Domain Roundtable Auction Preview for Monday, April 21.
Sunday, April 20th, 2008
Will this year’s Domain Roundtable auction beat last year’s sales tally? It will be an uphill battle.
Domain Roundtable’s live domain name auction kicks off tomorrow at 11 a.m. PDT. Last year’s Domain Roundtable auction introduced a new wave of technology into live auctions by broadcasting live and accepting bids over the internet. It was also deemed successful with over $3 million in domains sold. (There were a couple hitches, however, including an auction that lasted way too long.)
Will Monday’s auction sell as much as last time? I suspect it won’t, and here’s why.
First, there aren’t any killer domains in the auction with good reserves. The last auction had Invention.com that sold for $500k and Rebate(s).com that sold for a combined $1 million. The big ticket domains in this auction seem overpriced for the typical domain investment bidder. Consider these:
Smash.com $300k
Hike.com $620k
Holiday.com $6.5 million
Illusionist.com $280k
The two two character domains in the auction, KG.com and FG.com, seem priced only for end users at $500,000 each.
Second, the auction will be way too long once again. People will lose interest. Domain Roundtable decided to give all paid attendees a guaranteed listing in the auction. As a result, there are over 300 domains in the auction. A live auction shouldn’t have more than a couple hundred domains. If you’ve ever attended one, you know how people start to walk out after 150 names or so. Unless the auction runs much faster per name than the last one, this will stretch four or more hours. At least it starts early.
The saving grace could be a number of mid-range domain sales.
Don’t get me wrong — I’ll be excited if the auction surpasses the last one (in dollars, not time). But the odds are stacked against it.
Related posts:
- Domain Roundtable Sets Ground Rules for Domain Name Auction
- Domain Name Roundtable conference set for April 2006
- Is It Time to Suspend the Live Domain Name Auction?
Tags: domain auction, domain roundtable
Great analysis Andrew.
I think they are still whittling down the lists too keep it short and weed out some names.
Domain Roundtable Auction Preview – nice domain names are in there – I am sure that they will sell for big Bucks$$$$.
What on earth is going on with their “Best Blog Community” voting. Of course Frank was compelling reading … before he, (and Rick S) went on sabbatical. Eliot is a nice kid…but the BEST ? I don’t think so. You’ve got my vote Andrew, your hard work and diligence is worthy of recognition. Give yourself a medal.
@ LDA – thanks. I was surprised to see Frank on there since he basically stopped blogging. I do give a thumbs up to the other two winners.
I think perhaps I have a bad habit of saying a negative thing or two about Domain Tools. I say great things when NI does good things, but also tell it like it is…which may put me down on the list
Andrew–it’s not a bad habit to call ‘em as you see ‘em (all the best blogs–in all industries–do).
Keep up the excellent analysis and great job you’re doing…and let the “award chips” fall where they may…we don’t need anymore pablum than there already is out there.
We all need to be questioned, challenged, and called out from time to time.
In fact, it’s good for us.
ps Curious that there are as many “ties” as there are in the various “best of” “competitions” out there.
Out of; I assume (I know; dangerous to do); what–perhaps 100’s of entries…2 or 3 services/ companies really had exactly the same votes. Exactly?
Or is/was it a case of, “Oh, what the heck–they’re so close, let’s just call it a tie?”
Just wondering…
Regretfully, it looks like my forecast for the auction was spot on. I don’t see anything that crossed the $25k mark.
Not necessarily a sign of a weak market. Just a week selection (at the set reserves).
I just looked at the auction results as of now and they are pitiful. It looks like about 15% of the domains met their reserve and sold. There will be a lot of unhappy sellers. I was surprised looking down the list of domain names how many of them had been held for 9+ years with a reserve price of less than a thousand. You’d hardly make back your registration fees!
I regularly tell my clients and anyone else who reads my blog that Domainnamewire.com (Andrew Allemann) and Sahar Sarid’s blog The Conceptualist, and of course, DNjournal.com as the best domain news sites out there. I mean that even if Frank and Rick were still writing in their blogs. No disrespect to them, but they aren’t dedicated to the forum like Andrew is. Oh yes, Adam and Frank Michlich with Domainnamenews.com are tops. Spread the love!