With Dutch Auction Factory you can build and maintain an auction based website with prices lowered in decrements until bidders accept the current price.
A Dutch auction is a type of auction in which the auctioneer begins with a high asking price, which is lowered until some participant is willing to accept the auctioneer's price, or a predetermined reserve price (the seller's minimum acceptable price). The winning participant pays the last announced price. This is also known as a clock auction or an open-outcry descending-price auction.
As an administrator, you have access to many settings and features that are configurable from the backend area.
While the component is installed with default settings, allowing it to be up-and-running almost instantly, it still needs some certain settings in order to be used at its full potential.

Here is the default menu from the frontend:

To participate in any bidding, you will need to register. To make an account, click on Create an account button (if the "Create an account" button is not displayed, you will need to allow user registration by going to the backend: Users/Options and enable "Allow User Registration"). Here you will have to add your account details, like your name, username, password and your email address. Click on Register, when you are all done, and verify your email for the activation link.

Now that you have an account within Joomla, you will need to add more information about yourself, in order to use all the features that Dutch Auction Factory offers. In the Profile area, you can add your full name and your phone number. Below you can add email addresses for PayPal and your phone number.

You can edit your personal data by clicking on the Edit user details button.
From the Payment balance tab, you can view the payments history and balance for your account, add or withdraw funds. You can also see Payments history, which displays a list of all your current transactions. You can add money to a user's account by going to Components/ Dutch Auction Factory/ Payments and pressing the Add New Payment button found on the top left side of the page.

In the Messages received tab, you can read and respond to messages from other users. Usually, they will ask questions about the products that you want to sell.

To send messages, you need to click on an auction. In the bottom of the page, you will see 3 tabs: Description, Messages and Other items from this seller. After you click on Messages, press the Ask now button and proceed with your question.

By proceeding to the Default settings tab, you can set different details about your auctions, such as: display the Reserve Price or not, Shipment details, etc.

The My ratings tab displays the feedback from other users. In order to be reviewed, you need to have an auction that was successfully completed. The person that won the auction can give you a review.

As a registered user, with Dutch Auction Factory you can either be a seller and create new auctions or a bidder and be involved in buying new items.

To create an auction click on New Auction from the Dutch Auction Factory Menu or go to My Auctions page.
On the top of the auction form, you can see information about your balance and the listing price, if the paid listing feature is enabled by the administrator.

Choose the proper Category for the item you wish to sell and add a Title for it, fields which are required. Depending on the chosen workflow from backend, you might need to select the category prior to this page.

Select the status of your auction. Set to Published to have it listed right away or Unpublished to hide it from other users, allowing you to publish it at a later date.

Set up the period of availability for your auction. Add a starting date for when it will become published, and an ending date when it will close. For more time accuracy you can also set, if enabled by the administrator, specific times at which the auctions will start and end. If the hours seem off with your local time, make sure the proper Timezone is used in Joomla.

Price details are highly configurable within our component, you can choose the used Currency and the Start Price for your auction. Since Dutch Auction's prices get lower and lower over time, you can set a Lower price, which will be the lowest price your item can get.
The Decrement activates once the auction is published, specify decrement value that will be subtracted from the current price at the specified period. This period can be set in seconds, minutes, hours or days.

Besides item price, there will be the Shipment price that can be added differently for various zones, if configured by the administrator.
Clicking on Add shipping zone will create a field to choose another zone and add the appropriate shipping price for it.
On the Shipment Info text field you can add more information about the shipment process which can be useful for bidders.

Additional Payment Info text field can be used to add various information regarding the payment process.

To describe the product you wish to sell and to attract more users you need to add a Short Description. This will be viewed on the listing pages.
Below the short description, you will find a WYSIWYG editor where you can add a detailed description which can be viewed on the auction's page. If allowed from the editor config, you may also be able to add an <iframe> or other video embed elements.

To make your auction easier to be found and to have more chances to sell your item, it is recommended that you add Tags related to it and Images, if allowed by the administrator.

Checking the Save to Default Settings checkbox will save values of certain fields that will be auto-filled on your future auctions.

Clicking on Save will display your newly created auction and its information or redirect you to a payment form, in case you have a negative balance and the payment for listing feature is enabled.

If applicable, check the Payment Plugins documentation for further information on publishing paid auctions and extra features.
As seen in the picture below, you can make your auction Featured by paying a defined amount, in case you have negative balance, you will be redirected to a payment form.

You can simply search for an auction by pressing the Search button in Dutch Auction Factory menu. You can choose different filters for your search, such as Category, Price range, etc.

From the Dutch Auction Factory menu, you can easily see all the available auctions. By clicking on the List Auctions button, you can also filter the results by their Start date, Retail price, Seller username or Highest Bid.

On the Categories area you will find all the active auctions, displayed by categories. In case you are interested in creating a New Auction within one Category, press the black and blue button right to the RSS Feed Button. You will immediately be redirected to the New Auction form we just covered up, with the Category Box auto checked.

You can also set the displaying of your categories to either Default or Tree.

There are also a few modules that can help you search for auctions:

• Dutch Auction Factory Category Navigation
• Dutch Auction Factory Category Tree
• Dutch Auction Factory Quick Search
• Dutch Auction Factory Price Range Search

You can find out how to set up modules here.

In case something is inappropriate about an auction, you can click on the Report button and then fill in the fields. Click on Send and an administrator will take care of it from the backend.

For an easier access to the auctions you are interested in, you can add auctions to your Watchlist. In order to do this, click on an auction and then on the "magnifier" button found next to the Report this auction button. By doing this, you will easily see the progress of any auction added to your Watchlist.

Here is a preview of the Watchlist page:

This section displays all the products that the respective user bought within Dutch Auction factory.

Dutch Auction Factory also has the feature to block or unblock users. If you have an available auction and some user sends you innapropriate messages, you can simply block them by clicking on the respective auction. Click on Messages tab, found at the bottom of the page, and press the Add this bidder to blacklist red plus sign left to the user. You can view your Blacklist by clicking the button with the same name within the menu.

(!) Documentation based on Dutch Auction Factory version 2.0.1.