Reason to List a Domain Name at a Great Domains Auction

Elliot Silver
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12

I just received an email from Sedo, and I think this tactic is an advantage to listing a name in the Great Domains monthly auction vs. other venues. Here’s the email I received:

Subject: Auction started for [redacted].com

Hello Elliot

You previously expressed interest in purchasing the domain [redacted].com through Sedo’s marketplace. We would like to inform you that the seller is holding a public auction for the domain.
The auction is live and will end on Dec/13/12 12:00 PM EST.If you are still interested in [redacted].com this might be your last chance to purchase it before someone else! The reserve will be displayed on the auction page once it has been met. The domain will definitely sell once the reserve has been met and the auction closes.

View the current activity [redacted]

For information on domain auctions please visit the FAQ section of our website.

Best Regards,

Your Sedo Team

 

It appears that Sedo automatically sends an email to anyone who previously bid on a domain name when the domain name is sent to auction. This is a great way to reactivate leads who at one time were interested in the name and may have further interest.

I’ve always stressed how important it is to reconnect with people who have inquired about a domain name when you receive a tempting purchase offer. Sedo’s automatic email will likely bring more buyers to the table, especially since the domain owner doesn’t have the contact information for past leads.

Knowing that Sedo does this would make me more inclined to list a name for sale in a Great Domains auction if it had received bids in the past.

.CO Auction Results from Sedo

Elliot Silver
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11

The .CO startup auction at Sedo  ended a week ago, and the sale generated about $55,000. Home.CO was the highest value sale, closing at just under $25k, followed by Hot.CO at $10k.

I spoke with a representative from Sedo about the auction, and he told me that over $60,000 in bids were received on domain names that did not meet the reserve price. The company currently has domain brokers working to close many of these. Assuming the bids are legit, there will likely be additional closed deals since the .CO Registry owns the listed domain names.

With that in mind, if you saw a name you liked but thought it wasn’t fairly priced, you should get in touch with a broker from Sedo (maybe Dave Evanson) to try and work out a deal with the Registry.

.CO auction results:

home.co 24999 $US
hot.co 10000 $US
fwd.co 4905 $US
exit.co 2050 $US
astrology.co 2000 $US
demo.co 1600 $US
mvp.co 1500 $US
kind.co 1050 $US
comm.co 1013 $US

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Sedo’s .CO Auction for Startups Closing

Elliot Silver
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4

The .CO Registry is running a special auction targeting start up companies as part of  Global Entrepreneur Week. According to the auction announcement, “the domain names selected for the auction are all short, unique and memorable, with high branding potential for those seeking to launch or grow their business, brand, product or service online.”

The auctions begin closing at noon (eastern) today, and the reserve prices range from $500-999 to $10,000-$24,999. Out of the 164 domain names in the auction, 67 of them have bids, although most seem to be below reserve at the moment.

My 5 favorite domain names (based on the target startup audience):

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Sedo Reminder Email is a Bit Confusing

Elliot Silver
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11

About a week ago, I placed a $1,750 bid on a domain name via Sedo, and the owner sent a counter offer. The name had been listed for a BIN price of my offer, and was changed just prior to my bid, so I wasn’t interested in paying more, and I didn’t bother to check the counter offer.

Yesterday, I received an email from Sedo that was confusing to me. The email read:

Dear Elliot Silver,

We write to remind you of the offer of 23000 $US that was recently submitted for domain [redacted].

Please login to your Sedo account to negotiate or complete the sale.
Please don’t delay; offers are only binding for seven days.”

When I first read the email, I thought it was a phishing attempt because it didn’t read very well. I know Sedo is based in Germany, but when targeting the US market, the company should consider having one of its US-based staff pen the email. It might seem silly, but $US is not commonly written, so that also threw me off.

In addition to the grammar issues, the email was a bit confusing to me, possibly because I didn’t know about the $23,000 counter offer. In my opinion, it would have been more clear if the email mentioned it was a counter offer.

My suggestion would be to send this: “We write to remind you of the counter offer of $xx,xxx that was recently submitted for [domain name].”

I appreciate the fact that Sedo has added the amount to the email, but I think the wording needs to be changed.

Sedo Releases Q3 2012 Market Report

Elliot Silver
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5

Sedo  released its Q3 2012 domain market study this morning, and as usual, it’s filled with interesting insight from the company. Because Sedo probably sells the highest volume of aftermarket domain names, the information shared is fairly indicative  of the health of the domain market.

I want to share some highlights from the market study (also called the market report), and you can download the pdf on Sedo’s website  to read the report in its entirety.

Q3 2012 Market Study highlights:

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WebHosting.co.uk Sells for Half a Million USD

Elliot Silver
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7

 

Sedo domain broker Dave Evanson just announced a big sale on his Twitter and Facebook accounts. According to Evanson, WebHosting.co.uk sold for $500,000 USD. It does not appear that the domain name has been transferred to a new owner yet.

Although the domain name is not currently resolving, it appears to have been an active site. Screenshots.com provides a view of the site from as recently as July.

According to the year to date domain sales chart maintained by DNJournal, this sale is the largest ccTLD sale of 2012 by a wide margin. The second highest sale was for just under $200,000.

It’s interesting that a buyer spent half a million dollars on a .co.uk domain name considering the Nominet proposal to introduce .uk domain names to the marketplace. Edwin Hayward discussed the perils of this proposal in a guest post on my blog yesterday.

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