I was actually shocked to see a bill from Bidding Owl after my experience with them. Everything about this experience was terrible - from the picture hosting (there is no way to edit or modify your pictures and everything was posted sideways) to the fact that they can charge after the fact without disclosing pricing or the fact that they'll take 5% of non-profit fundraising money after doing absolutely NOTHING.
We had nothing but problems with them, and for the most part, my auction tanked when in years past it's been our highest rated fundraiser.
Customer service is non-existent and the phone number on the site doesn't work (but has recently been changed from a 1-800 number). I emailed them to complain - no response.
This screams "scam" and I'm considering filing a complaint with the FTC.
We have been so happy to have Bidding Owl in our fundraising arsenal. We looked at many platforms for our online auctions and Bidding Owl has been a dream. I have had several in our community reach out to tell them our secret to the great online auctions-- and we have shared the information with pleasure!
We were so upset that we could not do our annual preschool charity auction in person this year due to Covid and were hesitant to even try it online. Bidding Owl was easy to use and if we had a question, Caroline would personally answer the phone and help us. The biggest surprise was this was our most succesful auction ever with a record breaking amount grossed and netted. We will be using Bidding Owl in the future from here on out.
I have talked with six auction houses. I have been given the run-around by all of them, but Bidding Owl. When I have asked questions, I am asked to Zoom meet or talk on the phone. This is for simple, generic questions to see if the company even has the options I am looking for. Thankful that Bidding Owl just simply answered my question, via email, without trying to get me to talk or Zoom. Therefore, we have chosen Bidding Owl!
This software is really easy to operate and easy for bidder to use it.
The bidding owl site is great and inexpensive.The only cons are the limited number and quality of photos - only three photos allowed, and the quality isn't high enough to allow customers to zoom in on the sale items.
They also understand when our Foundation (NGO) cannot pay the fee faster. Thank you very much
We are so glad you had a successful auction with us! We are currently refreshing our platform to improve our image resolution and zoom features to accommodate our customers. We will keep you updated on our progress.
This site delivers! Easy to set up and add/change items. Simple bidder sign up and bids can be manually input for those that are not computer literate. Support was simple and available 24/7. No up front cost just a small % of the highest bid, this is a small nonprofits dream.
I found the people at bidding owl helpful. The software easy to use. The only thing that was difficult was the closing out of the auction. It would be nice if there was a spot to write notes that the winning bidder would receive an email with the aftermath of how to retrieve the item or service.
Hi, I wanted you to know that we had a successful silent auction for our first attempt and your platform really made a difference. It was easy to use and provided all the tools we needed for a smooth event We will be using it agin. Many thanks for all the technical support. I will be singing you praises!
Bidding Owl has simplified the paperwork and trouble of running a silent auction. Plus the ability to have online bidding before the event has increased our bids and donations.
Bidding Owl was a tremendous help with our fundraising for our non-profit. The site was very easy for use to manage, it was easy for the bidders, and the reporting aspects made closing everything out very efficient. It was great to have the ability to connect to PayPal and the fees were vey reasonable. I highly recommend this site to other non-profits.
I am so grateful I found BidfingOwl.com. After my kid's school's biggest fundraiser of the year was canceled because of COVID-19, we were able to salvage our budget by using BiddingOwl to host our online auction. The set up is easy and user friendly and the fees are the best I could find. Even cheaper than the auction software we had in place who was going to charge us an extra fee and commission to do an online auction. Customer service answers emails quickly and they even answered their emergency line at 11pm when I had made a mistake. We are on our second auction with BiddingOwl now, and are completely satisfied with this service.
Bidding Owl made it possible for us to save our school fundraiser that was cancelled due to Covid-19. It was easy to set up, the customer support was wonderful, and we were able to rally for our school! Looking forward to using them in the future!
The Bidding Owl site for Hanson's button Barn is just great! The max bid and bid now options are so easy to use and instruction is so clear. The Button Barn is an awesome site and I have used Bidding Owl on it for a few years now. Perfectly simple and I recommend it highly!
Bidding owl is extremely easy to use and their customer support responds quickly when you do have a question. This is the 3rd year our non profit has used Bidding Owl for our silent auction.
Our Rotary Club used Bidding Owl for our Internet auction and it worked very well. We will be using it again
Loved using this website. As a principal, I was incharge of our online event and it was a huge success.
Good experience with this site for our Athletic fundraiser.
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I am sorry that you misunderstood our pricing. We offer a free service for traditional paper-bid sheet and outcry auctions. However, the use of online auctions is not free. We charge 5% of the highest bids placed. This is detailed on our website on the Pricing page (desktop) http://www.biddingowl.com/price-comparison.cfm
Further, when you sign up for an account the pricing is detailed on that page as well. * Silent and Live Auction manager is FREE; Online Auction Feature (including online pre-bid on silent and live items) is 5% of highest bid. I understand that this page might be misleading at first glance.
Please know that when you set up your site your ran the Online Auction Wizard. In this wizard in step #4 it asked you for a credit card number. As stated on the page: "In order to run your own online auction on BiddingOwl.com, we charge 5% based on your high bids. Once your auction has ended, BiddingOwl.com, LLC reserves the right to charge your credit card based on the amount of highest bids." On that page is also a checkbox that asks you to agree to the terms and conditions. Which you have agreed to.
I am very sorry that you have this misunderstanding. Yes, we do advertise our free version of our software heavily, however, online auctions are subject to a charge.