Silent auction bid sheets: Using Guaranteed Purchase (Buy Now) the right way

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ABOUT THE COMPANY
Red Apple Auctions provides entertaining fundraising auctioneers and valuable education to Gala Chairs overseeing schools and nonprofit auctions. Our most popular free download is our auction item guide. Auction planners use this annually updated guide each year to secure fresh ideas for procurement. Get it at http://www.RedAppleAuctions.com
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ABOUT THE VIDEO
Guaranteed Purchase (also known as Buy Now, Win It Now, Take It Home, Guaranteed Buy, and many other names) allows guests at your fundraising auction to buy an item in the silent auction at a set price. It's used on both paper bid sheets and incorporated into mobile bidding (electronic bidding) auction software systems.

I like to think of it as a convenience fee.

The Guaranteed Purchase price is often set to be 150% to 200% of the value of the item. Thus, a $100 item might be offered as an outright buy at $200.

For guests who buy the item at that elevated price, it allows them the peace of mind that they "won" the item, the good feeling that they made a contribution to your cause, and it frees up their time / mind to go explore other activities during your reception.

Like most tactics in a fundraising auction, there is also an underlying psychology at play. When items sell via Guaranteed Purchase, other guests notice it.

I have observed that other guests first linger on the item that has already been sold, reading the description to see what they missed.

Then they start to look at other items in the area, seeing what else might be available for them. (This is primarily true of auction galas whereby paper bid sheets are used, because it's the visual stimuli of seeing the "SOLD" sign on the bid sheet that grabs their attention.)

In the video I'll show you several types of bid sheets with Buy Now offerings.

You'll learn:
1. Are you the type of committee who should use it?
2. What's the correct price to use for Guaranteed Purchase?
3. How should the bid sheet be designed to use it effectively?
4. Should it be used on "priceless" items?
5. What pitfalls should we avoid?