Auction Business News

Today, AuctionAnything.com, a pioneer in online auction software, announces the immediate availability of their official Facebook® app. With this app, clients can add featured and random auction item listings directly to their Facebook® fan pages. By visiting http://apps.facebook.com/auctionanythingfbe, clients can access additional information about the app and easily install it with a single click.

“The integration of auction listings into our client’s Facebook® fan pages is just the first step of several surrounding our push into social marketing. This feature gives our clients the ability to market their auction items in new and creative ways. We believe this represents a huge leap forward in auction item visibility.” -John Hotaling, President, AuctionAnything.com

This feature is being made available at no additional cost to our clients, and reinforces our dedication to building core product features without driving up the cost of running an online auction.

For more information on AuctionAnything.com services or to become an auction client, please visit us online at http://www.auctionanything.com.

Founded in 1996, AuctionAnything.com is a pioneer and leading provider of online auction software. Fully hosted and managed, the AuctionAnything.com system provides everything needed to successfully host an online auction for business, fundraising and charity clients. The company continues to enhance and improve the online auction experience and is driven to innovate and enhance its products and the results its clients have come to expect from their online auction tools.

AuctionAnything.com and Facebook® are registered trademarks of their respective companies in the United States. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Today, AuctionAnything.com, a pioneer in online auction software, announced the immediate availability of PayPal® payment integration into their online auction management platform. This new feature enables merchants to accept payments through the PayPal® service and expands on the traditional merchant account services already offered to clients.

“The integration of PayPal® into the AuctionAnything.com online auction system enhances our already full-featured auction platform and answers the need for more flexibility and expandability in payment processing for our clients. We are excited to offer this new capability to both our existing clients and those that have not had a way to process online payments for their fundraising and event based auctions.” -John Hotaling, President, AuctionAnything.com

AuctionAnything.com clients may now offer their customers an integrated, electronic payment option using the PayPal® "Website Payments Standard" payment solution. Best of all, there is no setup or monthly charge to use this feature and customers do not need to have an existing PayPal® account. Winning bidders can pay for their items by credit card, debit card, bank transfer or PayPal® by simply clicking on the PayPal® button within the My Invoices page of their auction site. The user will be directed to PayPal® and subsequently returned to the My Invoice page. Payment status will be updated within the auction web site accordingly enabling the auction administrator to easily process the associated orders.

“The idea was to make it as seamless as possible for both the bidder and the seller, and our integration achieves that goal.” -John Hotaling, President, AuctionAnything.com

Founded in 1996, AuctionAnything.com is a pioneer and leading provider of online auction software. Fully hosted and managed, the AuctionAnything.com system provides everything needed to successfully host an online auction for business, fundraising and charity clients. The company continues to enhance and improve the online auction experience and is driven to innovate and enhance its products and the results its clients have come to expect from their online auction tools.

AuctionAnything.com and PayPal® are registered trademarks of their respective companies in the United States. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com has released an enhanced version of their already useful Invoice Assistant. The upgraded version takes into account customer feedback from site administrators whose requirements vary widely by auction type and industry.

"We've listened to our auction managers as to how to make their jobs easier. This system update specifically focuses on enhancing post auction processing and order fulfillment. Our ultimate goal is to allow our clients to spend more time promoting and improving their online auctions," stated John Hotaling, President of AuctionAnything.com.

New feature highlights include:

• Instant Item Winner Notifications - Nightly summary notifications have been replaced with instant item winner notices which are especially useful for fundraising auctions and auction events that close over the course of one day.


• Multiple Customizable Invoice Document Types - Auction administrators can now print, e-mail and save multiple document types during the order fulfillment process including winner notices, invoices, receipts, tax reports and more.


• Detailed Drill Down Reports - The new drill down feature allows auction administrators to expand auction reports on demand and show details of a particular invoice making reporting and order processing faster and more convenient.

Current clients can learn more by going to the "What's New" section of their auction site administration panel. Otherwise, please contact a sales representative for detailed information.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

Brenda Novak, a New York Times best-selling romantic suspense author, writes about passion for a living. Recently, however, her passion has turned to raising money and awareness for diabetes research.

When her son was diagnosed with diabetes, Novak was determined to make a difference. For the past four years, Novak has utilized the services of AuctionAnything.com to power a personalized fundraising auction.

AuctionAnything.com enabled Novak to hold her auction as an extension of her current web site, http://www.brendanovak.com. Visitors could simply go to the auction section, rather than visiting an entirely different site.

Most items are donated by fellow authors, agents, editors, publishers, fans or by those who are simply hoping to help make a difference.

"I auction any new item I can get my hands on; no used stuff," said Novak.

Funds raised are given to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami. Novak has raised more than $500,000.

"Raising money takes drive and determination and a lot of hard work. I put a lot of thought into it and search for creative ways to spur [the auction’s] growth," said Novak.

Each year, the auction has, indeed, grown, and Novak continues to make a difference in the lives of her son and millions of others like him who live with diabetes.

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and Novak believes that her personal experiences and passion for her cause are what drive people to respond.

Having raised more than $500,000, Novak has high hopes for the future. She plans to keep building her auction.

"I’m hoping to see the day when I raise a million a year," said Novak.

For more information, please contact Megan Gover at mgover@auctionanything.com or (407) 282-8568

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com announced today that its public broadcasting sector has enjoyed its most successful spring auction season to date. This business segment includes dozens of public television (PBS) and public radio stations throughout the country. Through the end of June, twenty-four stations had run at least one fundraising auction event utilizing the AuctionAnything.com Internet auction platform. Auction events can be conducted “online only” or as auctions simulcast on live television combined with real-time, online bidding.

AuctionAnything.com also realized significant growth in membership within its public broadcasting sector during the first half of 2008. Seven stations converted all or part of their auction events to AuctionAnything.com’s fully hosted, auction service. “Public broadcasting is a perfect fit for an online auction, and AuctionAnything.com in particular,” stated John Hotaling, President of AuctionAnything.com. “The stations have the ability to effectively publicize their events, while their bidders enjoy how easy our system is to use. This translates into more bidders, more bids, and ultimately a more successful fundraiser. It truly does create a win-win situation.”

AuctionAnything.com has been developing online auction systems since 1995 and broadcast related features since 2003. Features developed primarily for public broadcasting stations include operator assisted bidding, on-air board production, combination bidding and Top(X) bidding for multiple quantity applications. AuctionAnything.com serves the PBS and public radio community, as well as non-profit and for-profit businesses throughout the world with scalable, turnkey, online auction solutions.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com announces the release of the Top(x) bidding format. The feature has been designed to offer an alternative to Dutch Bidding for those clients with multiple identical items.

Dutch bidding is typically more difficult for bidders to understand as it incorporates "3 dimensional" bidding with winning bids determined by quantity, bid and bid time. Top(x) handles multiples while eliminating confusion as it performs just like a typical listing.

Top(x) uses the Combination Bidding format to allow users to bid absolute and proxy bids within the same auction listing. The difference in Top(x) is that it awards multiple winners per auction.

An example has an item with a quantity of 5 available for sale. With Top(x) bidders are strategically bidding to land in that 5th highest bid slot to win the item at the greatest possible value. However, when the bidder falls to 6th place, they must move back to the front of the line and bid to first. By awarding multiple winners, it changes bidders strategy from a bid late mentality to a bid early and watch strategy.

Top(x) offers clients, especially fundraising, the ability to drive a larger volume of early bidding to result in higher total bidding for their event.

AuctionAnything.com is the first auction software to offer this type of bidding format to its clients.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com announces the release of its newest bidding feature, Combination Bidding. Responding to the demands of our fundraising clientele, AuctionAnything.com is releasing a bidding format that allows bidders to either use proxy bidding or to place a higher absolute bid all within a single listing.

Prior to the release of the combination bidding, auction lots had to be identified as either Standard or Traditional bidding formats requiring the site administrator to make a strategic choice. With combination bidding, the auction manager gets the best of both worlds.

"Our fundraising clients were presented with a unique challenge with some bidders not wanting to get a 'deal', but rather wanting to make a donation and win a great item at the same time," said John Hotaling, President of AuctionAnything.com.

While designed initially for the fundraising marketplace, the feature is available to all clients of AuctionAnything.com.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com announced today the launch of its new image uploading utility. “We recognize that one of the most time consuming tasks associated with running an online auction is preparing images and uploading them to the web,” stated Dominick Delio,Vice-President of AuctionAnything.com. "Therefore, in an effort to reduce the time and resources involved with completing these undertakings we've developed an image upload process which can save our customers hours of work," continued Delio.

The new image upload utility features:

• Automatic File Resizing - Now there is no need to edit your images. The image upload system will automatically resize them to your preset dimensions for a clean, consistent look.



• Automatic Thumbnail Creation - Thumbnail images are created automatically when the "full-sized" image is uploaded to the auction system.



• Upload Larger Files - Upload images right out of your camera and let the system optimize your file size.



• Multi-file Uploading
- Upload hundreds of images at a time and work on other tasks while your files upload in the background.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

Romance novelist Brenda Novak is finishing up proportionately one of the most active auctions that AuctionAnything.com has been a part of in its 12 year history. The auction run by an individual to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has shown that a motivated individual can make a huge difference.

Some of the amazing statistics include:

• Average Number of bids per bidder: 50
• Average Number of bids per active item: 30

This is the 3rd year for Brenda Novak’s auction and by far the most widely supported. According to Brenda, “The hardest thing about this kind of endeavor is gaining the initial support. Once you have a base to work from, you can build and build and it gets easier. Fortunately, I've been able to retain my shoppers and my donors from year to year and make this an ‘event’.”

“When I set out this year, I never dreamed we'd see the growth we've seen, but maybe I should've expected it. We nearly doubled between Year 1 and Year 2. It looks like we might double again! My plans for the auction were big, but I never dreamed we'd blow our goal away in less than two weeks.”

“This year I was hoping to reach $75,000, but we've already blown past that. We're at $88,000 as of May 16th, so I've readjusted my goal to shoot even higher. I'm now hoping to raise $110,000!”

As of Tuesday morning, the auction raised over $110,000 with 3 days remaining in the auction which is traditionally the busiest time for an online auction. Bidders can participate by going to her website at www.BrendaNovak.com.

FINAL UPDATE: Upon completion of the auction, the final amount raised exceeded $140,000 with over 25,000 bids.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com announced that it is testing the use of a peer support network to provide additional support tools for its client base. The test market focuses on the public broadcasting sector.

“We wanted to test the effectiveness of peer to peer support for our auction clients, and the public broadcasting market made the most sense. It is a sub-section of our larger fundraising market, has very specific and unique issues and concerns, and is about to enter its busy Spring auction season,” stated Chris Mayr, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for AuctionAnything.com.

If results are as expected, AuctionAnything.com will be launching additional peer support groups for other sectors of its client base. “There is a benefit to the group dynamic that reinforce the concepts that our support staff provide to our clients. Many times hearing the same advice from peers or hearing that the advice worked for other people in their same situation provides them the confidence to follow that advice and grow their auction,” continued Mayr.

The forum is available for both public television and radio stations and members need not be clients to participate. To become a member of the peer support group, contact Chris Mayr at CMayr@AuctionAnything.com.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com announced today the launch of new features within its administrative console. “We constantly strive to make the job of running an auction site faster and easier,” stated Dominick Delio,Vice-President of AuctionAnything.com.

The new administrative features include:

• New navigation system: “As we develop numerous features over the years, we realize we have to take a step back and reorganize our interface to make features easy to find and intuitive for users. Our clients asked and we delivered, making this the easiest system available,” continued Delio.
• Integrated Help and FAQ system: “Sometimes as you release tons of new features, documentation lags behind. Our new FAQ and integrated help system represents months of documentation and support information integrated into an easy to use and search resource library. Plus the enhancements of our help system allow our support team to provide more detailed answers reducing our response time.”
• Log In Snapshot: “Our users need to know exactly what is going on in their auction with the click of a button. Our new log in snapshot is the first generation of our smart log in technology that will identify a unique to do list and integrated knowledge base each time the site administrator logs into their system.”

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com announced that it had released the first publicly available online auction platform that can be integrated and deployed to broadcast airwaves. A recent auction for station WVIA in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pennsylvania was the first live broadcast utilizing AucitonAnything.com’s broadcast technology.

“This is an exciting time at AuctionAnything.com. With the launch of some revamped features, and the integration of new technology, we have been able to create some industry changing options for our customers,” stated John Hotaling, President of AuctionAnything.com.

“Our public broadcasting customers were wrestling with how to attract new bidders through the online auction, while not losing their traditional phone in bidder base. Our new broadcast features now allow them to offer bidding opportunities for all supporters.”

The new broadcast technology includes the following features:

• Administrative bidding - Allowing phone operators to quickly and easily take bids over the phone.
• Integrated board technology - This allows internet bidders to see what items are on broadcast currently.
• Data delivered in a customized format - This can be imported into broadcasting equipment allowing at home viewers to see bids update in virtual real time on their screen, enhancing the at home viewing and bidding experience and increasing bidding activity.

AuctionAnything.com anticipates that about 25-40% of its dozens of broadcasting clients will migrate to the enhanced broadcast bidding features for this year’s auction season that traditionally takes place between March to May.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com is utilizing the latest in technology options to make their auction system more robust and easier to use. The latest in this tradition of cutting edge advances is the utilization of Ajax in its newest feature set.

Ajax—stands for asynchronous JavaScript and XML. The programming language is known for making data instantly appear in web pages without the need to reload the page. This ability to dynamically update pages instantly makes the auction system faster and a more exciting user experience.

Currently the use of Ajax has only been adopted by less than 20% of the major internet destination and shopping sites. According to industry journals this adoption rate has been primarily based on the complexity of creating applications using this framework.

According to John Hotaling, President of AuctionAnything.com, “It has always been our mission to stay ahead of the industry when developing our auction engine. We feel that the migration to a platform including Ajax and other best of breed languages will enhance the user experience, drive more bids for our clients, make their job easier, and prove more efficient.”

Currently AuctionAnything is utilizing Ajax in a limited role, but will be further utilizing this technology with future releases and feature enhancements.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

AuctionAnything.com released more details about its recently revamped bulk loading tool. “The single most important task that our clients are responsible for with their auction is the loading of their inventory. It was paramount that we make this process as easy and efficient as possible,” stated Dominick Delio, Vice-President of AuctionAnything.com.

Delio continued, “Our new bulk loading tool allows an auction manager to take data from virtually any database program and load it into their auction system without having to modify it.”

The bulk loading tool can blend multiple columns of data into a single description field, and map data columns when they are loaded into the system, removing the need for cumbersome interfaces.

The tool is part of AuctionAnything.com’s commitment to continually enhance and update its platform to make the product easier to use for its customers.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

Online auction service provider, AuctionAnything.com announced the release of several new features designed to enhance its Charity Auction service. The new features were designed specifically for the event style fundraising auction and are being released just in time for the busy Fall 2006 auction season.

"We evaluate suggestions and requests from our clients on a regular basis and identify which new features could help the most organizations," said John Hotaling, President of AuctionAnything.com. With AuctionAnything.com's fully-hosted service, existing customers will find that the following enhancements have been added to their auction hosting packages at no additional charge:

Pre-Bid Only: Addressing the needs of fundraisers who are combining Live, Silent and Online auction items on their auction web site, AuctionAnything.com has created a Pre-Bid Only feature which signifies to users that online bids on specified items will be carried through to the night of the event. Online "pre-bidding" can be an effective method for "jump starting" the bidding on items that will close off-line.

Bid for a Cause: Many school based charities have a specific endeavor or project that they would like to fund independently from the rest of the auction items. By utilizing AuctionAnything.com’s multi-lot, fixed-price listing type (Limited Time Offer), organizations can now offer a Bid for a Cause option that collects donations for a specific project.

Enhanced Bulk Uploading: Since entering item information is such a large part of running an online auction, AuctionAnything.com recognizes the importance of making the data entry process as simple as possible. The new, more powerful Bulk Uploading System features an easy-to-use upload wizard, in-line file editing and error correction, a spreadsheet template creator and greater loading capacity to expedite the loading process.

Improved Sponsorship Tools: For those organizations selling sponsorships or underwriting opportunities, a new console for managing sponsors has been introduced. Sponsor logos and advertisements may be tastefully incorporated into the web site and controlled by the auction administrator.

“It is all about our customers.,” continued Hotaling, “The goal is to provide our clients with tools that will allow them to work more efficiently AND enhance their ability to raise funds. If we can save them time setting up and managing the auction then they can spend more time obtaining donations and sponsorships. In the end, maximizing their fundraising potential is what matters most.”

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com

Online Flower Retailer 1-800-Flowers.com launched an online fundraising campaign to benefit Save the Children. The online auction features Celebrity-Styled Teddy Bears created by various celebrities. Guest celebrity designers include supermodel, actress and talk show host Tyra Banks; Golden Globe-nominated actress Maria Bello; legendary designer Kenneth Cole; actress Jennie Garth; Major League Baseball pitcher Tom Glavine, and the casts of two of daytime television longest-running dramas, As the World Turns and Guiding Light.

100% of all bids will benefit Save the Children. Each winning bidder will receive the collectible teddy bear designed by the celebrities and their framed, autographed sketches.

To participate in the auction, go to www.1800flowers.com/celebrityteddybear. Bidding began on January 4th and will continue through January 13th.

For more information please contact:
Chris Mayr
AuctionAnything.com
407.737.0893
cmayr@auctionanything.com