· No account needed to browse auctions.
· Account needed to bid or create an auction.
· However, anyone can surf through all the auctions but once they try to participate they will be asked to register.
· Registration – need name, address, phone, and email. Buyer registration is seller registration plus financial information. Needs to agree to some type of “terms”.
· No-sale fee is $10 – so credit card info is required.
· Taking 1% of profit after sale.
· No posting fee.
· When auction ends the buyer is required to provide 10% to the site within 72 hours. The 1% will be taken and the rest of the money will be given to the seller. After this point the buyer and seller will be connected so they can figure out the rest of the transaction.
· Accept Authorize.net. Check into wire transfers or other payment methods. Don’t allow for checks. Client is interested in accepting any and all payment methods – he would even be open to having a call center.
· Client also wants to accept checks and money orders.
· Client wants to accept e-checks (not sure what this is)
· Client does NOT want to use PayPal.
· If the buyer does not pay within 72 hours there will be a fee accessed. This could require the buyer to provide a credit card.
· Rating system – both for buyer and seller with comments.
· All time for the site is on Pacific Time.
· All bids are on a CWT rate. $150.25/ cwt = $1.5025/lb.
· Allow for max bids on auctions.
· Search option that will have an advanced filter to search for auctions
· Option for seller to indicate if the cattle is “bred” – text box that they can write.
o Need to identify all fields the seller will need to fill out for auction.
Weekly auctions
This is a weekly auction in which the inventory is cleared every week. Think of ebay, except all the auctions end Monday at 5pm PST. Sellers can post their cattle including videos, pictures and other information.
Sellers can post cattle for sale any time from Monday 12pm until the next Monday 12pm. Once 12pm hits, their cattle are automatically posted to next Monday’s sale that ends at 5pm.
Once the auction ends the buyer is to pay 10% of total bid. An example would be the final bid price is $100.00/ cwt for 100 head that weigh 500lbs = $50,000 total sale price. The buyer needs to send us $5,000 via Credit card/paypal/wire transfer/ any other way you have that might make it easier. Our fee to the seller is 1%, so our fee will be $500. After 72 we release the remaining funds to the seller.
The buyer and/or representative of buyer would fulfill the contract of taking possession and paying the remaining balance of the cattle on shipping day.
“Subject To” – buyer protection. Allows the buyer to go check out what the seller is selling. Buyer has the right to bid subject to: meaning he will bid on these cattle subject to visual inspection or whatever they have in mind. The seller must approve to accept the bids from that bidder with the subject to clause. Buyer has 72 hours to send deposit if they don’t there will be a $100 Dollar fee which would be an automatic fee that they sign in our terms and agreement. The seller has the right to No-Sale the cattle they must do it within 72 hours. There will be a $10 no-sale fee which they will have to have a credit card on file when they post the auction. Typically none of these situations will happen, however we have to be ready to handle them.
Profiles
All users have a profile sheet with information about auctions their watching, dues owed, bank info, and also after an auction the buyer and seller can comment on the experience with each other and I would like a ranking system similar to ebay. Email notification preferences, etc.
Market Report
Page that shows the previous sales from the website. We need a page off of the home page that will show past sales including links to USDA agricultural market reports. Client will provide links.
Tutorial
We also need a page off of home where I can post tutorial videos for site navigation.
Buyers can have a wish list in which they can be automatically alerted to auctions that meet their search criteria.
Buyers also need to be able to ask questions about the auction. During the auction – feedback can be sent back and forth thru the website.
Seller when they post will be asked these questions in no particular order.
These options will be blank boxes for the seller to type in the information
1. # of head
2. Location
3. average weight
4. Breed
5. Feed
6. Weighing condition
7. Comments
8. Vaccinations
These options can have drop down menus
1. Description
a. Steer
b. Heifer
c. Bull
d. Cow
2. Shrink
a. 0%-10%
3. Frame
a. Small
b. Med
c. Large
4. Flesh
a. Light
b. Light Med
c. Med
d. Heavy Med
e. Heavy
5. Bangs
a. Yes
b. No
c. N/A
6. Estimated wt. variation
a. Even
b. Uneven
c. Very uneven
7. Implanted
a. Yes
b. No
8. Age and Source Verified
a. Yes
b. No
9. Delivery- The delivery needs to have a range. From and To Two calendars pop up for the seller to scroll to the designated month and day and choose both ends of the range
I want the home page to be a map for different zones for different auction days
Monday's sale is:
California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington
sale ends 5pm pacific
Tuesday's sale is
Montana, wyoming, ID, UT, CO, AZ, NM
sale ends at 5pm mountain time
Wednesday's sale is
ND, SD, NE, KS, MN, IA, WI, IL, MO
sale ends 5pm central time
Thursday Sale is
OK, TX, AR, TN, MS, AL
sale ends 5pm central time
Friday sale is
FL, GA, SC, NC, VA
sale ends 5pm eastern time
Saturday sale is
KY, IN, MI, OH, WV, VA, DC and MD, DE, NJ, PA, NY, VT, ME, NH, MA, RI, CT
sale ends 5pm eastern time
Sellers still can post until noon of sale day, but after noon their auction will be posted to the next weeks sale.
Questions –
1. How the bank verification process will take place. Is it done manually by application manager or have to involve some third party.
a. No bank verification is necessary. Client is going to use [login to view URL] or another payment gateway.
2. If the buyer doesn’t deposit the amount within 72 hrs, how $100 will be charged. Is this amount should be taken as security at the time of placing bid or the application manager will handle this on his end in that case a report will be given to the application manager for bad buyers.
a. When the buyer registers they will have to provide a credit card to create an account.
b. Buyer will also have a negative rating if they don’t pay.
c. If the buyer has 2 strikes without paying within 72 hours they will be kicked off.
3. If the seller wont approve any bid and the closing time of bid passed, whether the $10 will be charged from seller or not. Will the bid carry on for next week bid automatically or done explicitly.
a. Seller will be charged the $10 only if they don’t relist for the next week. If they do relist the fee does not apply.
b. There will be 6-week limit on the seller doing this.
4. The no-sale amount should be charged at the time of creation of auction or required in some letter step. Please explain in detail??
a. See answer from #3.
5. The no-sale can be done by seller within 72 hrs after the closing time of bid or 72 hrs after opening of auction.
a. Seller will need to have some type of penalty…. Client doesn’t know how to answer this question.
b. It would depend on the reason why the seller did not sell – it would be on a case-by-case basis.
c. Need the ability to charge the seller the $10 fee after the auction has ended.
6. Auction will be award automatically or done manually by the seller. If awarded automatically then what will be the selection process? If awarded manually by seller then how much grace time should be given to him after the passing of closing time of auction?
a. Seller must wait to the end of the auction to sell.
b. Winner is highest bidder and will automatically be notified via email.
7. Payment to seller by the application will be under the scope of application or not.
a. I do not understand this question.
8. What would be the feedback parameters on which the ranking of buyer or seller would be calculated?
a. Client is open to ideas on how this would work…
b. All users of the site must be able to see ratings
c. Allow for a 5 point rating scale and comments are allowed
9. Whether the buyer can change the bid amount once he entered the amount into the application.
a. Buyer can set max bid so bid will be will be incremented as new bids get submitted until the max bid is reached. The buyer will be notified when he has been outbid.
b. If the buyer makes a bid he can’t change it. Once he submits the bid… it can’t be changed.
10. The bidding type will be closed or open. For example the bidding amount placed by the buyer is visible to other buyers or not?
a. Yes, the bid can be seen by other buyers.
11. If the seller refused to approve the bid of any buyer what have to do with the security amount deposited by the buyer. Same case the bid is expected to award to only one buyer among the list of buyers who has bid on respective auction the security amount has to be refunded?
a. The seller does not pay a fee to create an auction. It’s free to them (unless they don’t sell and don’t relist)
12. If the seller will select or award bid to any buyer within 72 hrs what action system should take, either system consider is No-Sale or something else???
a. I don’t understand the question.
13. If the seller award bid to any buyer and buyer won’t make any 10% payment within 72 hrs. What action system should take?
a. The seller would not be charged a $10 fee at this time. The seller will have the option to sell to the next highest bidder OR they can opt to relist the item for next week.
14. Design and layout?
a. Brown and tan / earth tones
b. Not western looking – wood grain is ok
c. Simple is better
d. Menu across the top of the page in dark brown box