My picks for the Aftermarket.com auction were right 82% of the time.
I used a stunningly complex methodology to pick the winners in yesterday’s Aftermarket.com auction at Domainer Mardi Gras: I made a gut call on whether or not someone would bid on the name. Yep, that’s it. No complex algorithms. No looking up advertiser or traffic counts. Just making a call.
I was right 82% of the time. I underestimated the number of domains that would sell. I predicted 57%; I calculate a 69% sell-through rate. Aftermarket.com is clearly setting the bar for sell-through rates in auctions. This feeds on itself; if a domain is in an Aftermarket.com auction then you can be fairly sure it’s a worthy domain at the price.
Here are the domains that sold that I missed:
CandyCane.com – $10,000 – I’m still shaking my head on this one. The plural makes absolute sense, but the singular doesn’t mean much to me. Oh well.
Jobless.com – $14,000 – not only did it sell, but it had 4 bids. I’ve always thought of it as unemployed, not jobless, but clearly this domain is counter cyclical
AirlineRewards.com – I’ve very happy this one sold. I bought it at auction a couple years ago, sold it to Craig Rowe of WhyPark last year, and then he turned around and sold it. Both of us sold it for more than we bought it, which just goes to show the market is still strong for lower priced domains.
Voodoo.com – OK, I just didn’t think someone would pull out 300 Gs at the auction. Well done. Kudos to DomainConsultant for having the guts to put this one in the auction.
ExerciseGuide.com
Suntanning.com
Dreamy.com
Here are the domains I thought would sell that didn’t:
RentalVillas.com
CashforSites.com
I’m sure Aftermarket.com is patting itself on the back for this auction. Between another solid sell-through rate and the Voodoo.com sale, it surely met expectations. Keep in mind that this auction had only 51 domains, compared to 200 or more at most domain auctions.
Marg says
It’s a pity DT didn’t finalize the auction catalog several weeks (instead of 24 hours) before the event. This would have given more time to market the auction beyond the domainer circuit.
BTW. I believe that “Candy Cane” is the name of an adult movie “star”, which might help explain that sale!
David J Castello says
Any idea who bought Voodoo.com?
Johnny says
@David…..Maybe it was Satan himself.
Who else has that kind of money for Voodoo.com?
Eric says
HP owns the Voodoo PC brand. Don’t have any inside info but I would consider them a good candidate as the buyer.
Eric says
DNN suggests that the buyer of Voodoo.com is Donny from Parked.com. Still see HP as the perfect end user for this domain.
Joel says
This is true???
“Voodoo.com was bought by the guy from Parked.com who hosted the auction, so not certain this is for real.”
The above remark was taken from:
http://namebio.com/NameBioBlog/domainer-mardi-gras-auction/
Andrew Allemann says
My first guess on Voodoo.com was that Sig or Donny from Parked bought it, since they are (formerly) from New Orleans.
Parked.com did not host the auction. Modern Domainer hosted the auction.
Andrew Allemann says
FYI Looks like Freddie from EuroDNS was seller on Voodoo.com.
dch says
I know the founder of VoodooPC, he was interested at 30k but not 300 🙂
Paul Fisher says
Not sure about the US but here in the UK ‘jobless’ is heard quite often (and increasingly so!), as in “New jobless figures out today…”
Andrew Allemann says
@ Paul – yes, but that’s for a lot of people as a whole. I’m thinking of the business potential of the domain, and in that case I think more of “unemployed”. I typically here “new unemployment numbers” but then also “the number of jobless…”
Adam says
I think the new owners are in the best position to monetize and optimize Voodoo.com I was told by one domainer who is intimately familiar with the history of monetizing that domain that it was the steal of the show.
dnsadmin says
BTW, rentalvillas.com and cashforsites.com are still available in the extended auction. Both have 0% financing available.
Marg says
I think that MedicalTextbooks.com (with an Estibot valuation of $56K)for $1500 was the “steal of the show”. Closely followed by StorageFacility.com for $5000 (when it sold last year at TRAFFIC for $18K). Following the NamePros thread on post-DMG auction comments, there’s a lot of happy campers that their names were not selected by Aftermarket for this auction…
Andrew Allemann says
I don’t think storage facility was a great deal. Lots harder to monetize than selfstorage.com, storagefacilities.com, etc.