ProSpeak: The Advantages of Moving Silent Auctions Online

The Power of the Internet
In contrast, an online silent auction offers the following efficiencies:

1. One-hundred percent of donors can bid from anywhere 24/7 (more bids equals more money).
2. No fighting the crowd, and no awkward ending (more competition equals more money).
3. Item donors obtain added and measureable marketing exposure in a competitive economy, giving them one more reason to donate (more items equal more money).
4. Online sponsorships offer existing sponsors more marketing value, or an upgrade opportunity for more/better items (which equals more money).
5. All bidding data are organized into reports, compared with other like organizations, and stored for next time.
6. Constituents can e-mail the auction to friends and family, which expands the bidding pool.
7. E-mail addresses of both winning and losing bidders can be stored for next year.

Online auctions successfully trigger competitive arousal in ways that silent auctions can't. E-mail bid alerts are an important lever. Deepak Malhotra, a professor of negotiation who studies the psychology of bidding behavior at the Harvard Business School, has noted, "The online environment has a number of attributes that can stimulate competitive arousal (e.g., instant bid alerts) that in-room silent auctions simply don't have."