In Lesson 45, we transformed our auction system from simply displaying the current highest bid into a much more transparent platform by introducing Bid History.

Instead of showing only the latest bid amount, visitors can now see every bid placed on an auction, who placed it, and when it was submitted. This feature is common on professional auction platforms because it builds trust and encourages competitive bidding.

In this implementation post, we’ll walk through the complete code used to build the Bid History feature.

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Step 1: Create a Method to Retrieve Bids

The first step is to retrieve all bids for a particular auction from the database.

Open:

includes/class-bid-manager.php

Add the following method inside the Flipnzee_Bid_Manager class.

/**
 * Get all bids for an auction.
 *
 * @param int $auction_id Auction ID.
 *
 * @return array
 */
public static function get_bids( $auction_id ) {

	global $wpdb;

	$bid_table = $wpdb->prefix . 'flipnzee_bids';

	return $wpdb->get_results(
		$wpdb->prepare(
			"SELECT *
			FROM {$bid_table}
			WHERE auction_id = %d
			ORDER BY bid_amount DESC,
			         created_at DESC",
			$auction_id
		)
	);

}

What this code does

• Retrieves every bid for the selected auction
• Uses prepared SQL statements for security
• Orders bids from highest to lowest
• Displays newer bids first if two bids have the same amount

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Step 2: Retrieve Bid History Inside the Shortcode

Open:

includes/class-shortcodes.php

Locate the auction details table.

Immediately after the closing </table> tag, retrieve all bids.

<?php
$bids = Flipnzee_Bid_Manager::get_bids(
	$auction['id']
);
?>

This gives us all bids belonging to the currently displayed auction.

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Step 3: Display the Bid History Heading

If bids exist, display a heading.

<h3>Bid History</h3>

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Step 4: Handle Auctions With No Bids

Before creating the table, check whether any bids exist.

<?php if ( empty( $bids ) ) : ?>

<p>No bids have been placed yet.</p>

<?php else : ?>

This provides a better user experience than displaying an empty table.

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Step 5: Create the Bid History Table

Now create the HTML table.

<table class="flipnzee-bid-history">

<thead>

<tr>

<th>Bidder</th>

<th>Amount</th>

<th>Time</th>

</tr>

</thead>

<tbody>

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Step 6: Display Every Bid

Loop through all bids.

<?php foreach ( $bids as $bid ) : ?>

<?php
$user = get_userdata(
	$bid->bidder_id
);
?>

<tr>

<td>

<?php
echo esc_html(
	$user
	? $user->display_name
	: 'Unknown'
);
?>

</td>

<td>

<?php
echo '$' .
	number_format_i18n(
		$bid->bid_amount,
		2
	);
?>

</td>

<td>

<?php
echo esc_html(
	wp_date(
		'd M Y g:i A',
		strtotime(
			$bid->created_at
		)
	)
);
?>

</td>

</tr>

<?php endforeach; ?>

This code displays:

• Bidder name
• Bid amount
• Bid date and time

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Step 7: Close the Table

Finish the table.

</tbody>

</table>

<?php endif; ?>

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Step 8: Improve the Table Appearance

Open:

assets/css/frontend.css

Add the following styles.

.flipnzee-bid-history{
	width:100%;
	border-collapse:collapse;
	margin:20px 0;
}

.flipnzee-bid-history th,
.flipnzee-bid-history td{
	padding:10px;
	border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;
	text-align:left;
	white-space:nowrap;
}

.flipnzee-bid-history th{
	background:#f5f5f5;
	font-weight:600;
}

This produces a cleaner and more professional table.

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Final Result

After completing this lesson, each auction page now displays something like:

Bidder	Amount	Time
Rajeev Bagra	$66,666.00	03 Jul 2026 12:09 PM
Rajeev Bagra	$444.00	03 Jul 2026 12:09 PM

Visitors can immediately understand:

• Who is bidding
• How the auction has progressed
• When bids were placed
• The current competition

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Troubleshooting During Development

While implementing this feature, a few issues were encountered and resolved:

• Initially, the page displayed “No bids have been placed yet.” even though bids existed in the database.
• A temporary debug statement was added to display the current auction ID, confirming that the correct auction (Auction ID: 31) was being queried.
• After verifying the auction ID and database records, the bid history displayed correctly.
• The bid amount column initially wrapped because of the narrow card layout; this was improved using CSS with white-space: nowrap.
• The raw database timestamp was replaced with a more readable format using wp_date().

These small debugging steps are a normal part of plugin development and highlight the importance of verifying data flow before assuming the query itself is incorrect.

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What We Achieved

By the end of this implementation, Flipnzee Auctions gained another feature found in professional auction platforms:

• ✅ Secure database retrieval of bid history
• ✅ Display bidder names
• ✅ Display bid amounts
• ✅ Display bid timestamps
• ✅ Graceful handling of auctions with no bids
• ✅ Clean, responsive frontend table
• ✅ Increased transparency and trust for bidders

Download Source Code

Download the starting version of the plugin before the lesson:

Download the completed version after this lesson:

In the next lesson, we’ll enhance the bidding engine further by introducing Minimum Bid Increment Validation, ensuring that every new bid must exceed the current highest bid by a configurable minimum amount.

• Category: Flipnzee Auctions – Build Along