Well Marestrosoft has a consignement also but a word to the wise DON'T do it! You have to do all of the work and you only get to keep anything over the amount you argree to sell the item for, great if it is a few thousand, sucks if it is a few dollars and you did all of the work!

As I said, be creative, lots of little stuff put together can make some great fun things, ie, an pj party in the library with a special teacher, pizza and ice cream scarry stories and a movie...cheep and very doable. Manacures, a limo ride and a pizza/icecream stand makes a fun "girls just want to have fun" 3 separate items packaged together, which is easy to do in mestroweb, with web links to donors etc....

Cmarket is can be sneaky about their fees, the more you make the more you pay and then with consignement you pay the full value of the win even though you have abuy back. Also they don't keep track of other monies, etc. Mastroweb allows all of your data to go into the web and then download into a program where you have a full accounting of your information. With Cmarket you have to keep track in a separate place and then figure out how you will keep track of the other things you want to sell.
also keep in mind that even the low end items take just as much work to sell as the "good" items.

As for your thoughs on an auctioneer, he may find it fun to come back and be part of school he cares about!

-DC

Really? Cmarket takes 10%? I have info coming from them, guess I'll have to look at it closely. What I really liked about them was the items you could list on a consignment status, so I wouldn't have to drum up so many of the really "good" items; soliciting lower end items is no problem.
We do a Penny Social at the elementary school and the auction idea has grown out of that, either as a complementary function or as a separate deal altogether.
I like your ideas about the firehouse & etc., we have one close to our school that I'll have to ask.
I have looked at other schools' auctions, but we are in a lower socio-economic group and I doubt any of our parents have a vacation cottage to donate a week in (although one of our staff does; hmmm...).
Good point about not ending the online auctions with a live auction, maybe we could list some items that are live only but available for viewing on the auction website. Our vice principal is an excellent emcee, I'm just afraid he'll be moving into his own school next year since he's been with us for quite awhile now. I guess I should just ask him instead of worying about it all summer, lol.

It really is 2 different things. an online auction and a live auction night of and most places will also run a silent auction. Silent and online are similar in "stuff" quality and a live auction is for the "special" high value items (good sports tikets, great vacations, principal for the day etc)

i use a program called MaestrSoft/ MaestroWeb this program can do all of the stucc Cmarket can't like keeping track of all of your donations/descriptions/cash donations/rsvp's, live silent and online auctions and then downloads into the software program which you use to print all of the gift certificates and bid sheeta log with donation thank you letters.

When you have an online auction it really is best to finish it online. The acception is items that do not end up having a bid on them can be moved to the silent auction for night of the event. if you start items online and move them inside you agravate buyers. People who can't cone don't bid because they can't be there to finish and night of bidders get annyed because the starting bid is too hight to "get the party Started"
no more than 20 items for your live auction 15 is really the ideal number, you won't loose people, keep the items general, it is a bad place for class gifts, there are not enough people iterested in any one item to keep the bidding going.

The key to any auction, online, silent, live is to be creative. don't just hit up local businesses for GC, find crafts, palnts, vacation homes, tickets to events, catered parties etc. look at other auctions online and look to see what other schools like you are finding. ie if you are and enlementary school a trip to the fire department birthday party with a cake thrown in can be a lot of fun. ice time can be a great idea for a party, local hotels will donate an hour of pool time, pair it with pizza and grea get together....

As far as an auctioneer, it depends, sometimes a funny teacher/parent at school can do as good a job and will donate their time. Sometimes a local personality, tv or radio can be fune, but you will pay unless they are a member of your school.

Getting started over the summer is a good idea, get the paliminary done of picking a program that will suit your needs as a school, there are some good programs out there, take the time to evaluate where your money is best spent. Cmarket for example says they are free, yet on closer look on a sliding scale they take 10% of the money yu bring in. think about what you want to sell and how you are going to go about getting it.

good luck!
-DC

Those of you that have ended an online auction with a live auction, can you tell me how that works? Do you need to find your own auctioneer, or if you use one of these auction sites (like cmarket that advertises here) do they put you in touch with one or what? How many of your items do you use in the live auction? All that haven't sold, every item in the auction, do you earmark certain ones?
Is it really worth the effort? Would it be beneficial to do the live auction part in conjunction with a dinner or event?

I'm liking the auction idea more and more and have requested information on it, but I'm floating the idea to 2 different schools and these are questions I currently have no answers to; if I can convince one or both schools that it's a good idea I can get started over the summer.

Thanks in advance!