Auction and Raffle Site Launch Checklist: Legal, Payments, Cron and Testing

Opening an auction or raffle site to the public is mostly a matter of not forgetting things. Forget a payment's test mode, a cron job or a seeded support address, and it shows up as a lost sale, a draw that never runs, or a customer email sent to the wrong place. This is the one-page checklist we'd work through before launching a BidKing, RaffKing or PrizeX site. Each item says where to find it in the admin.

Start with the checklist the software already has. Admin › Documentation › Before you open checks your real settings and turns each line green once it's done:

• site name and logo;
• support email;
• currency and time zone;
• a way to get paid;
• cron running;
• the four policy pages;
• something to sell;
• email sending.

The list below covers those and the things a settings check can't see.

Legal

• Know which of your formats need a licence. Ordinary auctions of goods are sales. Raffles, lotteries, paid-bid auctions and paid prize games can be treated as gambling, and the rules differ by country and sometimes by state. The operator is responsible for compliance, so check with a local lawyer before launch, for every country you sell to.
• Check the minimum age. Every sign-up path checks the age set under Settings › Sign-up & compliance. It's at least 18 once any adult-only add-on is active, and you can raise it but not lower it below that.
• Running raffles in the UK? Read our guide to UK prize competitions, skill questions and free postal entry.
• Decide how your draws are run. On a new store, Verified draws (Plugins › Lottery) are on. Each automatic draw is committed to a secret seed when it's made, its result comes from that seed and public randomness published after it closes, and anyone can recalculate it on the draw's Verify page. With Verified draws on, manual draws and auto-extend are off. An open draw can still be cancelled with full refunds, or converted to one marked "Not verified". Decide whether that's what you want before your first draw.

Payments

• Test every gateway in test mode first. Each automatic gateway has Live payments and Test mode. Test mode sends buyers to the provider's sandbox with your test keys, so no real money moves. Make a complete payment and check that it's credited, then switch to live keys.
• Paste the return and notification addresses into each provider's dashboard. The gateway's settings page shows them with a copy button.
• Replace the sample manual payment details. UPI, Bank Transfer and PayTM QR are always there. On new installs they start switched off, with placeholder details. If yours show sample details, the Payment Gateways page warns you. Put in your real details, or leave them off. Manual payments are approved under Finance › Manual Payments.
• Know where pending payments are. Payment requests lists every payment. For gateways that support Check with gateway, the site asks the provider and settles a pending payment only if the amount and currency match.
• Check the tax rules. A fresh install includes sample tax rules. Under Tax Settings, review or delete them before launch, and set the rules that apply to you.

Server and cron

• PHP 8.2 or newer with mysqli, json, curl, openssl, sodium, zip and GD, and MariaDB. The installer checks the first five. Check zip and GD yourself. Our guide to installing on a VPS with nginx covers a full server setup.
• HTTPS on, and forced. Turn on a certificate at your host. On Apache, un-comment the HTTPS redirect lines in .htaccess.
• One cron job, every minute. cron/dispatch.php runs everything timed: ending auctions, declaring winners, draws, queued emails and clean-up. Without it, nothing timed happens. Settings › Security Logs › Cron Logs shows the exact command for your site and when cron last ran.
• Writable folders: plugins/, assets/themes/, images/, storage/ and logs/, owned by the web server's user.

Settings to get right before the first sale

Most settings can still be changed later, but changing some of them once people have bought gets messy:

• Currency (Settings › General). It isn't locked, but it's what every price, payment and gateway match is checked against. Set it before you list anything.
• Time zone. If you change it later, times already saved, such as end times, draws and expiries, keep their clock time and are read in the new zone.
• Coin price, if you use a coin wallet. A change applies to new top-ups straight away, while balances already held don't change. Check the decimal point before you save.
• Listings lock as people take part. Once an auction has bids, what was bid on is locked. Once a lottery has sold tickets, its ticket rules are locked. Get the details right before you open them.

Content and terms

• Rewrite all four policy pages: terms, privacy, refund and cookie, under Settings › Pages & Policies. A new install includes sample text written for our own site. The admin checklist only checks that a page has text, so replace the sample even when the line is green.
• Set your support email under Settings › General. A new install starts with ours, and the checklist only checks that it isn't empty.
• Remove the sample SEO entries from the SEO screen, and write your own page titles and descriptions.
• Email. Set up SMTP under Settings › Email and use Send a test email. Marketing email stays blocked until you set a postal address and the site URL, though receipts and password resets still send.

Testing a full purchase

Before launch, go through the whole journey as a customer, with gateways in test mode:

• Register a new account, and check that the age check works.
• Top up the wallet or pay at checkout, and check that the payment appears under Payment requests and is credited.
• Bid on a test auction, or buy tickets for a test draw.
• Let cron end it, and check that the winner is declared and the winner email arrives.
• Claim the prize or check out, and move the order through processing, shipped and delivered under Orders.
• Look at the cron log and the email send log to confirm everything ran.

Take this test seriously: a lottery's ticket rules lock once tickets are sold, so use test listings, not your real launch listings.

Launch day

• Use maintenance mode until you're ready. Settings › Maintenance takes the storefront offline, with a private link that lets you keep testing. Turn it off to open.
• Download a database backup from the Software update page before launch, and before every update. Software updates can be rolled back, but your database isn't copied by the update.
• Watch the first day: the cron log, Payment requests, Manual Payments and the email send log.
• Have support ready. Customers ask questions in the first hours.

For week-to-week running after launch, see updates, cron and backups.

Common questions

Is there a launch checklist in the admin?

Yes. Admin › Documentation › Before you open checks your real settings: site name and logo, support email, currency and time zone, a payment method, cron, the policy pages, something to sell and email. Each line turns green by itself once it's done.

What happens if cron isn't set up?

Nothing timed happens. Auctions don't end, winners aren't declared, draws don't run and queued emails aren't sent. Set one cron job to run cron/dispatch.php every minute, and check Settings › Security Logs › Cron Logs.

Can I change the currency after launch?

It isn't locked, but every price, payment and gateway check uses it. Set it before you list anything, and avoid changing it once people have paid.

Do I need a licence to run raffles?

In many countries, yes, and the rules differ by country and sometimes by state. The operator is responsible for compliance, so check with a local lawyer before launch.