Sedo’s highly anticipated auction system will launch on October 23.
Sedo’s auction system goes live next week and new details are available. As I suggested last week, the auction system will work similar to Afternic. When you receive a good offer on a domain you can trigger the reserve. This will send the domain into an auction that lasts up to 7 days. You can trigger the reserve up to 5 days after the initial offer is made. Auction domains will receive prominent exposure on Sedo’s home page.
As I discussed last week, this is great for sellers. You will no longer have to negotiate with one person at a time and you will be able to maximize your sales price.
After giving it careful thought, I also think this is good for buyers. In the past some buyers would reject your offer because they thought it was too low. Based on various DNForum postings I’ve read, many domainers were unsure whether to accept offers and often times countered with prices that were too high. As a buyer you might start to see some domains being sent to auction rather than receiving unrealistic counter offers.
Sedo is moving in the right direction. Part of this might be due to increasing competition. Moniker is making a deeper push into the domain resale business laster this month. Competition is good; it causes existing players to innovate.
There’s another upgrade I’d like to see at Sedo. Right now most domains are listed as “make offer”. Most of my domains are listed this way, so I’m not complaining about that. But often times you will receive offers that are significantly below other offers you’ve received, and then you have to take the time to counter offer and see if the bidder is serious about the domain. It would be nice if Sedo set the floor for future offers at the last offer amount, similar to Afternic. For example, if I make a $1,000 offer on a domain that previously received a $1,500 offer, I would get an error message such as this:
“We’re sorry, but the owner of this domain previously rejected an offer that is higher than your offer. Please enter another offer.”
Of course, sellers would be able to turn this feature off for individual domains.
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