With the exception of some branding issues, submission process is easy.
I just finished submitting a half dozen domains to TrafficZ’s first live auction to be held at the TRAFFIC conference next month in Brooklyn. The submission process is done completely via a web based system and is easy to follow.
In fact, the only confusion you might encounter is branding. You’ll probably think of this auction as the TrafficZ auction. TrafficZ is part of Thought Convergence. But Thought Convergence is doing business as Aftermarket.com on the terms you agree to, and when you go to Aftermarket.com to submit domains you actually go to a DomainTools (also owned by Thought Convergence) system to submit domains. We can forgive Thought Convergence for all of the brands given the recent acquisitions of both DomainTools and Aftermarket.com.
Once you get past that it’s fairly straightforward. First, go to Aftermarket.com and agree to the terms. You’ll pay a 15% commission and agree to an exclusivity period. This period runs for 90 days from when you submit domains or 30 days after the auction, whichever is later. In this case, then, you’ll be agreeing to 90 days from when you submit domains. The terms do not delineate between domains accepted for the auction versus merely submitted. Thought Convergence confirmed to me that domains not accepted for auction will not be subject to the exclusivity period, but the company has up until the auction to accept your domains. In other words, if you submit domains you shouldn’t plan to market them between now and the auction. If they are accepted, you have to give Thought Convergence the full period to sell the domains.
After accepting the terms, just choose to list one or multiple domains, and even decide if you want to offer multiple domains as one lot. After setting optional reserve prices, go to the “Auction Manager” (pictured below) to start the ownership confirmation process. This involves receiving an e-mail address to the e-mail in the whois for your domain(s).
The auction will include 50 or 60 domains and last 90 minutes. This is a good number and will hopefully ensure high quality domains.
My personal feeling:
As a domainer that wants submit some premium domains for sale in these auctions I am a bit lost!!!
First:
Because to maximize my chances I need to submit these names in all the auctions.
But is it possible?
The other option is wait the response of one to submit to the other, but in this case this means they need to quickly say if submitted dmains have been accepted or no. It look likes it’s not the case.
Second:
In the case one can only select one auction platform for a given domain (and pray to be lucky) then how to make a choice, what are the differences, the type of names that will get more chance to get selected, …
Francois, I’d recommend spreading your domains across various companies and only submitting each domain to one company. So far I only know how to submit to TrafficZ and Moniker…we’ll see on the others. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rick Latona only sells his personal portfolio.
Hi Andrew,
You might be interested in Jamie Zoch’s blog post today:
Which TRAFFIC auction provider to choose to sell with?
http://snurl.com/WhichAuction
Patrick
I checked into the 4/5 TRAFFIC auction companies and only Aftermarket.com and Moniker.com are accepting domains currently. Sedo has never officially announced they were in or not. RickLatona.com is a no go for accepting domains. Bido.com never replied to my question and I do not see anything on their site about the TRAFFIC live auction, so one would assume they will be selling their own domains.
There is so much cronysm in the domain industry. I agree with Francois, its very difficult to determine where and if your domains will be accepted.
Personally, I yearn for the day Google can step in and become a leading domain auctioneer, simply by showing aftermarket domains for sale and to bid on when a user searches google with keywords or terms. It’s really only a question of time before something like this happens, otherwise 99% of domain holdings are simply worthless simply because the current system we have is just not marketing efficient.
Why can’t these leading auctioneers learn from the Art Auction industry for instance. If you have bought from Sotheby’s or Christies, you get an auction catalogue weeks in advance of the auction, you can even go along and browse the art or antique pieces and then make better plans on what to bid on. Plus the auction catalogues create wider publicity ahead of time.
Right now, the domain auction industry looks like childs play, through lack of real marketing innovation to create a global ubiquitous platform for this lucrative industry after 4 years now.
It really really cannot go on like this, otherwise this industry will just die! I certainly hope Google is listening…we need true innovation and domainers must take heed and speak out!
Just followed process, but saw no opportunity to verify domain ownership through email confirmation. Am viewing the Auction Manager, but no email confirmation links listed anywhere.
M. Menius – on the auction manager page click the checkmark box for all domains and then at the bottom of the page select “confirm” as your action.
Robert Haastrup-Timmi writes:
“Right now, the domain auction industry looks like childs play, through lack of real marketing innovation to create a global ubiquitous platform for this lucrative industry after 4 years now ”
The domain “industry” for premium names has been around since the mid-90’s when registration first began.
I’m curious as to how “lucrative” is the domain industry for the average fellow. How many domainers earn more than 100K a year solely from this business?
Thanks Andrew. Something still not right. Only two options available are “Remove” or “Add to Lot”. Have a mail in to tech support. Appreciate your suggestion.