Bidding for event vendor pitches and concessions online

Enabling vendors to bid for pitches, stalls or concession services could increase your event revenue compared to selling the same opportunities at fixed prices. Coconut Tickets supports online auctions for vendor bidding.

If you are not yet convinced, read more about the benefits in this article: 12 Benefits of selling vendor pitches and concessions online

Setting up bidding for vendor event pitches and concessions

Start by creating a new event, when asked what type of event select the "vendor event opportunity" option.

Vendor pitches can be sold for fixed prices or through bidding in an auction. More than one type of vendor pitch supports price bidding. For this example we will use an Area Based Pitch which is sold by area size (width and depth).

When you create a new event and are asked to choose the vendor opportunity, choose the area based pitch.

Whether the prices are fixed or bids and when payment is taken is described as being the payment workflow. For some pitch types you will be given a choice of workflow, for an Area Based Pitch the options are fixed as per the screenshot below.

If you haven't done so already then you will be asked to choose your measurement units (metres or feet) and currency. These are used throughout the pitch definition. Each area pitch will be defined in terms of units wide (frontage) by units depth.

Vendors will only be able to choose a pitch area that is within the minimum and maximum amounts you define and in increments set by the "base step size". For example, if your pitches will be sold by the meter and your smallest pitch is 3 meters frontage (wide) and minimum depth is 1 meter then the minimum frontage will be 3 meters by 1 meter.

The base step size defines how the next size of pitch will be calculated. So if minimum frontage is 3 meters and the base step size is 2 meters then the frontage of the pitches will be: 3 meters, 5 meters, 7 meters etc until the maximum frontage amount is reached.

You have the option of defining the minimum amount that a bid must be. The minimum is defined in terms of area. For example you might not want to offer pitches for less than £100 / square meter.

Having defined the Area Bid Pitch you can then complete the pitch sales definition by defining the electrical power options, any additional products the vendor can choose (e.g. rental of tables or chairs) the booking order form and the terms & conditions as is common to all pitch types in Coconut Tickets.

Once the event is complete, put it on sale and publish your event links.

When a vendor sees your marketing then he can click on the pitch sales link and he will be presented with the sales landing page that you defined earlier. Then he can enter a bid for a pitch.

The vendor would select the pitch area they want and then enter the amount they wish to bid to obtain that pitch. Then they would complete the online booking form and on submission receive a confirmation of their pitch request, an example of which can be seen below.

As the event manager you can then review all the pitch bids that have been received. Select manage bids from the main menu. An example of the manage bids page can be seen here.

Each bid can be looked at in detail and when you want to accept bids you can change the order status to "Qualified" at which point Coconut Tickets will send an invitation email to each vendor to pay for their pitches.

When the vendor clicks on the payment link within the received email he will automatically be taken back into Coconut Tickets to complete the payment process. First he will see the review page, an example of which is shown here.

As per all online ticket purchases in Coconut Tickets, the buyer can now enter a coupon (if he has one) and agree to the terms and conditions before making the payment. As soon as the vendor makes a payment you will receive the funds directly in your PayPal (or Stripe) account.

When the payment is complete the vendor will receive an email with the PDF e-ticket for the pitch. The ticket has a QR code for identification. On the day of the event you can use the Coconut Tickets scanning app to read the QR code and know instantly whether the trader has a valid pitch authorization.

Summary process for area pitch bidding

1. Start creating a new event
2. Select "Vendor event opportunity"
3. Select "Area Based Pitch"
4. Ensure the payment workflow is set for an auction with price bidding
5. Define the area pitch layout options
6. Complete the event
7. Put the event on sale
8. Publish your event links
9. Accept or decline bids
10. Receive payment from accepted vendors

For more information on defining pitches in general see Selling vendor pitches online with Coconut Tickets

For specific information on vendor order forms see Collecting vendor documentation with Coconut Tickets booking form