide one at registration.
- You could dissuade bidding if you require a card upfront before people are ready to start bidding in your auction.
Our general thoughts and recommendations are that you require a credit card to bid if you expect to have remote bidders and want to avoid having to chase people down after the auction to pay.
Require Credit Card or Set a Threshold
You have the option of requiring each bidder to have a credit card on file in order to bid. You also have the ability to set a spending threshold. If a bidder attempts to go above this threshold, a credit card will be required to continue bidding. Both of these options are discussed below:
- Require Credit Card to Bid. If this is enabled on your auction dashboard (in Settings/Financial), then every bidder who attempts to bid on an item will have to have a credit card on file before the bid will be processed.
- Require a Card above a Threshold. You have the option of setting a spending threshold. Above this amount, the bidder must have a credit card on file before any more bids will be accepted. For example, if you set a threshold of 25, then a bidder must have a credit card on file before they can bid above $25 on any item (bid or max bid).