Companies provide innovative twists on domain selling.
Which company is most innovative when it comes to selling domain names in the aftermarket?
The results show a handful of newer companies are innovating in the selling process — and attracting attention from domainers.
The top response in this year’s Domain Name Wire survey (by a long shot) this year was Sedo. After that are three companies, two of which are smaller upstarts: Rick Latona and Bido.
Rick Latona is perhaps most known for his daily domain sales newsletter, the first “major” sales newsletter in the industry. He also runs an auction arm, Latonas.com, that is the exclusive live auctioneer at TRAFFIC conferences. Latona has a licensing agreement to run TRAFFIC conferences, and just held the first one under the new licensing agreement last month in Las Vegas.
Bido is also making waves with innovative auction techniques. It is bringing crowdsourcing to picking the best domain names for auction — and rewarding its customers when they pick domains that sell. It is also adding social aspects to auctions.
GoDaddy makes the list as well, thanks in part to a number of new initiatives to help domain owners sell domains to retail customers. It allows domainers to sell their domain names when someone searches for the exact domain they are selling, and also provides data on the popularity of domain names registered at GoDaddy. The company has a new VP of Aftermarket, Chris Kennedy, who will take a fresh look at the platform this year.
Rounding out the list is NameMedia, which sells domains through BuyDomains, Afternic, and syndication deals with top registrars.
Here are the top 5 results:
1. Sedo/GreatDomains 26%
2. Rick Latona 16%
3. Bido 15%
3. GoDaddy 15%
5. NameMedia 13%
Good to be on the list, and hopefully, as we continue to push the envelope, our position will improve in a number of areas next year.
Best,
Sahar
Bido.com
Thanks to everyone who voted for Bido to be rated the most innovative when it comes to domain sales. We didn’t win the top position but it’s good to have what we do here at Bido get noticed. Onwards and upwards. Thanks again to all who saw the survey and voted for us.
Regards,
Jarred
Andrew Curious about your thoughts on why Sedo got top votes for innovation? Your analysis is glaringly missing above.
Also, I think the GD “direct match” thing is great but really this is what DDN was doing before, isn’t it? I wouldn’t call taking someone else’s creations all that innovative. 🙂
@ Adam – innovation is hard to define and everyone defines it differently. In some ways, having success at selling equates to innovation to a lot of people. For example, DDN may have been doing direct match. But DDN never took off.
righteo, you defined your thoughts on innovation with the others but not on sedo…just wanted to hear what you thought there.
@ Adam – personally, I think Sedo’s greatest innovation is non-technical: hiring non-domainer sales people to sell big ticket domains to end users.