(Above: “Featured Commentary” on Bido)
Today auction of MyEntitlement.com has ended up with one bid and sold for a total of US$ 2.00, lowest auction ever so far on Bido. Some may think we’re disappointed by that however that is not the case. We’re here to provide the platform, to provide you, the motivated seller, with the tools to sell, and for the buyer, to buy items at true market value, all without taking sides what worth what and to who.
I want to touch on few points in regard to where we are, and what the future holds for Bido, and for those who are involved in making the platform better each and every day. A lot of things are happening behind the scenes, new business models and features are constantly being tested and once ready, will be updated on the site. One such feature is the auto-approval of expert commentary, a feature which we introduced earlier today, for the very first time. For Bido experts, no more you have to wait for us to approve your expert commentary. From our experts all we ask is professionalism. Expert commentary may be positive, negative, it does not matter to us, as long as it is professional. It is up to you to write professional commentary. Write an unprofessional poor commentary and you will reduce your own brand name value in the marketplace.
Another new feature that we introduced today is “Featured Commentary”. Every day the Bido team will look at the daily commentaries and choose one they feel is of high quality. That commentary will then look slightly different than other commentaries and will be pushed to the top. We hope other Bido experts may get a better idea what we feel quality is, and may strive to write a more in-depth commentaries, something we feel our members highly appreciate.
Towards the end of the month we plan on introducing a new business model to Bido, further expanding our reach, and our offering.
As always, comments and questions most welcome!
Have a great day,
Sahar
Sahar,
Auctioning off portfolios of on-topic domain names is where the money is.
Just doing one a day or what Sedo and the other aftermarket domains sales websites are doing isn’t going to be anything special. There is enough outlets already.
Best,
Mike
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Hi Mike,
As for portfolio sales, first thanks for the feedback. We will discuss further internally.
Cheers
Sahar
I like these updates. Thanks, Sahar.
I also wanted to add a suggestion. I think Bido would benefit from having a limited number of Experts with rules on contributing to stay on as an Expert. There is a guaranteed mutual benefit for both the Expert and Bido in this manner.
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Not sure what you mean Tia? Please explain.
Thanks,
Sahar
Sahar it’s an awful result, if you aren’t disappointed by that then you should be because it shows shows some of the names being put up are rubbish.
The 3 letter .com’s is a very good and much needed step, that will create a lot of excitement, however seeing a name sell for $2 just gives the impression the site is for junk listings.
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Paul,
We see things from a different angle than many. Your focus is the domain, our is our approach, not being part of what constitute good or bad, but providing the tools for the community to come together, for sellers to make an absolute sale, and for the buyer to buy at market value. Things will evolve as we’ve already said. We’re aware of what needs to be changed and we are addressing those issues.
Thanks,
Sahar
I just don’t get it. The platform is excellent, the auction is well known about, you are bound to have several top submissions but yet they don’t make the grade. Why?
I would like to issue you a challenge
I will submit an excellent geo .com domain with high estibot score etc and let the real power of Bido speak for itself. Contact me via email used on this comment and I will send you the domain details.
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Jim,
Some food for thought.. if we could list better names, wouldn’t we? The submission quality level is awful. On one hand we hear constant complaints about quality, on the other we get few and far between submitting anything worth listing. If a name like MyEntitlement.com is making the grade, can you even start to imagine the stuff that isn’t??
As for submissions, I don’t deal with it myself. Feel free to submit on the site and the Bido team will take a look. If something fits you will hear back from them.
Cheers
Sahar
No offense, but how can you not be disappointed? While I’m sure you want to provide value to people, you aren’t running a charity.
You’ve got a good system, but no matter how you say it. Selling a domain for $16 and then $2 has got to be disappointing. It’s resulting in nothing but people talking negatively. Although I guess they do say any press is good press.
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This isn’t a charity but it also isn’t an end game. We’re in the beginning stages of what we do and profitability at this point isn’t our main concern. What is our main concern is to address market needs as we see them. We hear loud and clear the quality issue, but there’s more to it that what most see or know. We are definitely addressing those issues however, this isn’t an issue of choosing the right domain per day, but an issue of finding a formula that will allow quality to rise. Things need to change, the current system will evolve. As I wrote elsewhere, likely faster than you think.
Thanks for the feedback!
Sahar
Sahar, what I mean is capping accepted Experts to a certain number. That way, everyone’s opinion has a chance to be heard and not lost on page 20 of comments, for example. As a return, Experts should be required to participate (once a month or whatever Bido deems necessary) to keep their Expert status. This benefits both parties: Bido has Experts who participate on a regular basis. Experts have a guaranteed way to be heard without getting lost in comments.
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Hi Tia,
First thanks for the suggestion. The idea is that quality prevails. Higher quality of a commentary, more visibility. I will send your suggestion though to our team to discuss in length.
Cheers
Sahar
About how long should it take for Bido to contact you after you submit a list of domains?
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Details on this are here. In short, if any of your domain is accepted a member of the Bido team will be in touch with you. For more information, email Jarred@Bido.com
Cheers
Sahar
Hang in there and stay focused on the big picture.
Good luck.
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Thanks Rob, much appreciated!
I love bido so much it hurts to see that bido was auctioning off names like that.
Sahar, if you’re not disappointed, then the rest of domaining community is. See, you’re actually helping us lowering the quality standard. Oddly enough, your team rejected all of my domains which are far better than those names before (I don’t own buy.com though).
And of course, I’m not saying that you should put names like buy.com or pop.com on auction. Two-word premiums are more than enough to satisfy all of us.
I’ll say it again… I love bido!
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Al,
I do see where you and the rest of the community are coming from. In terms of value, what you believe your domain is worth is likely very different than what others feel it is worth. We are working on bringing a new system later on this month that will put all of us on the same page in terms of valuation, or at least will even the playing field. To learn more about our line of thinking here, see the following two posts on the blog:
1. http://www.conceptualist.com/2009/02/23/the-importance-of-accurate-pricing/
2. http://www.conceptualist.com/2009/02/25/the-importance-of-accurate-pricing-part-ii/
Thanks again for the feedback, much appreciated!
Sahar
Sahar and team,
I think it is simple. You have to put some of your own domains at risk to prove that good domains will sell for good prices. If people are not submitting good domains it is because they fear that they will lose a good domain at a low price.
If you put 10 of your own good domains up $10,000-$30,000 value domains over a 10 day period and promote the hell out of it and then actually get the values then you will get all the domains you can handle.
Good luck,
Eric Rice
http://www.dncartoons.com
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Eric,
We tried listing some of our inventory in the beginning. The community did not like that as well as it isn’t viable, nor scalable. We have a number of solutions coming in the coming months that will address many of the issues we see now, hopefully helping all to move beyond this to bigger and better things.
Thanks for the feedback!
Sahar
On the surface $2.00 for MyEntitlement.com sounds bad but if we look at that and then look at our own domains we might just see a little clearer where the issues in our portfolios might be.
Of course if we’ve developed a domain and it has value due to that development or type in traffic is propping it up then comparisons don’t mean anything.
I still think a small reserve and the ability to sell a lot and whole websites might be a good addition.
I agree with Sahar in that Bido is still a great platform for buying/selling domains. The quality of domains is however a function of the quality of domains that are submitted for sale. Hopefully this will improve in time.
Sahar,
I echo what Eric said. If you put a few of your quality domain names for sale and they yield high/strong prices, other domainers will trust that they, too, can sell their best domain names for optimal prices. All it will take is a handful of successful high value sales, and the good submissions will come. The “sustainable and scalable” part comes in when other domainers begin to trust that Bido is the best live auction platform for their domains, which will happen if there are some good sales.
If the Bido team chooses not to list personally-owned domain names for $1.00, why would others do it when there isn’t a proven track record yet?
I suppose the risk is great because if you do list a great name and it doesn’t sell for an optimal price, you lose out on the money from the name and it looks bad for the platform. As you say though, the market determines the value of the domain name.
You have the attention of the domain community, but it could quickly fade. It’s time to show that you are confident in the platform, and the rest of us will follow suit if you are right.
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Elliott,
We tried that, it doesn’t work for more than a day really, and isn’t scalable because “people see”. People saw before, and still did not bring the goods (remember our few past four figures sales?). This has to be dealt with systematically, we’re well aware of it, and are working on it for a while now, on multiple angles. First one will be introduced later this month and at a later point we will introduce others as well, which by the way are already in the works.
Cheers
Sahar
Good, bad or indifferent, all of the feedback means you’ve got the community engaged and are on the right track
The boulder you’re now pushing uphill will eventually crest and start rolling down the other side on its own.
Keep pushing.
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I like your energy Kristoff, thanks for sharing your thoughts with me
Sahar
Sahar. your talking a bit out of both sides of your mouth with these 2 statements.
“We’re here to provide the platform, to provide you, the motivated seller, with the tools to sell, and for the buyer, to buy items at true market value, all without taking sides what worth what and to who.”
“if we could list better names, wouldn’t we? The submission quality level is awful. On one hand we hear constant complaints about quality, on the other we get few and far between submitting anything worth listing. If a name like MyEntitlement.com is making the grade, can you even start to imagine the stuff that isn’t??”
No auctioneer or even retailer or wholesaler takes on the task of selling something if they don’t believe that the item will receive interest (and in our case bids) in the marketplace. You are making the call on domains, simply by choosing them or not. By choosing a name that sells for $2 you should take this as a failure in your choosing methods and admit that this needs improvement and make those improvements. Just my 2 cents.
There’s plenty of 2cents to go around too so take it if you want. One thing I’ve learned is that everyone is an auction expert now as liquidity becomes more important to domainers. We didn’t see the level of complaints and criticism when the “domain bubble” of high auction sales and prices was going on a few years ago.
I hope you guys keep rolling and improve upon things, making the marketplace better as you go.
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Adam,
It seems to me you are referring to two different types of failures. The Bido team is choosing what they believe is best from what is being submitted. Unfortunately, 1. they do make mistakes and 2. there isn’t much quality to choose from to begin with. It may be a failure by our team to pick a weak domain to list however, it isn’t a failure of our system in any sort of way. The domain was listed, we provided the exposure, tech, venue, and removed ourselves and watch from the sidelines as a sale is made. It is the best we could do. Even if not high, a sale was made, and for that, and because of that, we view such sales as successes. The DressOrganic.com sale is a prime example of our thought process. I elaborated on it on Newfound Names blog.
We understand some things need to be adjusted and worked on, and we are working on it.
Thanks for constant support and feedback Adam !
Sahar
I didn’t say anything about your system being a failure. I was referring to the same failure you spoke of . . . picking names. It’s good to recognize mistakes and fix them. When you sell something in any business picking the inventory is CRUCIAL to success. That’s my point.
Sahar,
One really good point though is your panel of experts seems to have got it right. And I thank you for letting them speak at they saw fit without censoring them. Adds to the value of the whole system.
I plan to watch that domain for a while, too. I’m wondering what the buyer might have in mind for it. I could think of a lot of topics that might work well with it but birth right, enheirentences, government funding, and a few others come to the top of my list.
Might be interesting.
I really like bido, and look forward to seeing the improvements that you are working on!