Managing Bidders – Soapbox Support Center

With the Auctions app, you can view every bidder registered for an auction, review their bidding activity and payment methods, and take action on individual bidders from the Bidders tab.

To open the Bidders tab:

Open the Auctions Manager.
Click the title of the auction you want to manage.
Click the Bidders tab.

The tab is titled with the auction's name, so you always know which auction's bidders you are looking at.

The bidders list

The list shows one row per bidder:

Bidder # — the number used on the floor and on printed materials
Name, with connection badges (see below)
Date Registered
Status — Active, Inactive, or Banned
Payment Card Status — whether a card is ready to charge for this auction (see below)
Email and Mobile Phone
Id

A bidder with no number yet shows an em dash rather than a zero.

To search by name, type in the Filter field above the list and click Go or press Enter. Click Reset to clear the search. The list updates in place, so changes you haven't saved on other tabs are kept.

Note: The search matches the name on the bidder's linked Soapbox user account. A bidder with no linked account doesn't appear in search results, so find them by sorting on Name or Bidder # instead.

Click a column heading to sort by it. Every column except Payment Card Status can be sorted; use the filter below for that one. Sorting by Name follows the name shown in each row. To see every bidder on one page, set Display # at the bottom of the list to All.

Tip: Sorting and moving between pages reload the auction, so save any changes on other tabs first.

Payment card status

Each bidder shows one of three statuses. Each one tells you which card a batch charge from the Checkouts tab will use:

Auction Default Set (green) — a card is set as the bidder's card for this auction, and it is valid. A batch charge uses that card.
User Default Set (orange) — no card is set for this auction, and the bidder's account default card is valid. A batch charge uses the account default card.
Card Needed (red) — a batch charge has no valid card to use. This covers a bidder with no linked Soapbox user account, a bidder whose card for this auction is no longer valid or has been removed, and a bidder with no card set for this auction and no valid account default card.

A card is valid when it hasn't passed the end of its expiry month, was saved through Stripe, and was saved with everything Stripe needs to charge it.

A batch charge never falls back to another card. If the card set for this auction has expired, the bidder shows Card Needed even when their account default card is fine. To fix it, open the bidder and click Set Auction Default next to a card that isn't marked Expired. For every status and how to fix Card Needed, see Understanding a bidder's Payment Card Status.

Filtering by payment card status

Click the filter button (Show filters) at the right end of the toolbar.
Under Payment Card Status, choose Ready or Not Ready. Ready lists Auction Default Set and User Default Set bidders. Not Ready lists Card Needed bidders.
Click Save.

The list updates in place. To show everyone again, choose All Bidders and click Save. Cancel closes the panel without changing the list.

Before your event, filter to Not Ready to see who still needs a card.

Connection badges

Each bidder's name carries a badge for every identity it is currently connected to:

Attendee — the bidder came from, or has been linked to, an event attendee
User — the bidder is linked to a Soapbox user account. Click the open icon next to the badge to open that account.

A bidder can show both badges, one, or neither. The badges reflect connections as they are now, and they update as you link and unlink.

The lock icon

A padlock next to a bidder's number means that bidder has activity — bids, wins, or paddle raise commitments — so their number is protected from bulk renumbering. See Managing bidder numbers.

Viewing a bidder's details

Click a bidder's name to open the detail panel, which shows:

The bidder's name, number, status, and payment card status
Phone Number, with a Verified indicator when confirmed
Shipping Address
Payment Methods
User Account — the linked account. Click View User to open it. The button is hidden for bidders with no linked account.
Items Bid On, Bid History, and Favorites

Click Close to dismiss the panel.

The Edit bidder form also shows the bidder's Origin, which is how the record was first created, for example Admin — from event attendee or Self-registered online. Origin is recorded once and never changes, even if you later link or unlink accounts. To open the form, select the bidder's checkbox and click Edit in the toolbar.

Editing a bidder's contact details

You can correct a bidder's details on their behalf. This is useful when a bidder gives the wrong number at a registration desk.

Click the bidder's name to open the detail panel.
Next to Phone Number or Shipping Address, click Edit.
Update the details.
Click Save.

For a bidder linked to a Soapbox user account, name and email are managed by that account and are not editable here.

For a bidder with no linked user account, the panel can't change the shipping address. Saving shows This bidder has no linked user account. To change it, select the bidder's checkbox, click Edit in the toolbar, update the Shipping Address section of the Edit bidder form, and click Save changes.

Payment methods

The detail panel lists the bidder's saved cards. Each card can carry these tags:

Auction Default — the card set for this auction
account default — the default card on the bidder's user account
Expired — the card is past its expiry month

Which card is charged depends on how you charge:

A batch charge (Charge cards on file… on the Checkouts tab) charges the Auction Default card. If no card is set for this auction, it charges the account default card. It never uses any other card.
A single charge (Saved card on the bidder's checkout) lets you choose any of the bidder's saved cards that hasn't expired.

To choose the card a batch charge uses, click Set Auction Default next to it. The bidder's payment card status updates straight away.

To add a card, click Add under Payment Methods, then choose one of these:

Use Terminal Reader: the bidder taps their card on a Stripe Terminal reader. If one reader is online for your Stripe account, it is used straight away. If several are online, you choose one, and that choice is remembered until you close that browser tab. If none is online, you'll see No terminal reader is online for this account. Switch a reader on, check it is connected, then try again.
Enter Card Manually: type the card details, then click Save Payment Method.

Important: A bidder must be connected to a Soapbox user account before a payment method can be added. For a bidder with no linked account, the panel shows A bidder must be connected to a user before a payment method can be added. instead of offering the button. A phone number is also required: until one is added, the Add button is unavailable. See Linking and unlinking user accounts.

Saved payment methods are available only on sites that take payments through Stripe.

Bidder actions

Select one or more bidders using the checkboxes, then click one of the following in the toolbar:

Anonymize — hides the bidder's identifying details in the administrator
Reveal — restores details that were previously anonymized
Ban: blocks the bidder from bidding in this auction and cancels all of their bids. Any item they were winning passes to the next-highest bidder, who is then billed for it at checkout.
Unban — restores a banned bidder's ability to bid
Edit Bidder ID — assigns a different bidder number
Swap Numbers — exchanges the numbers of exactly two selected bidders
Merge Bidders — combines two records for the same person (Temporarily unavailable. See Merging duplicate bidders.)
Manage Numbers — opens the bulk number tool for the whole auction

Important: You can't ban a bidder who has paid anything in this auction. The ban is refused with This bidder has payments in this auction. Refund them before banning the bidder. Refund their payments from the Checkouts tab first. If you select several bidders and any one of them has payments, no one is banned, and the message lists the bidders you need to refund.

Adding, numbering, merging and account linking each have their own article:

Adding a bidder to an auction — the three ways to create one
Managing bidder numbers — bulk assignment, renumbering, and reserved ranges
Merging duplicate bidders
Exporting the bidder roster
Linking and unlinking user accounts

Note: Bidders can also be registered from the auction floor on a staff device using Soapbox Engage Onsite — including assigning a bidder number, saving a card, and setting which saved card is the auction default. Bidders created that way are ordinary bidder records and appear in this list. See Registering and managing bidders from the floor.

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