Every auction venue deals with winning bidders that default and do not pay for auctions they win. I imagine every auction house has tools and processes in place to reduce the number of defaulting bidders, but I do not think it is possible to eliminate bidder defaults for a host of reasons.
Domain industry auction platforms that specialize in expiry domain name auctions have different policies regarding domain names that were not purchased by the high bidder. Here’s how I believe each operates when it comes to expired or deleted domain names:
Sedo hosted a keyword domain name auction that ended earlier today, and the full list of sales are below. There were 82 domain names that sold in the auction, and the gross revenue was just north of $30,000 USD.
The largest sale in auction was VirusCleaner.com, which sold for 8100 EUR. Rafting.org sold for 2788 EUR, and PilsBeer.com sold for $2,051.
The full list of sales is below. As usual, the report was sent the same day the auction closed, so these results are not yet confirmed. Once the buyers submit payment and the domain names are transferred to the new registrants, Sedo will report the closed sales to DNJournal and NameBio.
(Update – this was a “Great Domains” monthly auction)
Sedo Keyword Domain Auction – May 2020:
Finlead posted a couple of concerning tweets regarding his bidding account at GoDaddy Auctions. Unless this is a new and concerning policy at GoDaddy that I was not aware of before, my guess is this is some sort of error:
@godaddyauctions sends me an email that a bidder defaulted and as 2nd highest bidder I can pick up the name in the next 24h. I decided to pass, yet the name still shows up in my “won” list 3 days later. Now can’t bid on any auctions because I’m “currently blocked from bidding”…
— Finlead (@finlead) May 26, 2020
“You are currently blocked from bidding due to unpaid items” I don’t want that item dear @godaddyauctions. Please accept this and get your fake bidding in order instead of hassling me.
— Finlead (@finlead) May 26, 2020
Could we see the largest public domain name sale of the year in less than a week? Lifestyle.com has a 2,000,000 GBP bid in a Sedo auction, and it shows that the reserve has been met. At today’s exchange rate, that bid is $2,436,600 USD. The auction was first noted yesterday by Logan Flatt:
https://t.co/6U98UFRgyj currently has a $2.0 Million GBP bid on it at @Sedo. Legit bid?
— Logan (@LoganFlatt) May 21, 2020
Tema.com was sold at DropCatch.com for $128,938 on May 13th. The winning bidder apparently did not pay for the auction, and the domain name was reauctioned on DropCatch.com. The auction concluded this afternoon, and the closing price this time around was $43,805. The difference between the original auction and the second auction was a whopping $85,133. Quite a haircut for the auction house.
