Secrets of Selling Your Names at Live Domain Auctions
February 24, 2009
I’ve been busy submitting some of the names I own to several of the live domain auctions. It’s been a journey and I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned along the way to make your auction submissions a little easier.
I felt that a live auction is a more active selling forum and would provide some more potential that just listing your domains on a web based for sale list like Sedo could provide. The difference, when trying to get your names in a live auction, is that you don’t just list your domains for sale. It’s a two step process. The first step is to submit the domain names you want in the live auction to the auction house. Then an auction selection committee goes through the submitted names and chooses the ones that are actually part of the live auction. Because of the limited time during a live auction there are only a limited amount of domain names they can accept. This can be a pretty considerable hurdle. For instance for the Snapnames Internext and DomainFest auctions they had over 100,000 submissions. From those submissions only about 5,000 names were selected. So its important that the names you submit are both good quality and priced right or they won’t be selected by the committee for inclusion in the auction.
When you list your names you want to make sure you pay attention to the terms and conditions that you are agreeing to. Most auction houses have a period of exclusivity in which you cannot list or market your names anywhere else and if you do happen to sell it through another means, say for instance privately, they are still due the commission.
It’s important to pay attention to the fees and commissions you will be responsible for. One of the conditions for the Snapnames auction is that all names have to be registered at Moniker. If they are not you need to start the transfer process so that it will be completed by the time of the auction so that it doesn’t impede the transfer process. Anyone who has transferred any domains knows that glitches almost always occurs and it usually takes more than the five days they say the transfer will take. If your names are not transferred over Snapnames/Moniker will charge you an extra $100.
Part of the reason for this is to make the transfer process smoother since Moniker handles the whole transfer process through their escrow and only one registrar is involved. The escrow process protects both the buyer and seller. When a domain is sold you transfer your domain to Moniker’s domain escrow account. The seller then transfers the money to Moniker. Once Moniker has the money from the seller it transfers the domain to the seller and send you the money less their commission.
Another part of the reason for requiring the transfer to Moniker is probably a brilliant marketing strategy. If you have 100,000 submissions and you are telling all of those people they need to transfer to Moniker or they get charged an extra hundred bucks it probably results in a lot of new customers and a big chunk of change.
Other live auction houses don’t force you to transfer your name name around. For instance one that I spoke with said they maintained escrow accounts at a dozen of the major registrars and they could work with whatever registrar the seller was using.
Another one of the conditions you should be aware of is what happens if you make a mistake. What happens if you mistype and enter a domain you don’t really own? It happened to me. Since the template for the Snapnames auction would not accept my excel file (I’m told the problem has since been fixed) I was forced to use the web based form which involved some cutting, pasting, and typing. Somehow I mistyped a domain name leaving out an s. That name, a name I did not own, was chosen for the auction. When I checked the catalog and noticed the error I called the company immediately to correct the problem and was informed by the terms and conditions I was liable for $119 fee.
That’s bad but not as bad as it could be. In one of the terms and conditions forms at one of the other auction houses it said that if there was an error made you were liable for the full commission AS IF it had been sold. So if you were selling mybigdomain.com for a reserve of $10,000. and the auction house charged a 20% commission you could be on the hook for $2,000 big ones.
Now that you know what to look for and have the basics of listing your names at a live auction my next post will give you some hints on getting them accepted by the auction selection committee.
All the best,
Ted Sudol
The Domain Hunter
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Stocks Gift.com - Premium Web Domain Name For Sale NR! US $26.00 (7 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 20:22:30 PST Add to watch list |
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PFUV.COM domain name!! LLLL.com 4 yrs! .com 3 Godaddy! US $9.50 (7 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 20:22:38 PST Add to watch list |
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Donation Now.com DONATE MONEY CHARITY FUND DOMAIN NAME US $10.50 (2 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 20:30:54 PST Add to watch list |
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BollywoodFilmGuide.com $$$ Website Domain Name for Sale US $7.50 (9 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 21:04:01 PST Add to watch list |
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.COM Domain Name Registration (1 Year) US $6.00 (2 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 21:30:23 PST Add to watch list |
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PixNVideo.com 7-YearsOld $ Website Domain Name for Sale US $4.02 (7 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 22:19:36 PST Add to watch list |
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Songs Website.com INTERNET MUSIC DOWNLOADS DOMAIN NAME US $15.50 (3 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 22:30:48 PST Add to watch list |
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Rimro.com RARE SHORT 5 LETTER CATCHY BRAND DOMAIN NAME US $10.50 (2 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Mar-10-2010 23:30:01 PST Add to watch list |
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.COM Domain Name Registration (1 Year) US $6.00 (2 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 1:39:38 PST Add to watch list |
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.COM Domain Name Registration (1 Year) US $6.00 (2 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 5:49:39 PST Add to watch list |
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G-E-L.com - Premium L-L-L.com, Brandable Domain Name US $85.00 (3 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 6:37:19 PST Add to watch list |
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.COM Domain Name Registration (1 Year) US $5.79 (3 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 9:59:39 PST Add to watch list |
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Diet Detoxify.com Web Domain Name For Sale NR! US $10.50 (2 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 12:07:12 PST Add to watch list |
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.COM Domain Name Registration (1 Year) US $5.79 (2 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 14:09:40 PST Add to watch list |
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Sozee .com - Rare Domain Name 2-3-4-5 NR US $3.58 (6 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 14:09:59 PST Add to watch list |
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Tonights Football.com DOMAIN NAME For Sale Web Sports ! US $15.51 (3 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 14:30:32 PST Add to watch list |
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Greennie .com - Rare Domain Name 2-3-4-5 NR US $21.50 (7 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 14:32:49 PST Add to watch list |
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Notebook Computer Laptop.com "Website" Domain Name NR! US $10.50 (13 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 14:45:26 PST Add to watch list |
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UEWJ.com Rare, 4 Letter LLLL.com Web Domain Name NR! US $7.50 (2 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 15:09:46 PST Add to watch list |
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Lot 4 Premium Domain Names Marketing.com US $10.50 (7 Bids) End Date: Thursday Mar-11-2010 15:38:06 PST Add to watch list |
Want a Continuing Source of Revenue?
April 5, 2008
Hi,
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All the best,
Ted Sudol
TheDomainHunter.com
Plan for Domain Profit – What’s your Plan B?
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One of the things that’s exciting to me about domain names is there are so many ways to profit. There are also some ways to lose money. I don’t want you to be like the guy yesterday who auctioned off his portfolio of 383 names for $40.99. That’s about 10 cents a name on his investment that was originally about $3,800 (depending upon the registrar he was using).
So what do I mean Read more
Starting out on your road to profit with Domain Names
February 28, 2008
One of the really exciting things about domain names is that you really do have a chance to take a $10 investment and turn it into $100, $1,000, $10,000 or even more if you are looking for a quick turn around. One of the people I learned from did just that. Read more
