Auction attracts bidders, but none are willing to pay the reserve prices.
A domain name auction on Sedo for registry-reserved .bid and .trade domain names has closed with no sales.
The auction included 35 domain names, 10 of which received bids.
The top auction was PPC.bid at $1,050, which was below its stated reserve of between $1,000 and $5,000.
The nine other domains that received bids all closed below $1,000 but had reserves above $1,000.
Personally, I’m a fan of running new TLD auctions without reserves and letting the market decide the price. I understand that registries might worry that it’s too “early”, and having no reserve auctions could result in low-priced sales. But if you’re worried it’s too early, then you shouldn’t run an auction right now. (A very wise and experienced TLD operator once told me that auctions are not the way to sell premium domains.)
I don’t see a big downside to auctioning off just a fraction of reserved domains at no reserve. .Buzz recently did that at NameJet and was able to get a handful of sales, including Celebrity.buzz for $575.
Robbie says
Why pay today, in a few weeks they will be giving them away free… .trades, .trading, .bid, .bidding.
Much to the registries demise real money cannot be replicated like GTLD’s, time for a reality check.
DNPric.es says
Too many nice names to register and no so many buyers with big pockets…
Joseph Peterson says
Auctions can backfire. The apparent devaluation from low bidding can have lasting effects.
With lower-valued sales, at least the domains would either be built into websites by end-user buyers or more aggressively marketed by domainers absorbing the registry’s risk.
Bul says
Junk I say