For a overview of the Sealed Bid Auction Platform on Steel Spider,
Click here.
Uploading your File
After you define the basic parameters for your auction like its description and
when the bidding ends, you upload an Excel file that contains a description of your
steel. For this to work as intended we made some assumptions about the content of
your file. You might need to make minor changes to your file to reflect these assumptions.
- Your Excel file can be in a number of Excel formats (Excel 2007 .xls, Excel 2010
.xlsx, comma separated values .csv).
- Only one (the first) worksheet is read by the website. If your file contains multiple
worksheets and Steel Spider reads the wrong worksheet, delete the inapplicable worksheets
from your file and upload again.
- The top row contains the headers. This top row provides the names of the data in
each column as you want them to appear in the auction.
- Each column header must be unique - two columns can not have the same name.
- All of the information describing a steel item needs to be on a single row.
- Limit the number of steel items to 300 rows or less, preferably 100 items or less.
If you have more items split your file into multiple files and setup additional
auctions.
- Delete any rows or columns within the worksheet that you don't want to appear. Hiding
a row or column in the Excel file will not prevent Steel Spider from seeing and
reading the data. You will need to delete the row or column if you don't want it
to appear.
- Combine multiple identical items into a single item (row) to avoid a situation where
you have multiple bids on one item and few or none on another identical item.
When your file is read by Steel Spider any empty rows or columns are ignored. A
column with all zeros is ignored too. If your file has columns with names like Comments
or Remarks or chemistries (C, Mn, P, etc.) these are displayed in a separate row
under the other descriptive information about the item.
Remember to save a changed Excel file to a different filename if you want to keep
the original file.
Tailoring your Auction
There are a number of ways we can tailor your auction to make it easier for you
to setup your auction or announce the awards to the bidders. If you use location
codes, defect codes or other codes in your Excel file, we can set up the auction
process to dynamically change these codes to more appropriate text so you do not
need to change these codes in the your file before you upload. Email us a table
that shows the code and the text it should be replaced with before you want to set
up your auction. We will set this up so that it can apply to all your auctions.
We can also tailor the emails that are sent at the conclusion of the auction to
use a HTML template tailored to your needs instead of the default template.
Trial or Practice Auction by a Seller
To allow you to test the Sealed Bid Auction Platform to know what to expect, you
can go through the entire process in a matter of minutes by running a practice auction.
After you have setup a auction and started it, return to this Auction Setup page.
You will see a list of your active auctions. Select the one you just created and
started. It will have a Status of "Bidding Started". On the next page if buyers
had bid you would see a list of the contact information of all this who have made
a bid. Since you just started your auction there should be no bidders. There is
a button that simulates bidding - "Add Bids by Fake Bidders". Pressing the button
will cause a number of fake bidders to bid randomly on the items in your auction.
When this bidding is complete this page will show the contact information for these
fake bidders just like it would appear if they had been actual bidders. You can
download the contact information of the bidders into an Excel file. Anytime while
the bidding continues you can come to the setup page and see who has bid.
Since this is now a practice auction you can end the Bidding Period to see how the
results are provided. Next press the "Force the Bidding Period to End" button. You
will see your auction has a Status of "Completed". Selecting his auction again will
show the results of the bidding. You will see a table of the items at auctions and
a drop down box of the bidders and their bids. You can select the bidder who is
awarded each item using the drop down box. You can also use the dropdownbox to select
an individual bidder. If you do not want to award to a particular bidder, he can
change these items had have them awarded to someone else.
In a live auction you could have Steel Spider send an email to each bidder letting
the bidder know what was awarded to him. For a practice auction you can see how
emails are setup but would not be able to actually send the emails. You will also
be able to download an Excel file that contains the results of the auction. Finally
you can delete his auction. This process allows a you to walk through all of the
steps involved in running a sealed bid auction on Steel Spider.
Provide information about your auction and how the bidding is to proceed. Provide
a brief description of the steel in your auction. Identify when the bidding will
end and in what units the bids should be made ($/CWT or US $). Then select your
Excel file containing a description of your steel. Finally Save the parameters and
Upload your file.
After you save the parameters and upload your file you can review how the auction
will be displayed. After reviewing the information provided you can start the bidding
period or delete the auction and start over.
Press "Toggle Help with this Page" for information about setting up your auction
file prior to uploading. This also describes how you can run a Trial or Practice
Sealed Bid Auction to simulate the bidding process and view the results that are
provided when the Bidding Period ends.