7 Best Auction Plugins for WordPress (2024)

Are you looking for the best auction plugins for WordPress?

An auction plugin allows you to run online auctions on your website and create an eBay-like store using WordPress. That way, you can maximize profits and allow the sale to go to the highest bidder. This is especially useful when selling products with high perceived value or collectible items.

In this article, we’ll show you our top pick of the best auction plugins for WordPress.

Before You Get Started

WordPress has many different auction plugins available. Some are available as standalone WordPress plugins, whereas others are available as WooCommerce extensions.

Depending on the option you choose, your setup will be different.

For example, a WooCommerce plugin will require you to set up an online store. You’ll need a WooCommerce hosting provider like SiteGround.

Whereas for other plugins, you can simply create a WordPress website and install it as you would do for any other plugin.

If you’re expecting a lot of bidding in your auctions, then you may want to consider your website speed and performance issues by using a managed WordPress hosting provider. This ensures that your website does not go down during critical auction times.

With that said, let’s take a look at the best WordPress auction plugins that you can use.

1. YITH WooCommerce Auctions

YITH WooCommerce Auctions is the complete auction plugin for WooCommerce and allows you to build an eBay-like website in minutes.

It is super easy to use, and you can easily add any type of products that you want to auction. You can set up a minimum bid amount, minimum bid increment, reserve price, buy-it-now price, and more.

You can also choose to set a schedule for an auction, extend an auction, add a grace period, and have full control over the process.

It runs on top of WooCommerce, so you can easily set it up by setting up an online store first. After that, you can install the plugin and then add auction products like you would any other WooCommerce product. This also makes it easier for you to accept payments and use all the powerful eCommerce features of WooCommerce.

The plugin can also be converted into a multi-vendor marketplace, which would allow other sellers to list their own products for auction on your site. Allowing you to make additional money by providing a platform to third-party sellers.

Pros:

• YITH WooCommerce Auctions is great for building an eBay-style online store.
• It offers unique features like the ability to include additional product details in listings.
• You can hide the highest bidder’s identity until the auction ends.

Cons:

• Some people may not want to pay $150 per year for the software.

Why We Recommend Using YITH WooCommerce Auctions: We like YITH WooCommerce Auctions because it’s made by trustworthy developers who’ve developed other high-quality apps such as the YITH Multi-Currency Switcher and YITH Point of Sale. It also has a comprehensive feature set to turn your listings into an eBay-style auction.

For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to build an auction site in WordPress.

2. WC Vendors

WC Vendors is the best WooCommerce multi-vendor plugin on the market. You can use it to build an auction marketplace easily like eBay, which allows other sellers to auction their own products while you earn a commission.

With its WooCommerce Simple Auctions addon, vendors can manage auction products right from their dashboard. They can set the auction start and end times, start price, price increment, reserve price, and buy-it-now price.

There are also multiple auction types to choose from, including normal, reverse, and sealed (silent) auctions and proxy / auto-bidding.

WC Vendors comes with powerful features like flexible commission structures, automated taxes, vendor coupons, Stripe Connect gateway, and more.

Aside from creating auction sites, you can also use WC Vendors to create digital marketplaces like Shutterstock, subscription marketplaces like Cratejoy, and any other type of multi-vendor marketplace.

Pros:

• You get all the features you need to successfully create auction listings.
• They offer coupon and shipping management.
• You have plenty of other addons besides auctions, like subscription products.

Cons:

• It can be an expensive option, especially if you only want to use it for auctions.

Why We Recommend Using WC Vendors: We like using WC Vendors because it has everything you need to convert your e-commerce store into a marketplace for selling third-party products online. You can set the auction start and drop date, along with auto-bidding, making it easy to manage.

3. WP Auctions

WP Auctions is another easy solution to run auctions on your WordPress website. It allows you to easily add auctions to your site, set a starting price and date, and wait for bids to come in.

After that, you can send the winning bid to a page where they can pay via PayPal. Alternatively, you can accept payments manually or via wire transfer by emailing the user.

You can add the auction to a post, page, or sidebar widget on your website. You can also manually add it to your custom WordPress theme by adding a template tag.

The downside is that there are limited payment options, and it lacks many of the features you would get with some other plugins on the list. However, it is an excellent option if you don’t want to install an eCommerce plugin.

Pros:

• The plugin is free to use.
• It allows you to display the auction feed page in your pages and posts with the built-in widget.
• You get a responsive layout for embedded auctions that fits on all screen sizes.

Cons:

• There are limited payment gateways.

Why We Recommend Using WP Auctions: We believe that WP Auctions is a great choice for auctioneers looking to manage periodic and simultaneous auctions. You can create unlimited quick, reverse, and proxy auctions with this plugin.

4. Ultimate WordPress Auction

Ultimate Auction Pro is another good way to add auctions to your WordPress website or WooCommerce store.

It allows you to add auction products, set bidding time, and manage your auctions using a simple dashboard. The free version allows you to accept payments via PayPal. The pro version allows you to accept payments via Stripe, too.

Using it on WooCommerce also allows you to use a multi-vendor plugin. This enables other sellers to auction their own products on your platform.

Pros:

• They offer various auction formats like buy it now and reverse price.
• Unlike competitors, this plugin features a built-in Twilio to send SMS notifications.
• You can automatically relist unsold auctions.

Cons:

• You need a pro license to access advanced features.

Why We Recommend Using Ultimate Auction Pro: The Ultimate Auction Pro plugin gives you just everything you need to run an auction on your site. You get plenty of features, and it even lets you send SMS messages to remind bidders so they can continue bidding and raise the final price.

5. WP eBay Products Feed

WP eBay Products Feed allows you to fetch and display your eBay auctions on your WordPress website. This is particularly useful for sellers that are already selling on eBay.

It also helps if you want to show your existing users that you are a reputable seller and have been an active seller.

The plugin is quite easy to use. Simply add the eBay ID and use a third-party service to convert it into a usable RSS feed. After that, you can set how you want products to be displayed in your feeds.

The plugin allows you to use your own Affiliate ID with eBay links. It also supports the block content editor, and you can display the auction feed anywhere on your website.

It can be used with other auction plugins for WordPress and WooCommerce or as a standalone solution to simply send users to make the bid on your eBay profile.

Pros:

• You can easily showcase all of your auctions on your site.
• It integrates with eBay.
• You decide how many eBay items to show.

Cons:

• It’s a relatively simple app without many advanced features.

Why We Recommend Using WP eBay Products Feed: WP eBay Products Feed is arguably the best free option available, especially for those who don’t plan on running auctions very often. That’s because it allows you to embed your eBay store products on your blog or website, even if you don’t have a WooCommerce store.

6. Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce

Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce is a WordPress auction plugin made specifically for WooCommerce stores.

The plugin supports normal, reverse auctions, sealed auctions, proxy auctions, and more. It allows customers to log in and view their own auction dashboard. Once they have won an auction, they will see a link to make the payment to complete the purchase.

Adding products to the auction works like any other product you add in WooCommerce. After you set up the product to be an auction product, you’ll see the options to set up the schedule, starting bid, and other settings.

It beautifully displays your auction products with a countdown timer to trigger the FOMO effect on the product page.

Being an extension of WooCommerce, it allows you to use multiple payment gateways and extend your site functionality using popular WooCommerce plugins and tools.

Pros:

• All auction tools are easy to use for users and online store owners.
• You can enforce bidder restrictions like bidder registration, charge penalties for late payments, etc.
• They offer many auction types, such as sealed, proxy, and reverse auctions.

Cons:

• The $79 per year price tag can be pricey if you don’t hold many auctions.

Why We Recommend Using Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce: We like how Auctions Made Easy for WooCommerce has a countdown timer to really drive a higher price. The FOMO effect ensures that all bidders are actively participating and won’t forget to submit their bid for the product.

7. WP-Lister Lite for eBay

WP-Lister Lite for eBay is a WooCommerce plugin that allows you to easily add your WooCommerce products to your eBay store.

You can easily list products on your online store and your eBay store at the same time. It does not allow you to run an auction on your WooCommerce store.

However, you can use a different WooCommerce auction plugin or run the auction on eBay using the same product data without having to enter it again.

The plugin is a bit complicated to get used to as you need to set it up to work with an API. However, once it is set up, the whole process runs quite smoothly.

Pros:

• You can easily integrate your WooCommerce and eBay store.
• The auction also allows you to handle post-sales activities like shipping labels and invoicing.
• They let you upload multiple product images, inventory sync and split variations in the pro version to maximize revenue.

Cons:

• The pro version is quite expensive at $49 per month.

Why We Recommend Using WP-Lister Lite for eBay: If you want to maximize your sales, WP-Lister could be a great option. It has bonus features like templates, inventory sync, and split-testing to help your auctions succeed.

Bonus: Auction Nudge

Auction Nudge allows you to bring your eBay profile to your WordPress website or WooCommerce store.

It is particularly useful when you want to show that you are a well-reputed seller or just want to promote your eBay auctions. The plugin does a good job of bringing content from your eBay account to WordPress.

It is quite simple to use and comes with flexible options to display your eBay products, profile information, and most recent feedback.

You can use it alongside any WordPress auction plugin on the list and allow users to see your past activity on the platform.

Pros:

• Auction Nudge is free to use.
• If you already have an eBay store, you can easily connect it to your WooCommerce store.
• Visitors can use the filter function to find the specific products they’re looking for.

Cons:

• It doesn’t work if you don’t have an eBay account.

Why We Recommend Using Auction Nudge: We like Auction Nudge because they’re great for existing eBay users who also want to provide the same auction functionality on their separate online store.

We hope this article helped you find the best auction plugins for WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on the best email marketing services to improve your auction bids and the best live chat software to answer questions during live auctions.

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