Is my data safe with TM Auctions?
The first rule of thumb for Thomas Multimedia is to always make our applications as secure as possible, and this has been a major emphasis throughout the development of this product. We take all reasonable precautions to protect your auction website. Your data is stored on top quality dedicated servers and backed up daily. We undergo regular security and backup audits to ensure you are protected comprehensively from internet threats. Our uptime is above 99%.
Do I have to host my site on your servers?
TM Auctions, like any specialised web application, works best in a highly controlled hosting environment. Our experience as professional web developers has taught us that it really pays long term dividends to be in a secure, scaleable, fast and reliable hosting environment. This allows us to have full control of all the security and performance settings that otherwise might be out of our control. Additionally we can continue to scale our hosting environment as required, rather than having to migrate auction sites from one server to another - believe us when we say, it is a painful process!
Can I add TM Auctions to my existing website?
Yes! TM Auctions can be hosted in any directory on your website. For example you might have www.mysite.com/store/, which contains all the auction related files. We simply transfer the files related to your existing website onto our high end servers and your website hosting will be included in your monthly fee. Important Note: to uphold our stringent security standards, we only accept static HTML web files and images, and you will not be provided with FTP access to your files. We can however update files on request. If you have a dynamic site or would otherwise like to have FTP access to your existing website, we recommend registering a new domain name, that is dedicated to your auction website only. You could then simply link your existing website to your auction website and vice versa. Our inbuilt CMS adds the ability to add, edit and delete an unlimited of pages as well as keeping your general site content organised into categories.
What do you mean by "active auctions"?
The number of active auctions on a TM Auction website is a tally of all the currently open items - that is any item that has not sold or closed and has an end date in the future.
Why do you limit the number of auctions on Basic and Plus plans?
As the number of auctions increases, so too does the overhead in searching, browsing and processing auctions on our servers. We limit the total number of auctions on the Basic and Plus plans to keep a tab on the total auctions running per server.
Why is TM Auctions better than other (often cheaper) auction systems?
You get what you pay for.
You don't have to look too hard to find dozens of "web software companies" flogging off auction scripts for a few hundred dollars - they are playing the quantity over quality game, whereas Thomas Multimedia prefers the quality over quantity approach. Our clients are confident in the fact that they are buying into a thought-out, scaleable auction solution. What TM Auctions provides is a starting point with potential. The old saying "you get what you pay for" is perfectly as true online as it is when comparing anything else. We are prepared to (and regularly) turn away prospective clients if we get the sense that they would rather play the lottery of cheap software solutions.
What if I want to cancel my account?
You may cancel your account at any time. Unless otherwise requested, your site will remain live for the remainder of the current month. At the conclusion of the month, your auction website will be taken down and permanently deleted from our servers.
Where is your hosting based?
All our servers are based in Brisbane, Australia. They are located in a state-of-the-art inner city data-center, and connected directly to the major fibre optic networks.
What country are you based in?
Thomas Multimedia is based on the Gold Coast, Australia.
Buy it now is a special auction with a predetermined buy it now price. Provided the auction doesn't have any standard bids, any member may press the buy it now button and secure the item immediately.
All auctions with a TM Auctions website come with a pre-defined set of parameters, such as title, starting bid, reserve price and description. The variants functionality on our Premium plan allows you to create unique additional fields for anything you like, and apply them to any category you like. The value(s) entered by the seller will be shown on the auction page as well as on the search pages, making the search process incredibly unique and flexible.
For example, if you had a clothing auction website, you might have a variant called "fabric", whereby the seller could enter the type of fabric the garment is made from. A buyer can then select to view only cotton based auctions and thereby filter out all other fabric types.
You may set a commission percentage so that all sellers on your website pay a percentage of each sale to you at the end of each month. Commission is automatically calculated based on sales data and sellers are emailed an invoice automatically with a Paypal pay now option.
What will I have control over?
TM Auctions features 3 user account level permissions - buyer, buyer/seller, buyer/seller/administrator. An administration account will be created initially, allowing you to access the admin control panel and control everything from categories, auctions, fees and commission, user accounts, newsletters and much more.
What programming languages does TM Auctions use?
Like all Thomas Multimedia software, TM Auctions is built using LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP. We use a combination of standards compliant XHMTL, Javascript/Ajax and CSS for the frontend.
While we are not willing to debate which programming language is better than the other, we simply wish to point out that an auction site can be achieved in all the frontline programming languages - we choose PHP and it works beautifully for us.
For those unfamiliar with the ins and outs of programming languages, PHP has been used to create the likes of Yahoo, Facebook and Flickr, all of which are amongst the busiest websites in the world. For example, Facebook receives around 14 milliion new photos per day! If its good enough for them, it's good enough for us.
We feel the golden rule for an auction sites' success is its exposure + value to its target audience.