According to DotWeekly, Snapnames is allowing customers who use their Seller Program to auction their names without transferring them to Snapnames’ registrar. They will now allow Moniker-residing domain names to be auctioned on their platform. Previously, if you wanted to auction your names using the private program, you had to transfer them to Snap first. With no guarantee of sale, it was doubling the registration fee, so it wasn’t always optimal.
I am kicking myself a bit right now, having recently sold 45 decent names for $1,000. My names were at Moniker, and I thought they would be great to sell via Snapnames, but I didn’t want to pay the $7+/- transfer fee. Three of the names on the list were similar to a name I sold via Snapnames in October for $750. Tough break, but my buyer got a great deal!
This is a great idea, and I applaud the folks at Oversee.net and Moniker for making this happen. Frequently when companies are acquired, the biggest hassle is when they try to work together. It seems that there is some good synergy between these two companies, and it’s working to benefit their customers.
DotWeekly: Snapnames Makes it Easy
Perfect Domain Auction Email Marketing Tactic
The best direct marketing tactic for a live domain auction I’ve seen didn’t come from an auction house. Nope – it wasn’t from one of the major companies actually hosting the auction. Today I received an email from someone who has a domain name listed for sale in the upcoming DomainFest Snapnames Live Auction.
“To Whom It May Concern:
Wu.net will attend the Domainfest auction (in person and also online) from Jan. 22, with reserved price of only US$ 10,000.
If you are interested, please visit their website as soon as possible, and make all the necessary preparations:
https://www.snapnames.com/liveAuctions.do
Thank you and good luck!
Meken”
I’ve seen many complaints from people who have names in various live auctions, and many of them are related to the auction house not doing a good enough job of bringing potential buyers to the auction. This seller isn’t going to simply rely on the auction house to bring a buyer for his name. He is going through his past emails, finding people who have inquired about this name in the past, and encouraging them to sign up and bid. I had sent him an email in October of 2006 when I was in the market for a 2 letter .net domain name.
I applaud Meken for not relying on Snapnames to bring potential bidders to the auction for WU.net (although with their fantastic auction inventory, I don’t think it will be a problem). I also happen to think he has a reasonable reserve price of just $10,000 for this nice domain name. I would bet that WU.net will have a new owner in a couple of weeks.
Sedo to Repeat .mobi Auction
According to a post on DomainNameNews.com and a post on NamePros, Sedo will be repeating the recent .mobi auction. In an email to clients, Sedo and the .mobi MTLD decided that the results of the recent auction would be null and void after some technical glitches occurred. As reported here, the initial auction set a sales record for total value of .mobi names sold ($1.5 million) and for the highest sales price for a .mobi name – $616,000 for Music.mobi.
.mobi MTLD and Sedo announced that they will will conduct a new auction at Sedo.com beginning on January 23rd, 2008. Coincidentally, this falls on the same day as the Snapnames/DomainFest live auction in Hollywood, California.
NameJet Launches, Partners with Net Sol
NameJet, which launched yesterday, is a new company entering the competitive deleting domain acquisition area of the domain business. In a partnership with Network Solutions, NameJet will be responsible for acquiring and auctioning Network Solutions’ deleting domain names. According to TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington,
“NSI, exercising a change in control termination clause, notified Snapnames/Oversee today that they were terminating their agreement and simultaneously launched Namejet with a rival registrar eNom (eNom is owned by Demand Media).” – Source: TechCrunch
This development was reported on Jay Westerdahl’s blog on October 1st. His report included information about a trademark application made by Network Solutions for NameJet.
It looks like starting the Snapnames Seller Program was a smart move for Snapnames, but I hope they don’t lose their active bidder audience, which is the reason I personally listed many names with Snap. So far, I have had success with the program, and I must say their customer service is fantastic.
Hunting for Gems at SnapNames
Even though it can be a lot of work to search through names to order at Snapnames, it is definitely worth the effort. I recently won an auction for VideoCameraWorld.com for about $110. I was only bidding against one other person, so apparently this name either slipped by everyone else and I found a gem, or other people don’t think this name is as valuable as I do. Some recent –Wold.com sales as report by DNSalePrice.com include:
PerfectWorld.com – $30,000
NudeWorld.com – $23,530
DesignerWorld.com – $21,000
WineWorld.com – $20,000
I know VideoCameraWorld.com isn’t worth as much as those gems, but I believe it is worth much more than $110. Keep on looking through Snapnames – its worth the effort! This is one of the most fun aspects of the domain investment industry.
Snapnames.com Files Suit Against Swapnames.com
According to this thread on Namepros, Swapnames.com was hit with a trademark infringement lawsuit and will be changing their domain name to Zuho.com. A link to the filing can be found here.