SiteMile Auction Theme Review
When run properly, an auction website can be a beneficial niche. You can create a decent platform for buyers and sellers to communicate and trade with one another. Just look at eBay for example. eBay is probably the first website that comes to your mind when talking about auction websites. Look how successful it is.
Also read: 12 Best WordPress Auction Themes & Plugins of 2021 to Create Bidding Websites
If you wish to create a similar auction website, then you can with WordPress. A good auction theme should always come with 2 different characteristics – functionality and intuitive interface. You do not want your buyers and sellers to get confused when using your website.The buyers and sellers are your main traffic. You profit off of their transactions. That is why it is of utmost importance that you create a platform that assures the best experience for both parties.
But the sad thing is there aren’t many decent WordPress auction themes. Most of the auction themes you find on the market are unattractive, unintuitive, or simply unusably broken. But fear not. I have the perfect auction theme for you.
Sitemile Auction Theme
Using WordPress has its benefits. One such benefit is the ability to create a fully functional website without having to write a single line of code. You do not need to go and study for years to create a decent website. The only struggle you’ll face when creating a website using WordPress is finding the right theme. In this case, finding a decent WordPress auction theme. Good thing there is one theme that you will absolutely love and comes with all the features and functions that you need on a good auction website.
Sitemile Auction theme is one the best auction theme there is. It is crafted with attention to detail and functionality. I’ll just go ahead and recommend you to use the Sitemile Auction theme if you are planning to profit out of the auction niche. Its interface is gorgeous and the customization is endless. Let’s talk about it in detail.
Features
Before we dive into the specifics, let’s look at some of the key features of the Sitemile Auction theme that will surely get you interested.
- Numerous auction tools, even including a reverse auction mode
- Plug and play. You do not have to tinker around with a lot of setting to get your site up and running.
- Fully responsive.
- User rating and feedback function.
- Come integrated with PayPal and Escrows for easy payment. Also, supports multiple currencies.
- Google Maps integration to track buyer’s location.
- Blogs.
- Social media integrations, and a lot more.
Settings and Features Walkthrough
The installation of the Sitemile Auction theme is as simple as installing any theme on WordPress. All you have to do is purchase the theme from their official website, install it from your WordPress dashboard, and then activate it. After you’re done with the installation and activation, you will notice 2 additional entries in your WordPress sidebar – Auction theme and Auction. The first one is where you get to customize the theme to your heart’s content. The second one is where you administer all the auctions happening on your website.
Auction Theme Configuration
Here’s how you can configure the auction theme once you’re done with the installation. To get started, simply click on the Auction Theme on the sidebar. You will find more than 20 different settings with multiple sub-settings inside them. I’ll go through each one of them to let you know what they are for. You have to configure these settings to set up your auction website just like you want it.
Site Summary
As the name suggests, this is where you get the information on how your auction website is performing. There is just one thing you see inside this setting – General Overview. Here, you will find information about the number of auctions, open auctions, closed auctions, and total users on your website.
General Options
Here, you can find 4 different settings tab – Main Settings, Filters, Facebook connect, and Twitter connect.
From the Main Settings tab, you can configure the Google Maps API key, and enable a bunch of auction-related settings like item condition, auto-renew, and multiple categories. And you don’t have to worry about getting overwhelmed with all these settings. In front of all the settings, there is a small question mark icon that displays what the settings are for. The image below shows all the settings inside the Main Settings tab.
The Filters tab is where you filter email addresses and URLs.
The last two tabs are for social connect. You need to install the Social Login plugin to access these settings.
NextBid Levels
This setting can only be used if you have enabled Enable Max Bid from the General Options. It is used to configure the increment value of the maximum bid. You can enable custom levels, set up low level, high level, and bid increase value.
Email Settings
The number of settings tab increases by a lot here. There are over 30 different tabs inside, and each of them has multiple options that you can alter. But the main idea of these settings is to configure everything related to emails, notifications, and communication with sellers. You can add custom texts to the emails that are automatically sent when users perform various actions like request withdrawal, counteroffer, item won, etc.
Pricing Settings
There are 4 different tabs inside Pricing Settings – Main Details, Listing Fees, Other Fees, Custom Commission Fees.
The Main Details tab is where you configure the currency settings for your website. You can choose the preferred currency, currency symbol, symbol position, decimals sum separator, and thousands sun separator.
The Listing Fees tab lets you allocate base fee, featured fee, and sealed bidding fee.
The Other Fees tab is where you set up the commission you receive from users’ transactions. You can configure the fee, withdraw limit, and bid fees.
The final tab i.e. Custom Commission Fees contains options that let you add custom commission amounts.
Custom Pricing
This setting allows you to configure the fee to charge your users for posting or bidding on an auction on your website. you can set it up according to the categories.
Custom Fields
As the name suggests, this setting helps your set up custom fields. You can add these custom fields to your auction website. You can configure the name, type, order, categories of the custom fields you create. Moreover, you can see and modify the existing custom fields from the Current Custom Fields tab.
Image Options
Auction Theme also lets you configure the number of images that a user can upload on your auction. You can also set image fees. Furthermore, you can set the default size of the images to be displayed.
Payment Gateways
There are over 15 different payment gateways that Auction Theme supports. This setting is where you set it all up. I recommend that you set up multiple gateways to attract more users from various regions. Some of the gateways include PayPal, Payza, Skrill, and Amazon.
Membership Packs
Auction Theme also comes with an in-built membership feature. You can configure membership levels, membership cost, monthly items, and modify existing members.
Withdrawals and Escrows
The Withdrawal setting is where you manage withdrawal requests, whereas the Escrows is where you can find currently open and completed escrows.
User Balances, Reviews, and Private Messages
This auction theme also allows you to keep an eye on your users’ account balances. You can also increase their credits or decrease them. Furthermore, you also have the ability to check all your user’s feedback. And if users send you a private message, the Private Messages tab is where you can see them.
InSite Transactions
This is where you can find detailed information on all the transaction that happens or is happening inside you auction website. You can view the transaction history of a particular user, the date of transactions, and more.
Orders
You can find all paid, unpaid, shipped, and unshipped orders along with detailed information about these orders in the Orders settings.
Layout
The Auction Theme allows you to customize the overall layout of your entire website here. You can configure items like headline, homepage image, sidebar, etc. from here. Also, this setting lets you change the colors schemes, header, and footer information.
Advertising
This section is dedicated to monetizing your website through advertisement. You can include advertisements on the website header, footer, auction page, and category page.
Tracking Tools
The Auction Theme acknowledges the importance of analytics by including tracking tools. This portion lets you enable Google Analytics along with other tracking tools of your choice.
Adding and Maintaining Auctions
Working with auctions is done through a separate sidebar setting. Just below the Auction Theme setting, is Auction settings. This is where you add and manage auctions, configure tags, shipping options, and more.
Adding Auctions
Adding new auctions is extremely easy with this WordPress auction theme. All you have to do is click on Add New Auction on the top to get started.
All the adding auction stuff is done through WordPress editor with a bunch of settings provided by the theme. Add a title and then the description. After that, it’s time to play around with the details.
The auction details let you configure various prices, item quantity, auto-renewal, make this feature auction, and more.
If you just scroll below the description text box, you can find additional settings like auction images and auction shipping.
Configure these settings as per the requirement and you’re good to go. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?
Manage Auctions
After you’ve successfully published or saved an auction, you can see its information and manage it through the Auctions page. This page will show everything you need to know about the auction such as the tags, price, total bids, expiry date, and more.
Other Options
There are other settings below the Auction setting in the sidebar. These settings let you configure and manage Tags, Categories, Locations, Shipping, and Item Conditions. The settings are pretty straight forward too. You will have no confusion configuring them.
Front End
No matter what number of features and configurations the theme provides, it will be of no use if the website looks ugly and unintuitive. However, that is not the case with the Auction Theme. The quality of the frontend matches the features of the backend.
When a user gets into your website, the first thing they see is the homepage. The users can go to Auctions, Features Auctions, Advance Search page, Categories page, and Location page straight from the menu bar.
The user can search for a particular auction straight from the homepage. All they have to do is type in the keyword in the search bar.
The All Auctions page and All Feature Auctions page contain exactly what their name suggests. The Advanced Search page is where users can search for auctions based on the provided filters. These filters include auction id, keyword, price, zip code, radius, location, and category. The Advanced Search page also contains Google Maps to make the search easier. Add the details and click on Refine Search to get going.
Users
Registered users have their own private account page to track their activity. After logging in, a user can access their private page through the menu bar located on the top. After clicking on My Account, the user will be sent to their accounts page where they can post new auctions, customize payments, check private messages, and see feedbacks. The user can also check their balance, see their existing bids, and more.
The My Account page also has separate settings for buyers and sellers. The Seller menu includes received offers, active auctions, items sold, closed auctions, and more.
Similarly, the Buyers menu is where you can check your submitted offers, items won, items not won, outstanding payments, and more.
Posting Auctions as a User
A user can post an auction via the Post New Auction option on their My Account Menu side menu. When click, it will take you to a new page that lets you add item title, location, category, price, shipping details, and more. When done, the user can click on Next Step to review and publish their auction.
Pricing
The pricing of the Sitemile Auction Theme is pretty flexible. You will be able to find a package that suits your requirements. The base theme start will cost you $149 and will only come with the theme but not the extensions. $19 is charged yearly for updates and supports. If you can all the extensions, that will cost you $299 with an additional $19 per year for updates and supports. If you do not want all the extensions, you can choose to buy the one you need. The price of extensions ranges from $25 to $2500, depending on what you need.
There are other packages with varied one-time fees. The pricing for Auction Theme Systems ranges from $149 to $6399 for the most expensive package and the one with all the features.
Conclusion
If you are planning on entering the auction niche, then Auction Theme from SiteMile is the obvious choice and the one I recommend. It has a clean design, intuitive interface, and abundant features. Even if you get stuck despite the extremely easy-to-use nature of the theme, the documentation it comes with will eliminate all your confusion. And if that didn’t help, then the dedicated and skilled support will definitely help you get around. The starting price seems pretty affordable too, and the theme can be upgraded easily if you need more out of it.
