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part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V are here
Nobody wants to be a sucker. With auctions, the results of accurate pricing is a bidding war. Bidding war allows spectators to get in the game, assuring them that value exists in the marketplace, not just with one party, but with many. Marketing to spectators is different than marketing to end users. End users, as discussed earlier, are extremely hard to find, educate. I covered some thoughts about end users previously. This one I will focus on spectators. Spectators are within a given industry, they follow activities but shy from participating as they are unsure. Unsure of value, unsure of timing. In essence, spectators are there, sitting on the fence, not sure what to do. By viewing a bidding war they may tip and join in. Assurance is really all they need. Looking at today’s Bido auction (just ended) let’s see what some spectators have said after the auction was done:
(Above: screenshot of Bido chat for the domain FlightDegree.com, auctioned off March 09, 2009)
Now some of these folks who commented on a good buy did not participate (bid) today however by being around the auction, seeing others, there’s a good chance they will at a later point. Without accurate pricing, without a bidding war, many spectators cannot relate to the auction, and if they cannot relate, they will vote, not with words - but with their money. When you have no bidders or one bidder, while many will not say a word, the feeling in the air is something went wrong. Maybe the item was overpriced, maybe a buyer is attached. Whatever the case may be, lack of activity is a burden on spectators. For those to participate they need activity. No activity is a clear indication of lack of liquidity. I’m not saying this will never happen on Bido, what I ‘m saying is this is something we are well aware of, and something we try our best to avoid.
Have a great day,
Sahar
Sahar, no activity means advertising to the wrong channels. Domainers are extremely concerned about their assets and are the first ones to zip their wallets up when the economy is flat. Bido needs to advertise in mainstream media unrelated to the domainer “circle of trust”. Also, bigger and better names must be put on auction. Perhaps if you opened up the platform to quality names irrespective of the TLD there would be an increase in interest. However, I cannot stress enough how important it is to bring awareness to the Bido platform to the general public.
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While mainstream is important it is not the most important part when it comes to liquidation. You cannot count on end users to get it when you need them to get it, I wrote about it before. You can count on professionals traders though, if you price accurately. This story is the same in most if not all industries. Everyone loves end users, above retail sales. It isn’t feasible nor realistic. The domain channel is no different here. To liquidate you need to welcome traders. If you can hold for that special end user, a vibrant auction house such as Bido may not be for you.
Cheers
Sahar
Sahar, the problem - the way I see it - is that when you only advertise your venue to domainers, your platform becomes just another “forum” populated and frequented by insiders. The key to large auction sales - e.g. toys.com - is publicity in venues and channels outside of the domainer industry. That’s how you maximize a domain’s potential. What I mean is, that Bido should strive to become a “Christie’s” for domains so that it facilitates high-end auctions.
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Acro,
We do advertise to end users. We have sales professionals on the phone as well as we run email marketing campaigns when we see the need. Some of our sales, such as EquityGrant.com or Dickinson.com were to end users. That said, end users cannot and should not be counted on when one needs to liquidate. If you read this series you will see our take on this. Our main goal is to create liquidity, something that doesn’t exist in the domain space (for that matter, many other industries) right now.
Cheers
Sahar
P.S.
Christie’s, while I have no data to support this, I believe majority of their sales are to industry professionals (traders, collectors).
Sahar. Your reponse to Acro shows that either you are in denial, or that you just ‘don’t get it’. Perhaps a domainer will never ‘get it’ when it comes to hard core marketing skills, but we can hope.
Those of us with longer memories can recall the late ’90s when Great Domains, for all their shambolic approach to letting domainers set crazy 8 figure prices etc., did run VERY effective domain-list ads in the mainstream media with tags something like ” Is your next billion dollar IPO in the list below…”. They were the ones that sold Loans.com for $3M way back then.
This makes me think that if ever the likes of Murdoch et. al. got into the domain selling/auction game, with their media access to ‘end users’ (for free), all before them, including Bido, would disappear.
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I guess you didn’t get the memo. Times are a “little” different these days than 1999. I’m not here to convince anyone about end users sales. We love them, as much as anyone else. End users sales though are not liquidity sales, they do not happen at will. For every domain GD sold there were countless others they did not. What we’re creating here is something that many need and want, and something even you may need at some point in time. It may not be for you today and that’s ok. Liquidation is for some at some times, not for all at all times.
Cheers
Sahar