ActusBid: An Online Auction Portal Connecting Collectors and Auction Houses
ActusBid was an Istanbul-based portal, founded by collectors, that brought auctions from many auction houses into one place. We built the platform on Laravel. Collectors use it to search, bid and get alerts. Auction houses get a panel to upload catalogues and manage bids. We also made the brand and launch material.
- Project
- Online auction marketplace
- Our role
- Web app (Laravel)
- Platform
- Laravel
- Country
- Türkiye
- Year
- 2020
The challenge
Auctions scattered across houses
Collectors of coins, stamps, ephemera, antiques and art had to follow many auction houses one by one. ActusBid's founders, collectors themselves, wanted one portal where a single registration gives access to auctions across categories and countries.
Two sides with different jobs
Collectors needed to find items, bid and be told when something they want appears. Auction houses needed a simple way to publish an online catalogue, collect bids and report results, without changing how they already prepare their catalogues.
Our approach
Collector side: search, bid, alert
Collectors browse five categories (Numismatics, Ephemera, Antiques, Art, Philately). They place a reserve bid on a lot (an item for sale) and confirm a basket that can cover several auctions. They hear back once the auction house accepts or declines the bid. Keyword alerts with AND/OR rules email them when matching lots are added. An archive shows what past lots sold for.
Auction house panel built around Excel
Auction houses download an Excel template for each category and upload their lots and images. They preview and edit the auction until ActusBid approves it. It then goes live at the date and time they set. The panel lists their auctions, incoming and settled bids, statistics and notifications. At the end, the house uploads the final results as an Excel file for the archive.
Brand and onboarding material
We designed the ActusBid logo set, social media posts, brochures for collectors and for auction houses, and an illustrated user guide that walks an auction house through every screen of the panel.
Screens
Inside ActusBid
How we delivered
From first brief to running in production
-
01
DesignTwo-sided flows
Mapped the bidding flow for collectors and the publishing flow for auction houses.
CollectorsAuction housesWireframes -
02
Bidding & alerts
DevelopmentBuilt reserve bidding across auctions, bid acceptance and AND/OR keyword alerts by email.
Reserve bidsBasketKeyword alerts -
03
Auction house panel
DevelopmentBuilt catalogue upload from Excel templates, preview and approval, bid handling and results import.
Excel importApprovalStatistics -
04
Brand & onboarding
LaunchDesigned the logo, launch posts, brochures and an illustrated panel guide for auction houses.
LogoBrochuresUser guide
Results
What is running today
One portal for many auction houses
Collectors could follow auctions from different houses with one account, bid across them in a single basket and rely on alerts instead of checking catalogues by hand.
Low effort for auction houses
Because catalogues and results moved through Excel files the houses already used, they could publish an auction and report its results without retyping their catalogue.
More work
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Syntask
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Senfoni Koçluk
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