How to run an auction on Shopify (step by step)

Shopify does not have a native auction format. Every product on a Shopify store has a fixed price, and there's no built-in way to accept bids. That's why merchants who sell collectibles, art, one-of-a-kind items, or limited drops use an auction app. This guide covers the whole process end to end, using Auction Now as the example, with notes on what's universal and what's specific to the app.

Before you start: what you need

• A Shopify store on any plan (Basic and up all work).
• Customer accounts enabled in Shopify admin (Settings → Customer accounts). Bidders sign in with their customer account, which is what stops anonymous or fake bids.
• A product you're willing to sell at whatever the final bid is. Auction Now doesn't currently support reserve prices, so your starting bid is your floor.
• About 15 minutes for setup the first time. Repeat auctions take under a minute.

Step 1: Install an auction app

Install Auction Now from the Shopify App Store. It's free to install and there's no monthly plan; you pay a 5% success fee only when an auction sells and the winner pays. Installing takes a couple of clicks and the app opens inside your Shopify admin.

During onboarding the app adds its bidding widget to your product page as a theme app extension. It works out of the box with Dawn and the other Shopify-built themes plus most popular paid themes. If your theme isn't on the list, support can usually enable it within a day.

Step 2: Create your first auction

1. Open Auction Now in your admin and click Create auction.
2. Pick the product (and variant, if it has them). A product can only be in one live auction at a time.
3. Set the starting bid. This is the minimum the item will sell for, so pick a number you'd be happy with. Low starting bids drive more bidding activity; high starting bids protect the floor. See How to price an auction for the tradeoff.
4. Set the start time (now, or scheduled) and the end time. Most merchants run 3–7 days. See How long should an auction run?.
5. Launch. The product page now shows the bidding widget with a countdown, the current bid, and a slide-to-bid control.

Step 3: Promote the auction

Auction Now tags each auctioned product with an Auction tag and creates a smart collection called Auctions, so you get a live auctions page for free. Link it from your navigation. Then tell people: email your list, post on social, and mention the end time everywhere. Urgency is the whole point of an auction, so the countdown does the selling once people are on the page.

Step 4: Let bidders bid

Bidders sign in to their customer account on your store and slide to bid. Each bid is placed at the next increment above the current bid (for example, $1 increments under $30, $5 increments between $100 and $299). They can also set a max bid, and the app bids on their behalf up to that amount — this is proxy bidding. Other bidders see the current high bid and a masked bidder name like *Chr****.

Everyone who bids or watches gets branded emails from your store: outbid alerts, ending-soon reminders at one hour and twenty minutes, and a daily summary when there's activity. You get an email on every new bid.

Step 5: Soft close stops sniping

If a bid comes in during the last five minutes, Auction Now extends the auction by 30 seconds. That repeats as long as bids keep coming. It's called soft close (or popcorn bidding), and it prevents the eBay-style problem where someone snipes in the final second and nobody else can respond. Auctions end when 30 seconds pass with no new bid.

Step 6: The winner pays through Shopify

When the auction ends with a bid, the app creates a Shopify draft order for the winning amount and emails the winner a checkout link. They pay through your normal checkout with whatever payment methods you already accept. You get a standard Shopify order, fulfil it like any other, and Shopify handles taxes and payment processing.

If the winner doesn't pay within the payment window you set (24 hours by default), the app can offer the item to the next-highest bidder automatically. If a bidder wins several auctions, combined shipping rolls them into a single order so they pay shipping once.

Step 7: Relist or move on

Ended auctions can be relisted in one click with a new end time. Ended auctions can also be auto-archived so your Auctions collection only ever shows what's live.

What it costs

Auction Now charges 5% of the final bid, billed as a Shopify usage charge only when the draft order is paid. No fee on unpaid or unsold auctions, no fee on shipping or tax, no monthly subscription. Shopify's own payment processing fees apply as they do to any order. See Pricing for a worked comparison against subscription apps.