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Feasibility of building an auction system with Airtable

  • October 6, 2024
  • 5 replies
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Hello Airtable Community!

I'm exploring the possibility of building an auction system using Airtable and I'm hoping to get some insights on its feasibility. Here's what I'm looking to create:

Use Case:

  • An auction system featuring 6 items, each represented by an image
  • Ability for users to place bids on these items
  • A way to recognize and identify users for subsequent bids
  • Real-time (or near real-time) updates of bid prices as new bids come in

Current Plan:

I'm considering using Airtable as the backbone of this system, potentially with Airtable Interfaces for the front-end. Here's my proposed structure:

  1. An "Items" table with fields for item details, current highest bid, and auction end time
  2. A "Bids" table linked to the Items table, recording each bid
  3. Views to display active auctions, ended auctions, and bids by item
  4. An interface with pages for browsing items, viewing item details, placing bids, and viewing one's own bids

Questions:

  1. Is this use case feasible with Airtable, particularly regarding real-time bid updates?
  2. What limitations or challenges should I be aware of?
  3. Are there any Airtable features or third-party integrations you'd recommend for enhancing this system?
  4. How would you handle user identification and preventing duplicate bids from the same user?
  5. Any tips for ensuring data integrity and preventing race conditions with simultaneous bids?

I'm relatively new to Airtable Interfaces, so any advice, cautions, or alternative approaches would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Best answer by DisraeliGears01

Interesting concept, but from what I know of Airtable I think the functionality is going to be too limited to trust with real money bids. If you're building something for like a classroom to teach principals it might work well enough though.

I might suggest an "Auctions" table in addition to "Items" and "Bids" that allows you to express more detail. I could see it being easy enough to create a flow adding a date/time to the auction with a duration field, then a formula field calculating the end time with either a view or automation that removes the auction from availability at end time.

I'd definitely look at one of the 3rd party form integrations, like Fillout, to handle the biddings. It should be able to document submission created time to use as a bid time flag. You might be able to use Fillout to handle recognizing bidders too, in Airtable proper the only way you're going to do that is with logged in Airtable accounts, which is onerous and also gets pricey giving people seats.

5 replies

DisraeliGears01
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Interesting concept, but from what I know of Airtable I think the functionality is going to be too limited to trust with real money bids. If you're building something for like a classroom to teach principals it might work well enough though.

I might suggest an "Auctions" table in addition to "Items" and "Bids" that allows you to express more detail. I could see it being easy enough to create a flow adding a date/time to the auction with a duration field, then a formula field calculating the end time with either a view or automation that removes the auction from availability at end time.

I'd definitely look at one of the 3rd party form integrations, like Fillout, to handle the biddings. It should be able to document submission created time to use as a bid time flag. You might be able to use Fillout to handle recognizing bidders too, in Airtable proper the only way you're going to do that is with logged in Airtable accounts, which is onerous and also gets pricey giving people seats.

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TheTimeSavingCo
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Interesting concept, but from what I know of Airtable I think the functionality is going to be too limited to trust with real money bids. If you're building something for like a classroom to teach principals it might work well enough though.

I might suggest an "Auctions" table in addition to "Items" and "Bids" that allows you to express more detail. I could see it being easy enough to create a flow adding a date/time to the auction with a duration field, then a formula field calculating the end time with either a view or automation that removes the auction from availability at end time.

I'd definitely look at one of the 3rd party form integrations, like Fillout, to handle the biddings. It should be able to document submission created time to use as a bid time flag. You might be able to use Fillout to handle recognizing bidders too, in Airtable proper the only way you're going to do that is with logged in Airtable accounts, which is onerous and also gets pricey giving people seats.


Hmm, all your users would need to have read-only access (and thus need to create free Airtable accounts) in order to view the real time updates.  This ties in to your user identification issue; assuming you're doing this with an Airtable form, you can toggle on a setting that'll let you see who submitted the form

You mention preventing duplicate bids, could you talk more about that?  Is it a worry of someone bidding the same amount twice in quick succession?

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re: preventing race conditions with simultaneous bids?

Hmm, I think this depends on the logic that you want actually.  A possible simple version of this would involve just taking the largest bid, regardless of the submission time.  If two bids with the exact same amount come in you can compare the tsubmission times down to the millisecond, so you'd be able to figure out whose to use from there too

Adam, Airtable Consultant - thetimesaving.company
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  • Samy_Zerrouki
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • October 8, 2024

Interesting concept, but from what I know of Airtable I think the functionality is going to be too limited to trust with real money bids. If you're building something for like a classroom to teach principals it might work well enough though.

I might suggest an "Auctions" table in addition to "Items" and "Bids" that allows you to express more detail. I could see it being easy enough to create a flow adding a date/time to the auction with a duration field, then a formula field calculating the end time with either a view or automation that removes the auction from availability at end time.

I'd definitely look at one of the 3rd party form integrations, like Fillout, to handle the biddings. It should be able to document submission created time to use as a bid time flag. You might be able to use Fillout to handle recognizing bidders too, in Airtable proper the only way you're going to do that is with logged in Airtable accounts, which is onerous and also gets pricey giving people seats.


thanks a lot! that could work 🙂 

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  • Samy_Zerrouki
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • October 8, 2024

Hmm, all your users would need to have read-only access (and thus need to create free Airtable accounts) in order to view the real time updates.  This ties in to your user identification issue; assuming you're doing this with an Airtable form, you can toggle on a setting that'll let you see who submitted the form

You mention preventing duplicate bids, could you talk more about that?  Is it a worry of someone bidding the same amount twice in quick succession?

---
re: preventing race conditions with simultaneous bids?

Hmm, I think this depends on the logic that you want actually.  A possible simple version of this would involve just taking the largest bid, regardless of the submission time.  If two bids with the exact same amount come in you can compare the tsubmission times down to the millisecond, so you'd be able to figure out whose to use from there too


thanks a lot! i'll use your logic for simultaneous bids a.nd ill find a solution for the user identification

regarding the duplicate bids, nevermind 🙂

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  • Samy_Zerrouki
  • Author
  • New Participant
  • October 8, 2024

On the bid page which is a form where I ask the amount a user wants to bid, is it possible to display the picture of the item dynamically?

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