Auctions are a great way to generate revenue for your club. Unfortunately, auctions are a lot of work. The Greater Chicago Cichlid Association—my home club—hosts three auctions a year. Sometime, they run to 1AM!
Certainly, auctions are a big toll on the people who run them.
Most clubs use an Auction Database program to track item sales and match them to buyers and sellers. Sellers are given seller numbers. Buyers, receive buyer numbers. Some clubs use numbers for both, others will have letters assigned.
I’m curious—what does your auction system do for your club?
My club (Greater Chicago Cichlid Association) uses a system based on Microsoft Access. It’s pretty simple and works for us, but we are looking at ways to improve it.
We recently began using an online Auction Registration System. This allows both sellers and buyers to pre-register for one of our auctions online. No more late night calls to the auction chairman asking for a seller number. The night before the auction, we download the registration file as a CSV (comma separated value) file and import it into Microsoft Excel. From there, it is easy to bring into Access and use as the look-up table.
You can check out the system— when an auction is running— at http://www.gcca.net
I see a few problems with our current process.