With a little about a day and a half left in its auction at Sedo, Dollars.com currently has a high bid of $385,990. This domain name changed hands in July of 2007 for $650,000. This is a strong domain name, and I predict it will close near the previous amount at which it sold.
DomainFest Auction Wasn’t All Bad
I think we can all agree that the Moniker live auction at DomainFest was pretty much a bomb, but I don’t really think this is a bad thing for the industry. There weren’t many bargains in the live auction, which shows that domain owners aren’t necessarily losing faith in their investments and selling their domain names for whatever the market will yield as a consequence. This shows that there is strength in domain assets, especially those that are of high value.
For the most part, it seemed that the high priced domain names that were listed were priced far too high for other domain investors to purchase. Sure, they may be worth the amount to someone with a solid business plan, but most domain investors don’t have business plans for names they plan to buy. Many have them for names they own, but it can be fruitless to build a business plan around a name that isn’t owned by us. This coupled with just a short amount of time between the final list publication and the auction, it’s not very likely that a plan can even be built.
Also, many of the names up for sale at auction have either been listed at other auction(s) recently or had been privately marketed recently. There were a couple of names I made private offers on in the last couple of months, and I decided against bidding on both (even though my offers would have equaled or superseded the reserve). Personally, I don’t like to buy at public auction, and I’ve only done so once. With a market in flux, I didn’t want to be the price setter – especially in a public auction.
So how can live auctions be improved? Mike and his readers have some good suggestions. I’ve also made a few additional suggestions in the past, mostly related to end user education. I still think it would be wise for a domain ambassador to attend a non-domain tradeshow and run small group sessions discussing the importance of generic domain names. Every single industry has tradeshows, and most tradeshows have opportunities for educational seminars. Why hasn’t any company made in-roads with end users yet (with the exception of when an end user already knows that he wants to buy a particular domain name)?
Over the past several years, it always seemed that live domain auctions would yield seven figures no matter what. Well, this isn’t really a reality any more. Domain owners are more picky about what they buy in this tight market, and without domain owners continuing to be speculators, it is much more difficult to produce eye popping auction results with domain investors being the primary target audience.
Times are changing, but I don’t think this is a bad thing for our maturing industry.
DomainInvesting.com a “Top Drop”
I just updated my picks for “Top Drops” on Snapnames. One name that might be of particular interest to domain owners in the name DomainInvesting.com. Although DomainInvesting.com does not appear to be a standard dropping domain name, it is certainly one that could be used by a domain investor in a variety of ways. It’s in auction through February 3, and the current auction price is just $240.
***UPDATE***
Bidding is now up to $675.
TRAFFIC Down Under ICA Auction
TRAFFIC Down Under will hold a charity auction of ten premium domain names with the revenue to be donated to the Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a non-profit advocate for the domain name industry.
The auction will benefit the ICA, a grass roots organization formed to ensure domain services and owners are robustly represented in areas of great risk and importance to the global domain community.
The ICA utilizes dues and contributions to enable activities related to legislative lobbying, regulatory representation, industry public relations, legal test case support, industry publication of statistics and reports, revenue research, and market intelligence. In order for the association to continue and expand its activities, it requires the support and participation from current members and the entire professional domain name community.
We are happy to announce that the top ten domains to be auctioned off are:
LanzaroteCanaryIslands.com – Kevin J. Sinclair
CityChicks.com – Anonymous
FreeRangeFoods.com – Howard Hoffman
AudioCabinets.net – Rick Latona
CarbBlockers.com – Fabulous.com
FranchiseCompany.com – Fabulous.com
BiometricReader.com – Fabulous.com
MovingCosts.com – Fabulous.com
DisplayUnit.com – Fabulous.com
BodybuildingProducts.com – Fabulous.com
These domains are to be auctioned without reserves at the conference Gala Dinner on the 19th November. Rick Latona Auctions has also committed to donate their expertise and time to manage the charity auction.
Domain Convergence Live Auction List
Below is the list for the FUSU Domain Convergence Live auction, which will be held on October 8th at 4pm EST. Internet bidding is available through http://dc.fusu.com. Domains that are not sold at the live auction will go to an extended 7 day Internet auction.
The list of domains in the auction and their reserve prices (minimum price at which they sell) is attached.
Domain Reserve
CanadaTrademarks.net $0
downloadpdfs.com $100
CanadianProduce.com $0
ArchiveSolution.com $1,000
Encrypt.com $75,000
PainKillerDrug.com $0
ChargerKits.com $0
kuq.net $1,000
uDonate.net $2,500
BankAdvice.com $1,000
ExpiredNames.com $7,500
NameBrokers.org $1,750
MrDomainer.com $500
BuyLand.ca
Trips.org $14,000
dk.org $50,000
Warning.net $15,000
CanadianPub.com $0
Wildlife.ca $2,500
TorontoBiz.ca $1,000
TorontoStreet.com $2,500
AlbertaForum.com $5,000
IndianCanadians.com $2,500
CelebrityNews.ca $200
FamilyLawAttorney.ca $2,250
FamilyLawAttorneys.ca $1,250
PlayCards.ca $1,500
Crisps.ca $5,000
Mcanada.com $750
TheCanadaStore.com $500
Climb.ca $2,500
PeoplePosting.com $750
Her.ca $3,000
Ross.ca $1,500
Consulting.ca $15,000
Quality.ca $4,800
LifeInsurancePolicies.com Nets $15k for ICA
An anonymous donor auctioned the domain name LifeInsurancePolicies.com at the TRAFFIC auction, netting $15,000 for the Internet Commerce Association. I didn’t notice this auction benefitted the ICA until this morning, and I wanted to make sure others know about it. Among other things, the ICA is currently assisting domain owners in reversing the Kentucky gambling domain decision.
The domain name VYK.com, which sold for $8,000, was also a donation to the ICA.