Terminology & Definitions

MobilBid has its own lingo, but it helps everyone understand exactly what we mean.

An Account is the overall container for all your auctions and guests.

An account can have a single or multiple Organizations.  An organization is a sub-container that holds specific auctions and patrons.  An organization can have one or many auctions.  An organization shares all its patrons across all its auctions, but not with auctions in different organizations. 

An Auction is a collection of items and customized configurations that allow an administrator to invite patrons to bid on items with the objective to raise funds for a charitable cause.  An auction is generally run with an pre-set automated schedule. 

The Right-Side Menu is used to navigate between organizations, edit organization-level settings, and edit account-level settings (primarily Stripe Connect.)  You access the right-side menu from the "head and shoulders" icon at the top right of any page.

The Left-Side Menu is used to edit auction-level settings, access an auction dashboard, set an auction schedule, perform auction broadcasts, see auction reports and invoices. You access the left-side menu from the Auction Dashboard.

An Administrator can login to an account and manage your auctions. You can have as many administrators as you want, but they all have the same abilities within the platform.

A Patron is a guest to your event, one who registers and participates in a mobile auction.  You manage your patrons at either the organization level (right-side menu using the Contact Manager) or at the auction level (dashboard left-menu using the Patrons link.) 

• An Invited patron is one who is sent a message from the system, giving them a clickable link to directly access the auction.  Patrons who send a text message to the phone number are not counted as invited when looking at dashboard counts.
• An Interested patron is one who "logs into" the auction e.g. they are showing interest in the event.
• A Tester is a patron designated by the administrator to help test an auction.  A tester is invited when the auction is in planning mode, and all the test bids are removed when the auction moves to preview mode.
• A Trusted patron is one who the administrator allows to skip the requirement of entering their credit card before bidding (assuming the auction is configured with Stripe and also configured to require cards prior to first bid.)
• A Locked patron is one who an administrator has blocked from further bidding, generally because of unpaid invoices in prior auctions.

The Contact Manager (right-side menu) is used to upload a list of patrons (to an organization) from an external source, to download a copy of patrons from an organization, and to generally manage patrons with respect to their activity and payment status across many auctions.

The Patrons link (left-side menu) is used to manage individual patrons, to invite them to an auction, to edit their profile, to place or remove bids on their behalf, and to review invoices and payments.  Patrons and their information (contact, bid history, credit card, payments) are retained in an organization indefinitely for use in future auctions.

Auction Items are the items up for bidding by patrons:

• Silent auction items have a lot number, title, description, starting bid amount, minimum bid amount and usually an image for display.  Patrons bid against each other using their phones, there is only one winning bidder.  You can specify a category for an item.
• Live auction items are configured similarly to silent auction items, but patrons cannot bid on them on their phones.  An auctioneer or master of ceremonies requests bids from the floor - patrons bid by raising their hand.  An administrator assigns the winning bid to the patron, so that they get a single invoice with their silent and live auction winnings combined.
• Donations are special items - there is only one donation item per auction.  Patrons can choose to make a donation of any amount via their phone, and the amount is added to their single invoice.
• Multi-sale items (sometimes called "sign-ups") are a multiple of identical items offered at fixed purchase price.  Patrons can buy a single or multiple units on their phone, and the total is added to their invoice.  An example of a multi-sale item might be a party, with 50 spots.  Those interested might buy two spots, and the system tracks the remaining spots available.  When all are sold, no more are available for purchase.  A multi-sale item with only one unit available can be used as a "buy-it-now" option.

A Category is a group of similar items (travel, sports, home furnishings, art, etc.)  You define a category with a label and a starting lot number (the system figures out the lot number range by where the next category starts.)  Patrons can search by category on their phones.

Proxy Bidding (also called a Max Bid or Auto-Bid) is an optional feature of the system that allows a patron to choose to set the highest dollar amount they want to pay for a specific item.  If their high bid (which is lower than their proxy amount) is out-bid by another patron, the system will automatically raise their bid by the minimum increment.  If the high bid goes beyond their proxy amount the system will no longer place bids on their behalf.

Stripe is a company who specializes in online credit card processing.  Our clients establish their own merchant account with Stripe, and link their MobilBid account to their Stripe account, so that all fund-raising payments are captured and are deposited to the client's specified bank account. 

A Leaderboard is a pre-designed web page that can be displayed to all patrons at an event, either on a large-screen TV or projected on a screen.  Leaderboards automatically update the bid amounts and bidder names for each item, and can include sponsor names and logos.  There are two versions:  The All Items leaderboard displays all items in sequence, cycling through in groups of 10 items per page, repeating continuously.  The Latest Bids leaderboard cascades each new bid at the top of the screen, pushing older bids down the page.

MobilBid is a  web-app, and does not need to be downloaded or installed on a patron's smartphone.  Patrons access the auction using their phone's web browser.