Auctions in Bidra are real WooCommerce products with the Auction product type, so your theme, payment gateways, shipping, taxes, and reports keep working as usual. This page covers setting one up, what happens during its life, and the admin screens you manage auctions from.
The Auction tab
Create or edit a product, set Product data to Auction, and open the Auction tab:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Item condition | Optional label shown to bidders — Not specified, New, or Used. |
| Start price | The lowest amount the first bid may be. |
| Bid increment | The minimum each new bid must add to the current bid. Defaults to 1 when left empty. |
| Reserve price | Optional hidden minimum. Bidders only see whether it has been met. An auction that ends below its reserve does not sell. |
| Buy It Now price | Optional. Lets a buyer purchase immediately at this price. Leave empty to disable Buy It Now. |
| Auction starts | When bidding opens. Leave empty to start immediately. |
| Auction ends | When bidding closes and the highest bidder wins. Required. |
Both dates use your site timezone. When you save, the plugin validates the auction and shows an admin notice if something is wrong — an end date that isn’t after the start date, negative prices, or a reserve below the start price.
With Pro active, the same tab gains a Pro options section: auction type (standard or sealed), proxy bidding, increment type, anti-sniping, automatic relist, and per-auction bidder limits.
How bidding works
Bidra runs standard ascending (English) auctions:
- The first bid must be at least the start price.
- Every next bid must be at least current bid + bid increment. The bid form always shows this minimum.
- Bidders must be logged in. The product’s author can’t bid on their own auction, and the current highest bidder can’t outbid themselves unless you allow it in Settings.
- An optional site-wide Maximum bid amount catches mistyped bids (e.g. an extra zero).
Each bid is stored in its own database table and mirrored onto the product, and the product’s price is kept in sync with the current bid — so WooCommerce sorting, price filters, and price display all reflect the live auction.
Reserve price
A reserve protects you from selling too cheaply. Bidders see “Reserve not met” or “Reserve met”, never the amount. If the auction ends with the highest bid below the reserve, it closes as failed (reason: reserve not met), there’s no winner, and you get an “auction did not sell” email.
Buy It Now
Set a Buy It Now price to let a buyer skip the auction and purchase at that price. By default the option disappears as soon as the first bid is placed; to keep it available throughout, enable Buy It Now → Keep Buy It Now available after bidding has started in Settings.
A Buy It Now purchase closes the auction straight away, with the buyer as the winner. This works with both the classic checkout and the Checkout block, and with orders you create in the admin once they are paid.
How auctions start and close
A background task (bafw_check_auctions) runs every minute and:
- Starts scheduled auctions whose start time has arrived.
- Closes running auctions whose end time has passed, then resolves the outcome:
- Highest bid meets the reserve → sold; the highest bidder becomes the winner and receives the You won email with a pay link.
- No bids → failed (no bids).
- Highest bid below the reserve → failed (reserve not met).
As a safety net for hosts with unreliable WP-Cron, an auction is also checked whenever its page is viewed or its live bid data is requested — so visitors always see the correct state, even if the scheduled task is late.
Closing an auction manually
You can close an auction before its end time from the Close auction buttons in the Auction tab, or from the auction’s row actions in the Products list:
- End auction now closes bidding immediately and resolves it as above: the highest bidder wins if the reserve is met.
- Mark as sold closes the auction as sold outside the store, for example when you sold the item in person. It is recorded as sold and paid, no winner or order is attached, and the item goes out of stock. It is also available for auctions that ended without selling.
Stock status
Auctions are single lots, so stock quantities are not tracked. When an auction is paid for, or marked as sold, its stock status changes to Out of stock. If the order is cancelled or refunded it goes back in stock so the winner can pay again, and reopening an auction puts it back in stock.
Reopening an auction
To run a finished auction again, edit it, set a new Auction ends date in the future, and update. The auction reopens, goes back in stock, and accepts bids again. (Pro can relist failed auctions automatically.)
Winners and payment
- Once an auction closes, only the winner can add it to the cart and check out. Everyone else sees it as unavailable.
- The winner pays from the email link, from the auction page, or from My Account → Auctions → Won (a Pay now button).
- The auction is linked to its order at checkout and marked paid when the order reaches Processing or Completed. If the order is cancelled or refunded, the auction is released so the winner can pay again.
Pro adds a payment deadline, payment reminders, and second-chance offers to the next highest bidder.
Managing auctions in the admin
WooCommerce → Auctions → Bids
Every bid ever placed, in a searchable, sortable table — auction, bidder, amount, and date. Delete bids one at a time or in bulk; the auction is recalculated from the bids that remain (current bid, leader, and bid count all update). Use this to remove fraudulent or mistaken bids.
WooCommerce → Auctions → Winners
Closed auctions with their winner, winning bid, linked order, and payment status — your to-do list for chasing payment and shipping.
Products screen
The Products list gains auction columns (current bid, bids, ends) and a Filter by auction status dropdown so you can quickly list running, scheduled, finished, sold, or failed auctions.
Extending and restarting an auction
Next to End auction now and Mark as sold, the Auction tab and the Products list offer:
- Extend — adds time to an auction that is still open (1 hour, 6 hours, 1 day, 3 days or 7 days in the Auction tab; “Extend 1 day” in the Products list). Bids are kept.
- Restart — runs the auction again from now, for as long as it ran before (7 days when it had no start date), without bids, winner or order. The auction starts a new listing: its earlier bids stay in WooCommerce → Auctions → Bids, marked Previous listing, and no longer count. An auction that has been paid for cannot be restarted.
Duplicating an auction
Duplicate on the Products list gives you a clean copy: the settings and the length of the auction are kept, bids, winner, order and watchers are not, and an end date in the past is moved forward.
Importing and exporting auctions (CSV)
The auction fields are part of WooCommerce’s product importer and exporter (Products → Import / Export). Set the Type column to auction and use these columns:
| Column | Example |
|---|---|
| Auction item condition | new or used |
| Auction start price | 100 |
| Auction bid increment | 5 |
| Auction reserve price | 250 |
| Auction Buy It Now price | 600 |
| Auction start date | 2026-12-01 09:00 (site timezone; empty starts immediately) |
| Auction end date | 2026-12-08 21:00 (required) |
A row without an end date, or with an end before its start, is skipped with an error in the import log. Export a few auctions first to get a ready-made file.
Dashboard widget
The Auctions widget on the WordPress dashboard shows how many auctions are live, how many end within 24 hours and how many wins are waiting for payment.
WP-CLI
wp bafw auctions list [--status=running|scheduled|finished|sold|failed] [--format=table|csv|json|ids]
wp bafw auctions close <id>...
wp bafw auctions restart <id>... [--days=<days>] [--yes]
wp bafw bids list [--auction=<id>] [--user=<id>] [--all-listings]
wp bafw bids delete <id>... [--yes]Deleting auctions
Deleting an auction product also deletes its bid rows.