I just received an email from my Account Manager at GoDaddy announcing a new round of private auctions featuring GoDaddy-owned inventory. At the end of 2023, the company also auctioned hundreds of its own domain names, including two that I won – Posto.com and DogSitter.com.
While the fact that GoDaddy is running another auction with its own inventory is somewhat notable, something in the email caught my attention:
“GoDaddy is continuing the momentum by hosting another auction event to gather more feedback from investors before potentially opening the doors to other domain sellers.”
The bold emphasis was added by me.
It looks like GoDaddy is considering allowing third parties to list domain names for sale via its GoDaddy Auction platform. At least that is my interpretation.
I am not really sure I’d like to see other investors selling their domain names on the platform since one major benefit of buying expiry-stream domain names is that they may not have been offered for sale before. In addition, most (smart) investors would do outbound marketing to better their chances of selling inventory, and I don’t particularly want to buy domain names that other people already marketed.
I am sure there are plenty of people who really like the idea of having a platform with monied buyers to sell their domain names, but it’s not super appealing to me as a buyer. Of course, I am open to reconsidering if I ever need some liquidity 🙂
I posted this as a poll on X so you can vote here:
Would you like to see private auctions on GoDaddy Auctions?
— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) June 4, 2024
Sure why not. More options to sell domains the better. Not saying I would do it though.
What the advantages of private auctions??
Open marketplace open network more eyeballs and even aliens can bid
GoDaddy added some clarity to this: https://x.com/godaddyauctions/status/1798135843565248687
I noticed that too Elliot, and you have to wonder why did they just get rid of 7 day public auctions and then think about introducing auctions for users again. There were a lot of people upset about the 7 day auctions disappearing. That surprised me because so many names that were marked public auction did nowhere near as well.
Years ago, working with someone they had legitimately forgot about a ton of 4L.coms, these all got to auction expired and then they renewed them as you could after the auction before GoDaddy changed the process.
Names that closed at $1,400 were later listed as a public auction and were lucky to see 20 to 30 % of the expired prices.
For many reasons domainers will not put money in another domainer’s pocket. I understand your, “I don’t particularly want to buy domain names that other people already marketed.”
It will be interesting to see what happens with this.
Timing is important with domain sales, but if a domain investor had a landing page advertising a name for many years and it didn’t sell, I don’t usually want to buy it and sit on it longer – especially if they already reached out to end users who weren’t interested.
Oh I did not see the reply you left with more info from GoDaddy on X. So this would not be everyday you, me or the world can start a 7 day auction. This would be a structured, special event. That could be interesting.
Thanks for the post.
Yeah – I am glad that was clarified.