decrement BID - product price decrement automatically

[jesusito]

hi steve!

first of all tell u my english is not really good so i will try to explain what i want to do.

I need to do an auction where registered users can bid for products that have an initial price and a final price (limited by admin).
I want the bid increment to be a decrement one, and change it automatically.
The auction will finish when a user bid for it or when is the Closing time.

Eg. One product begins at an Opening time with a price of 2000$, after 10 minutes if any user bid for it, it cost 1750$, after 10 minutes if any user bid for it, it cost 1500$ ... The product limit price is 1000$. If a user bid for it and the product is >= the product limit the user get/buy it.

i hope u can help me, i´m not an expert in php ... and i see your application is really nice and could help me to do what i need.

thanx

[shannah]

Let me restate your requirements so I am sure that we understand each other. The auction starts at a certain price. After the price decrements until either someone makes a bid, or it reaches the minimum price. The first person to bid, wins the auction.

Although this sounds quite simple its "real-time" aspect makes it a little bit more complex than a standard auction.

Certainly this would require some custom development to create an add-on for web auction. Some questions to consider:

1. Should all users who are monitoring an auction be notified when the auction is won? Or is it sufficient for them to just refresh their browsers every time they want to check if the auction is over. (Probably you want them to be automatically notified). You would need to either have a javascript solution to poll the server every couple of seconds to see if the auction is over, or you would have to create a java applet (or flash applet) to have bi-directional communication with the auction).

.... there are other considerations but the above is the main obstacle.

-Steve

[jesusito]

u are right!
i was thinking in just refresh users browsers and disable bid if the auction is over (may be with set bid link to hidden or invisible would be sufficient).
i have program a javascript script to show a count down for the auction (when it work perfect for all auctions i will post it), i´m refreshing browser every second, if the auction didn´t beging or is over i show a red message, if the auction is working i show the count down in green.
tell me the other considerations you are thinking about, i´m sure it would be really good ones, and i would like to program them as soon as possible.
thank you very much, i love your work and dedication, thanx

[jesusito]

steve can you help me?
i'm trying it but my php and javascript level is not good, may be my english level is better i think

[shannah]

Hi jesusito,

This mod could be a little involved and requires many fine points in architecture and coding that may be hard to simply throw out over the forum. The forum is a good place to help with issues when you're already 90% of the way there.

This mod would require 3 parts:
1. A custom action that can be called via AJAX to determine whether the product has been bought yet, what the current price is, and to change the price if it should be decremented.
2. Some javascript to continually poll the server (the custom action) to see if the product has been bought yet, and update the price if it has changed.
3. A custom action to handle the customer bid when it comes it so that it closes the auction on the first bid and makes sure that the customer is bidding the correct amount.

And there are some finer points to consider also, like when a user bids, does it just make the bid and close the auction - or does it give the user an opportunity to confirm the bid? And if so, while he is confirming the bid, should the auction be locked to other bidders, and should the clock continue to decrement? Etc.. There are probably many other fine points to consider also.

This mod would not be trivial as you would need pretty good knowledge of PHP, javascript, MySQL, and Xataface to make it work.

If you decide that this is beyond you, I am available to do custom development. Contact me if you want a quote. Email steve at weblite dot ca

[jesusito]

i have send u an email to steve@weblite.ca, thanx for your attention steve

[jesusito]

other fine point - user register payment depending on the number of bids he want to do, to guarantee that nobody does false bids.

i have send u other email to steve@weblite.ca with details