You know what an auction is. It is a process of buying and selling goods or services by bidding. Once bids are taken, the item is sold to the highest bidder or it is bought from the lowest bidder.
Thus, the auction is a great platform for smooth transactions between two parties. But ever since the COVID-19, auctions have taken a huge hit. People are afraid of physical interactions happening at such events such as handshakes.
Hence, you are looking for a solution that can help you organize an auction while keeping your guests safe. Here, contactless technologies such as QR Codes can help you out.
To help you understand better, QR Codes are basically 2D barcodes that can store a lot of information and can be easily scanned with a smartphone.
In other words, they add a contactless dimension to your auctions. For example, potential buyers can scan the QR Code adjacent to each item to get detailed information about the product.
Awesome, right? Keep reading to know how you can use QR Codes in your auctions to boost your business.
A. How QR Codes can be used in auctions
As mentioned above, QR Codes help you with many things. From products to registration, they have got it covered. And here are some detailed use cases:
1. Smoothen the registration process
To get registrations from potential bidders, you’d have to spread the word about your auction.
And QR Codes can help you get these registrations. You simply need to create a QR Code for registrations and add it to your marketing communications. As people scan it, they’ll be able to see the form, fill it, and register for the auction.
No need for them to come in contact with physical paper-based forms. And with an easier registration process, you’d also see an increase in audience response rate.
2. Share contact information
As a professional, you know the importance of networking. Connecting with your audience does not only help your business but also builds a network of like-minded audiences.
And when you meet people, you give them your visiting card. While doing that, you hope that they’ll save you as a contact and connect with you soon.
But here’s the problem with traditional cards—recipients have to manually type all your details on their smartphone to save you as a contact. This is a long and tedious process. Hence, most business cards end up in the dumpster.
But QR Codes can make a difference easily. How?
You can add all your contact information in a VCard QR Code and then add it to your business card. A VCard QR Code can offer a lot more information than the traditional business card alone. For example, you can add:
- Name
- Profile picture
- Contact number
- Designation
- Company
- Address
- Map location of the address
- Website
- Description
- Social media handles
As a recipient would scan the QR Code, he’d see all these details with a Save As Contact button. Now all he needs to do is click the button and contact you later. No hassle at all.
3. Drive traffic to your website
Do you have a business website for your auction? It could be to share auction event details, products details, or bidding rules.
Then you’d want the people to visit the website. Here, a Website URL QR Code has got you covered. Just create one and place it on your promotional creatives. Your audience can scan it to visit your website instantly.
4. Gain social media followers
Do you want to remain connected with your attendees even after the auctions? Social media can help you achieve it. In fact, many organizations now use social media to share their work and promote their business.
Here, a Social Media QR Code can help you gain these followers. Simply create a Social Media QR Code that links to all your social media handles and put it out on your creatives, posters, or auction premises.
As end-users scan it, they’ll see buttons to all your social media handles such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. They can then select their favorite platform to follow you online.
5. Share event information
Say you are organizing an auction and need to inform your audience about it.
To do it, you’d have to share all the event details such as the venue, timing, and description. And an Event QR Code can do it. Actually, it can do much more than that. How?
When scanned, your audience can see your event’s complete information including exact venue location on their phone’s maps application, timings, description. And in addition to it, they also get the option to RSVP with a click, share the event to their social media profile, and even watch a video.
6. Share any information
It is quite common to share information about the auction or its items with your attendees. This can be before the auction or during the auction. And a Document QR Code can help you with this.
Just place your QR Code on promotional materials, at displays, or other marketing communications. And your attendees can scan it to access the encoded document.
In addition, you can also place a Product QR Code alongside each item during the auction. They can help the attendees better understand the item and bid accordingly.
7. Offer a customized landing page
Say you don’t have your own business website to offer auction details online. However, you still need to show them the details in a better organized digital way.
Here, a Rich Text QR Code can help you. This QR Code allows you to create a customized landing page with descriptions, images, and buttons. And you can do it all by yourself within minutes without getting any software developer aboard. Convenient, right?
8. Gather feedback
Customer feedback is essential for any business. It gives insights into whether your customers are enjoying your products, services, or not. Furthermore, it helps you identify your areas of improvement.
But obtaining feedbacks is not an easy task. That’s because people have to open their phones, manually type the form URL to access it, and finally fill the form. This is a tedious process. And while some people might put in the effort, others simply won’t bother.
However, QR Codes have got you covered. How? Simply create a customer feedback QR Code and put it on product packaging and promotional creatives. Your audience can scan it to access the form. No need for them to tediously type long URLs to access the form before they can fill it.
B.Why should you use QR Codes in auctions
You now know how QR Codes can make your auction better. But QR Codes offer much more. QR Codes offer various benefits while offering better business and audience engagement. Here are some of them:
1. Editable
Suppose you have created a QR Code to inform interested people about your auction. But after some time, due to some unforeseen reasons, you had to change the date and time of the auction. Hence, you need to update the same in the QR Code.
This is where dynamic QR Codes can help you. They allow you to edit the encoded content anytime you want without the need to create new QR Codes again.
That’s right. They allow you to make changes to the information encoded in the QR Code and simply update it. Thus, your QR Code will remain the same even after you make the edits.
2. Scan Tracking
You know how important it is to know about your target audience. And QR Codes have got you covered. They allow you to track their scanning activity by date, location (city/country), device, browser, and operating system.
This means you will gain valuable insights about your audience and optimize your future campaigns accordingly.
3. Event Tracking
As mentioned above, QR Codes allow scan tracking. However, let’s say you want to know how your audience interacts with the encoded content of the QR Code. This could be anything such as the Register or Sign-Up button.
To know such detailed analysis, an event tracking feature can help you out. It provides valuable insights and thus, can help you optimize your campaigns.
4. Customizable
Since you are planning to use QR Codes for auctions, consider adding design to them. That’s because custom QR Codes are visually more appealing. And hence, attract your audience’s attention seamlessly.
Moreover, it is a fact that customized QR Codes attract 50%-200% more scans than generic black-and-white ones.
QR Codes allow you to personalize their design by adding a logo and color or a background image to it. You can also change the pattern of both the eyes and data modules.
5. Error Correction
It’s important that your QR Codes work all the time irrespective of dirtiness or damage. And error correction feature allows you to do that. It ensures that QR Codes scan well even after they get damaged or dirty.
6. High-speed scannability
This is the best part about QR Codes. As soon as you hold the camera in front of them, they will come alive within seconds. This ensures a fast and better user experience.
C. How to create a QR Code for an auction
Now you know why it makes sense to use QR Codes in auctions. The next question is— how to create one?
1. Decide on QR Code category
This entirely depends on the kind of content you want your attendees to see. Once you decide on it, you’ll have to choose the relevant QR Code category.
For example, say you want your attendees to know detailed information about the artifact, you’d need a Product QR Code. On the other hand, if you want to provide all the event details along with a ‘Sign-up’ button, you’ll need an Event QR Code.
Once you’ve decided on the QR Code category, you need to find a suitable QR Code generator for your use case. To smoothen your search, here is a detailed comparison of the best QR Code generators. You can go through this to find the best one for yourself.
2. Create a QR Code
Using Scanova QR Code generator for demo purposes, here’s how you can create a QR Code for an auction:
a. Go to Scanova
b. Select the relevant QR Code category
c. Add the content that you want to encode in the QR Code and click Continue
d. Now you need to name the QR Code and click on Create QR Code
e. On the page that loads, you will see the preview of the QR Code along with the Edit Design option
f. If you click on the Edit Design option, you will see two design options to choose from—Custom Logo and Custom Background. Custom logo design allows you to add a logo and color to it. On the other hand, a custom background helps you place the QR Code on an image
g. Once you finalize the design and click on Download. A window will pop up, prompting you to sign-up for a 14-day free trial
Note that you’ll not have to enter your credit card details to be able to sign-up
h. Once you sign-up, you’ll be prompted to specify the dimensions and format of the QR Code image. Once you do it, click Export
That’s it. Your QR Code will be downloaded. It is always advisable to test scan the QR Code before putting it out for your target audience.
That is all you need to know about how a QR Code can be used in an auction. You can now go ahead and create your very own QR Codes.