C2C Reverse Auction Creator v1.0 User & Admin Guides

System Requirements:

Local computer testing needed Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS, downloadable from Microsoft.com or found in Windows 98 Installer CD) or Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS, pre-built in Windows NT).
ISP’s Web hosting site on NT web server (with ODBC and ASP enabled.) for actual C2C Auction system running.
Disk space of 3MB or above.
Internet Explorer or Netscape 4.0 or above.

Installations:

Double click on the EXE installer to begin the program installation.
Type in Installer Password as provided by the supplier (normally inside email).
This will continue the program installation.
If you have Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS, downloadable from Microsoft.com or found inside Windows 98 Installer CD) or Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS, pre-built in Windows NT) preinstalled in your computer, you can copy all files and folders, from the installed folder to its web server root directory: InetPub\wwwRoot\
You must then MOVE the MS ACCESS database file ‘C2CReverseAuction.MDB’ from the folder to the web server root directory: InetPub\wwwRoot\

Please make sure that your local or remote web server allows you to execute Active Server Page (ASP) program and allows you to write to MS ACCESS database file from the client side (so that database can be updated directly from the web browser).

Move your mouse over the Personal Web Server icon as displayed in the right bottom corner of your Windows screen. If PWS has been successfully installed and set to run, it should displayed the hint message as below:

Microsoft Personal Web Server:

The following screen is the Personal Web Manager of PWS. You will be able to change or keep the web server root directory:

To test running it locally, please launch the Internet Explorer or Netscape 4.0 or above and type in web address: http://localhost/C2CReverseAuction/reverse/

or http://term6/C2CReverseAuction/reverse/
if your computer system name is, for example, term6 (see the Main Publishing section as shown above).

Assuming that the DEFAULT home page name is ‘default.asp’.

This will launch the C2C Auction system.

If you have your own NT web hosting site, you can upload the [C2CReverseAauction] folder and the database file to the website, and then use web browser to go to http://www.yourwebsite.com/C2CReverseAuction/reverse/

Note to Administrator:

Assuming that the DEFAULT home page name is ‘default.asp’.

Please upload the [C2CReverseAuction] folder to your website’s root directory. Also MOVE the database file ‘C2CReverseAuction.MDB’ from the uploaded folder to the Root Directory:

wwwroot : [C2CReverseAuction] folder
wwwroot : C2CReverseAuction.MDB’
(both folder and the database file are at the same root directory.)

Putting database file in the root directory will improve the security and avoid the sensitive data from been viewed by unauthorized person.

Make sure that remote web server in your Internet Service Provider (ISP) side allows you to execute Active Server Page (ASP) program and allows you to write to MS ACCESS database file from the client side (so that database can be updated directly from the web browser). Normally these features can be set inside ISP’s Internet Information Server (IIS).

Consumer-To-Consumer Reverse Auction System

Auction Home

Consumer-To-Consumer (C2C) Reverse Auction System is a web-based e-commerce system designed for Buyers and Sellers to conduct goods/services requesting and trading activities directly over the Internet.

Launch your web browser, and go to

http://localhost/C2CreverseAuction/reverse/

or http://www.yourwebsite.com/C2CreverseAuction/reverse/

while the first URL is the web location of the C2C Reverse Auction system on your computer, and the latter will be the web address of your C2C Reverse Auction system.

Your Reverse Auction users will be able to read about your Reverse Auction site and company, and also click on ‘contact us’ button to contact you (the Reverse Auction site owner) via email or telephone number (all source codes are customizable, depended on your needs.) Click on ‘join now’ will allow new user to register to you as a new member.

In Part 2, user will be able to go to system sections through the auction menu bar which are described as below.

Auction Home: Click this link to go to Reverse Auction home page

New User Registration: Register to assign user name and password for new user

Post New Item: Allow user to post new Reverse Auction item or service

Feature Auctions: Display a list of paid featured Reverse Auctions

Going, Going, Gone: All Reverse Auctions that are ending today

Today’s New Auctions: All new Reverse Auctions posted by users at today’s date

About This Auction: Telling users about the user agreement

Logout: User can log out this Reverse Auction. Need to log in on next session

Bidder Service: Bidder can log in to check all bidding history

Requester Service: Requester can log in to check and re-list all Reverse Auctions

Contact Support: Customer service site for all register users to contact administrator

Admin: Administrator can log in to monitor or control all auctions and system

Note: If Reverse Auction Administrator wishes to edit this auction menu bar at the heading, please use FrontPage program, WordPad, or other HTML editors to modify the file ‘bhead.inc’ inside [C2CReverseAuction] directory.

User will be provided with the Reverse Auction and requester search engines, which will search out the results based on the keywords of requester and item name, directly from Microsoft Access database (through open database connection). This database connection is customizable to upgrade to Microsoft SQL server database connection.

User can search for current, completed or all Reverse Auctions, based on the keywords typed on the provided search field.

At least four featured Reverse Auction items will be displayed on the Reverse Auction home page, with pictures and links to the respective Reverse Auction pages.

Users will be able to click on the main category name as listed below and then click on their respective subcategories in the following page in order to view all relevant Reverse Auctions. All categories are general available categories and are pre-selected. To edit the category list, Reverse Auction administrator can click on ‘admin’ link on the Reverse Auction menu bar to continue to category updating section.

New User Registration

Clicking on “New User Registration’ will bring you to the registration page.

New user will need to create your unique User ID, email address and Password. Please note that email address must be valid since all Reverse Auction activity info will be emailed to user’s email (by default, the mail sending service is disabled. To activate the email service, you must first open all ASP source codes, and enable the JMAIL service codes as instructed in the source scripts. You will need to install JMAIL program into your computer or website’s web server, which should require the assistance from their respective webmasters. JMAIL program can be downloaded from http://tech.dimac.net/ ) Also type in your Name, Street Address, City Name, State, Zip Code, Country Name and user’s Phone number for contact purpose.

Note:

' JMAIL - EMAIL SENDING SERVICE FOR ASP PROGRAM

' Install JMail.EXE (please download from http://tech.dimac.net/)to computer if you want to have an email sending service.

' You must install it in ISP's NT web server in order to use it online.

' Or install it in local computer if you want to test running locally.

' Then, remove the MARKS  at the beginning of the following lines to enable the JMail service.

' You can change the email and server setting in the following lines.

Note: If Reverse Auction Administrator wishes to edit the registration page, please use FrontPage program, WordPad, or other HTML editors to modify the file ‘registration.asp’ inside [asp] directory.

Post New Item

Request-for-bid (RFB) is a type of Reverse Auction format for which requester can place a request for any item or service inside the auction community and seller will be able to fulfill or bid on the requested item through the reverse auction bidding system. To post a new Reverse Auction/Request-for-bid item or service, click on the link ‘Post New item’ as in the Reverse Auction menu bar.

Requester will see a category list, where he can select the appropriate category for his new requested item.

Select one category from the list above. In this example, assuming that requester wants to look for a specific electronics item. Click on category ‘Computer’.

Requester will then see a Reverse Auction posting form for submitting a new item. Fill out all required fields as listed below.

Please note that incomplete Reverse Auction posting form will be rejected by the Reverse Auction system. Once requester has submitted the new item request-for-bid form, he cannot change it (unless user contact Reverse Auction Administrator to modify or remove the unwanted Reverse Auction from the Reverse Auction list).

Please type in valid User ID and Password. Add Item Name to the field provided. No more than 50 characters should be used as the requested Item Name. Select an appropriate subcategory from the drop down box that is under the selected main category: Computer.

In the Description box, you can add plain text or HTML text. Please make sure that user will describe the requested item as clear as possible, such as its conditions, specifications, payment types and shipping methods.

Type in picture web URL of the item (if any), such as http://www.mywebsite.com/image/abc.gif. This image will be displayed at the top of item description inside the Reverse Auction page.

Let sellers (bidders) know where is the ship-to location. Requester can type in his working location, City, State and Country name inside the Item Location field, such as Los Angeles, CA, USA. This will allow bidders to estimate the approximate shipping and handling costs, as well as the shipping period, before placing their fulfilling bids on this Reverse Auction request.

Fill in how many Quantities that the requester wanted for this item. If the requester has multiple quantities he wishes to buy from multiple bidders, please type in the number of quantities in the field provided.

In Starting Bid field, please type in the desired starting price of the Reverse Auction item which is also the lowest price that you want to buy this item from bidders.

Requester must set a Decrement Bid price, such as $1, which will be deducted to the Reverse Auction price as the next Reverse Auction bid amount (if met the requested quantity of the item).

For example, if the price of 1 unit of the requested rechargeable batteries is started at $10. The next bidding price for the requested rechargeable batteries will be $9 if the decrement bid price is $1.

Reserve price is the price that the requester will accept as the buying price. For the bidding prices higher than this reserve price, the requester has no obligation to buy it, even though the Reverse Auction has ended with bids. Please note that no all bidders will bid on the Reverse Auction with reserve price. Requester can leave it as $0 if no reserve price is set. Reverse Auction with no reserve price will draw more bids from bidders than reserve price Reverse Auction.

In Duration field, please indicate how many days that you want to run this Reverse Auction, such as 3 days, 5 days, 7 days or 10 days. This will also count and display the Due Date of your requested item or service in the auction.

Also check the boxes of payment types that the user (requester) will pay for the requested item, such as Money Order, Cashier Check, Personal Check, Visa or Master, or as written in the item description. Check all that applied.

For shipping charge information, please let bidders know that if Requester (Buyer) Pays, Buyer Pays Actual Shipping Cost, Buyer Pays Fixed Amount, or See Item Description for more shipping charge information.

If requester will accept the international shipment (please indicate the international shipping and handling charges clearly on the item description), check the appropriate ‘Shipping Terms’ box. Otherwise, just allow the successful bidders to ship from your own home country.

The Feature List will allow requesters to post their Reverse Auction items and displays at the first home page of the Reverse Auction site. Note that the Feature Reverse Auction List will be displayed in the first home page when there are four or more featured Reverse Auction items posted by the requesters.

Reverse Auction Administrator can check the Reverse Auction database and bill the requesters for their features listing fees (which fee can be modified in the system codes).

After requester completed the Reverse Auction posting form, simply click on ‘Post Now’ button to continue. Note that once clicking on the button, the Reverse Auction will not be able to modify by the requester, unless informing Reverse Auction Administrator to edit the Reverse Auction database or remove it from the Admin panel.

Note: If Reverse Auction Administrator wishes to edit the registration page, please use FrontPage program, WordPad, or other HTML editors to modify the file ‘protype.asp’ inside [asp] directory.

Featured Auctions

Featured Reverse Auctions list displays all current featured Reverse Auctions posted by the registered requesters or buyers. Note that only four or more featured Reverse Auction items will be displayed at the home page.

Bidders can select any Reverse Auction item posted by the registered buyers and submit their bids on the featured items.

Going, Going, Gone

‘Going, Going, Gone’ displays all Reverse Auctions that are going to end at today’s date. Some bidders may look up and bid those Reverse Auctions that are going to close shortly. Therefore, some bidders may find that they are outbidded by other users near the closing time of the Reverse Auctions.

Today’s New Auctions

‘Today’s New Auctions’ displays today’s new posting Reverse Auction items in a neat table.

About This C2C Auction

This section will inform Reverse Auction users regarding the Reverse Auction site and its user agreement.

Note: Reverse Auction Administrator can edit the content in the file ‘auction.asp’ under [asp] directory inside Reverse Auction system folder.

Logout

Click on ‘Logout’ link to end the member login session. The registered member will be required to log in again when he wants to access some restricted services inside the Reverse Auction system, such as using bidder/sellerer services, posting Reverse Auction feedbacks, etc.

Bidder Service

In Bidder Service, a registered bidder will be able to view all Reverse Auction activities that he has been involved in and has successfully won. Bidder will be required to log in to access the bidder service.

The table displays Reverse Auction item number, item name, Reverse Auction (Buyer requester) ID, bid price and requester’s contact email. Note that the Reverse Auctions have ended with successful bid from this bidder. Bidder will be able to contact the Reverse Auction requester to arrange payment in according to the Reverse Auction description.

Buyer Service

In Buyer Service, a buyer (requester) can view his all current and completed Reverse Auctions. For verification and security purposes, the buyer will be required to log in.

The Current Reverse Auction table displays all current Reverse Auctions posted by this buyer. Completed Reverse Auction table displays all closed Reverse Auctions.

To re-list or re-submit single or multiple completed Reverse Auctions, buyer can check the box of relevant Reverse Auctions and click on ‘Re-Submit Auctions’ button.

Note that once clicking on the button, the Reverse Auctions will become ‘live’ and cannot be modified or removed, unless with the assistance from the Reverse Auction Administrator. Requester can contact the administrator in ‘Contact Support’ section.

To remove the completed Reverse Auctions permanently from the Reverse Auction database, please contact the administrator for his assistance in ‘Admin’ section.

Contact Support

Requester or bidder can write email to Reverse Auction Administrator or Member Support Team by clicking on the email hyperlink at the page. The Reverse Auction Administrator will be able to help solving any dispute in between requester and bidder, remove or update Reverse Auctions, edit user registration information in database, maintain Reverse Auction feedback system (through database directly), and other administration tasks.

Note: Reverse Auction Administrator can edit the support email address and hyperlink name inside the ‘Change Setting’ link after log in as administrator in ‘Admin’ section.

Other contact pages:

About Us – Auction Administrator can edit the ‘About.asp’ file in [asp] directory and add his own company profile and description.

Contact Us – Administrator can edit the ‘Contact.asp’ file in [asp] directory and add his own contact information and mailing address.

To remove the ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact Us’ icons from the main page, just edit the javascript source codes in ‘bleft.inc’ file under [C2CReverseAuction] directory.

Special Note To Reverse Auction Administrator:

You can publish this User Guide on your Customer Service site, and allow your users to access the online user manual directly from their web browser. You can edit the online manual guide and upload it to your auction Customer Service site. Then make appropriate hyperlink from the site to the online manual guide.

Editing or customizing existing Reverse Auction system source codes requires the in-depth knowledge of HTML, ASP, Javascript, Microsoft database, and web server configuration.

Placing A Bid In C2C Request-For-Bid: Reverse Auction

Click on the category name on the Reverse Auction home page. This will be linked to sub-category page of the selected category. Notice the number displayed at the side of each sub-category. It is the total number of current Reverse Auctions that are posted under this sub-category.

The featured Reverse Auction items will always be listed at the top of each sub-category page.

Click on the link of Reverse Auction item on the sub-category page (sub-category with number of ‘0’ at its side will display no Reverse Auction in listing). User will be directed to the current Reverse Auction listing page as shown below.

Click on the Reverse Auction item name hyperlink and user will be directed to its Reverse Auction web page as shown below.

Below is an example of Reverse Auction: request for bid on 1 unit of Word 2000 Software.

Current price is decremented by the Reverse Auction system from its first maximum bid price, based on the number of bids that this Reverse Auction item received.

The Reverse Auction starting date and ending date are counted by the system when a requester posted this item as Reverse Auction. The requester indicated the duration period inside the Reverse Auction posting form.

Location is the physical location of the Reverse Auction item that will be shipped to. This will allow the potential bidders to estimate the cost of delivery and shipping days from its physical location to the requester or buyer’s location.

Requester’s name will be displayed at the Reverse Auction page, and the potential bidders will be able to check his past online trading experiences with other members through the Buyer’s Rating system. Higher number of rating (could be negative, depending on the user’s creditability and reliability) on the past trading history will improve bidder’s confidence on dealing with the requester.

Payment type, shipping methods and shipping regions are displayed accordingly in order to allow bidders to understand more about this request-for-bid item before placing their bids on it.

Current highest bidder’s name will be displayed at the same Reverse Auction page, with his number of rating displayed beneath the user name.

Of course, the past requesters who have trading activities with this bidder will be able to post relevant feedbacks for the past trading experiences with this bidder, by clicking on the ‘rate bidder’ link. His past trading experiences with other members will be recorded inside ‘bidder’s rating’ link.

The Reverse Auction description posted by the requester is displayed on the Reverse Auction as below.

Requesters are encouraged to post Reverse Auction description with HTML in order to make the Reverse Auction lively and attractive. Of course plain text is allowed in the description.

The following informs users regarding the general bidding information for this Request-For-Bid (Reverse Auction) item.

Registration is required as only member is allowed to place the Reverse Auction bid. New user can click on the ‘Registration’ link to register as member in a few steps.

To place a Reverse Auction bid, the bidder will need to type in his User ID and Password. Please type in a maximum bid price. This price should be larger than the current incremented bid price by other bidders.

If the bidder has any comment or special instruction for this Reverse Auction item, please type inside the Comment box. This comment will be posted in the Reverse Auction bidding history site, together with bidder’s Reverse Auction bid price and user ID, after submitted the Reverse Auction bid.

Reverse Auction Bidding History

Bidders and requester will be able to view the current Reverse Auction activities, as well as the comments posted by the individual bidders. The comment will allow requester to fulfill the special instruction requested by the bidders, even though this is not an obligation. Requester can communicate with the bidders through the email address. All bid prices by bidders are protected until the Reverse Auction closed. The current lowest bidder (the most possible bidder whose offered price is going to be accepted by the requester) will be marked as shown in the screen below. For those interested users who are outbidded by the current highest bidder can go back to the Reverse Auction site again and place a higher bid price. The Reverse Auction system will notify them whether their new bid prices have become the lowest bid price among other bidders.

Use Feedback Rating System

Feedback rating system is designed to ensure that this Reverse Auction site is safe to trade among the registered users.

Please rate users carefully as it will result in a negative or positive rating. A complaint will add one negative point to the user and a compliment vice versa. General comments are neutral.

After logged in as a member, user can select the appropriate rating, based on the past trading experience with the requester or bidder. Type in comments inside the box and this will be permanently displayed in the user’s rating site. Therefore please be very careful while leaving feedback to others. Leaving unrelated or inappropriate feedbacks left on a user will result in the cancellation of membership by the Reverse Auction Administrator.

Below is the feedback rating history for a user:

Rating point will be calculated by the Reverse Auction system and each user will have his own rating point while participating in any Reverse Auction activity.

To report any unrelated or questionable feedback ratings on the registered user, please contact the Reverse Auction support team or the Reverse Auction Administrator.

Admin

‘Admin’ is the administration panel for the Reverse Auction Administrator. This administration panel allows administrator to:

Remove User | Change Setting | Logout

Please note that administrator can edit the original Reverse Auction system source codes to meet his specific needs. This required certain knowledge of web programming that involved HTML, Javascript, ASP, Microsoft database and web server configuration.

Please type in the appropriate admin ID and password to enter the administration site.

Close Item – Reverse Auctions will end after reaching the duration period, possibly every time and everyday. To avoid the closed items from being possibly bidded by the Reverse Auction bidders (even though bidders will receive an error message that the Reverse Auction has closed and will not accept any bid after the Reverse Auction ending time), Reverse Auction Administrator will need to close single or multiple Reverse Auctions, by checking on the relevant box and click on ‘Close Item’ box, on daily basis. It is very important for Reverse Auction Administrator to come to this ‘Close Item’ section frequently and close all items that have ended so that they will not be displayed on the current Reverse Auction list.

Add Categories – You can add Main Category or Sub Category.

Main Category has the following formats:

Please always click on ‘Delete Categories’ link to see the current category status, ID and number. Then go back to the ‘Add Categories’ link to add new category to the database.

Main Category sample data to be typed in:

Category Name: Office Supplies

Category Status: a

Category ID: 200000

Main Category Number: 200

In category status, ‘a’ is the only symbol (status) for ‘Main Category’. Category ID is the number system starting at 200000 (all sub-categories will be numbered from 200001 and so on). The main category number is the three starting digit of the category ID.

Sub-category has the following formats:

Sub-category sample data to be typed in:

Category Name: Printing Paper

Category Status: 200

Category ID: 200001

Main Category Number: 0

In category status, ‘200’ will tell the system that this sub=category is under main category: Office Supplies, in this example (Its main category number is 200). Category ID is the number system starting at 200001 (which means the first item ‘001’ under main category ‘200’). The main category number is ‘0’ while making a sub-category.

Delete Categories – Select the unwanted main or sub categories and click on ‘delete’ button at the bottom to remove them from the database. Please note that by removing the main category, all its sub-categories and the related records will be deleted.

Delete Item – Reverse Auction Administrator can delete unwanted current and closed Reverse Auction items from the current and closed Reverse Auction item list. Click on ‘delete’ button after checking on the Reverse Auction boxes.

Deleted History – Deleted History displays those current and closed Reverse Auction items that are deleted by the administrator in ‘Delete Item’ section. Administrator can check the boxes and click ‘Clear History’ to remove the deleted items permanently from the Reverse Auction database.

Remove User – Administrator can remove user permanently from the database. Select the user that want to remove, and then click on the ‘Remove user’ button at the bottom page.

Change Setting – Administrator can change his user name and password in this section. Simply fill out ‘Admin Name’, ‘Current Password’, ‘New Admin Name’ and ‘New Password’. Click ‘Change’ to update to the database.

To change the company banner, company name or customer support email (which will be displayed in Customer Support link), administrator must type in ‘Admin Name’ and ‘Current Password’. Then type in company banner web URL, company name and support email address. Click ‘Change’ to update to the database.

Note that to make any change to the setting, administrator must type in ‘Admin Name’ and ‘Current Password’.

Logout - Click on ‘logout’ link to end the login session. When a user log in, the session will begin to count the system access time. If no activity happened within 10 minutes (by default), the session will automatically expire, and the user will be prompted to log in again when he decides to access a system web page after 10 minutes.

To change the session expiration period, Reverse Auction Administrator can open the file ‘checking.asp’ inside the root directory (at the same directory level as the AuctionCreator.mdb database file), and change this line:

session.timeout= 10

while ‘10’ is 10 minutes of session duration.

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Editor Note: All contents in these guides may not actually reflect any new or latest updated features in the program. Please pardon for any program description error found on this document.