Conceptualist.com, By Sahar Sarid

13 Responses to “Bido: No Holds Barred Series, Written By You”

1. 1 Patricia Kaehler
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 10:12 am

   Jarred already knows my current concerns…I’ll put them here for you per your request

   When I bid on an auction that hasn’t yet started… if I am bidding $28. the opening bid amount the screen shows me that I have bid $28.

   but I have never seen where it would tell me if there are other pre-existing bids in any amount…

   Leaving me with the impression that my bid is THE bid…

   not letting me know I need to come back higher…

   And: The screen needs to be scrollable…

   The output is too short where it puts the last 100 items and also on the window showing the closed auctions…

   it jams up at the bottom and doesn’t show the bottom 2 auctions — unless I copy paste and put it into notepad or something… otherwise I’d never be able to see who’s items are up for auction on the last 1 or 2 in that display list… (I am on a Windows PC - with Firefox 3.5.5)

   I need the domain to ALSO show the Registrar and the expiration date…

   no reason to NOT show it…

   providing those details would make it easier for all involved…

   especially since I don’t really want to bother with any names of any kind unless they are on: GoDaddy BlueRazor Moniker eNom — preferring GoDaddy By Far…

   Things would work alot smoother if Bido had the domains pushed to BIDO upon close of auction and then Bido pushed them on to the new bidder when funds were paid

   So big deal it costs time and money… You are already charging a fee… raise it 5% and take the hassel off our shoulders — the aggrivation can be so time consiming that alot of us — will just walk away and not use the service…

   I guess I am being a bit harsh… but I have been so disappointed in the lack of smoothness…

   I am so busy I don’t have the time for stuff that should be and could be handled another way… to keep customers happier and transaction moving more smoothly…

   And the voting on names to include is — well…

   A waste of time and an aggrivation…

   Who cares what quality of names are up… ??? We are smart enough to pass over the junk…

   Let them all in… Nobody cares…

   Just cause a junk name goes up… doesn’t mean it will bother us… we’ll just pass by it…

   You may have this already - but I haven’t seen it…

   I would like to be able to go through the daily mailer of what is coming UP — and select the ones of interest to me and then copy paste those into some sort of bookmarker window on your site so it will pull those into a window for me so I can watch the ones I want to and disregard the rest…

   the rest can be good names as well - that I am just not interested in… but i want to be able to look at something ONCE and have MY selections pulled into another window for monitoring… I may or may not choose to place a bid…

   I don’t want to have to place a bid just to get them into my monitoring window…

   there was something else…

   slips my mind for now…

   I might be back with more…

   I only spill my guts here in PUBLIC because YOU asked me to…

   Otherwise, I’ve been publically quite with my concerns…And just talking to Jarred…he’s always so quick to respond and helpful… I wouldn’t have hung around if it hadn’t been for Jarred… but I do want to give you all a chance to grow…

   ~Patricia Kaehler - DomainBELL

   —-answer—-

   Thanks for the feedback, added to our notes and we will explore further internally.

   Best,

   Sahar

2. 2 Samit
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 11:48 am

   Published some suggestions here:
   http://www.mwzd.com/internet/5-suggestions-to-improve-bido/

   Might be a bit over the top, but… you did say no holds barred.

   Cheers!

   —-answer—-

   Thanks for the suggestions. To try and answer:

   1. Remove the absolute bid system: The purpose is to promote the auction as an event. In an auction, emotional and spontaneous bidding is part of the system however, it cannot happen if bidders are not attending and just counting on a reserve. By forcing bidders to either pay their max or attend we serve the needs of our sellers. From our tests so far (remember the absolute system is relatively new) the system makes sense and works better than without it.

   2. Remove the $28 min. for No reserve auctions: Incorrect. the 28$ is not a reserve, it is a “starting price” Big difference between the two. An auction still may be a NR afterwards, as it is happening here. Again, we tried the other way around with the 1$ NR and it did not work well for our sellers. As the auction platform, our job is to find a balance between buyers and sellers. Sometimes one group likes the way we do things more than the other, but it is the balance of things that make it work at the end of the day.

   3. Revamp the voting system: We’ve added downloadable lists lately. We’re in agreement more work needs to be done here.

   4. Improve the Lists GUI: Again, in agreement more work needs here.

   5. Advertise to Regular Business: Our platform is different than Afternic/Sedo. Our job is to provide the platform, and your job (as a seller) is to do your own marketing. We do not take on that sort of responsibility and never have. This is at the core of the Bido platform and how we do things. Our resources like others are scarce and we need to decide where we want to put our effort. In our opinion and model, our focus should be on the product itself, not on the marketing aspect of it. It is part of the value proposition and is fully disclosed to all sellers before listing.

   Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!

   Sahar

3. 3 Leonard Britt
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 11:49 am

   I like the rapid response of the BIDO team to member feedback. The BIDO platform has evolved rather quickly in a few short months. Just imagine what it will look like a year from now! I suppose my primary concern is the lack of bidders relative to other marketplaces which means the same domain likely sells for a lower price at BIDO than it would elsewhere. Well, that is good for the buyer but the not the seller which means sellers are not as likely to submit quality inventory. I believe there should be some filter for quality but I’m not sure the current system is consistently bringing the best BIDO domains to auction. There really is no incentive for members to vote unless they are swapping votes which sort of defeats the purpose of voting. Perhaps a commission discount could be offered for those with a pattern of voting for domains which sell. But I see no problem with the base commission being 10% as in other marketplaces. I cannot sell a domain for less than $60 at Afternic or SEDO and there are some domains I would be willing to sell at that level. So BIDO offers a niche other marketplaces don’t compete in. The 2% difference between 8% and 10% of a typical $50 sale is only $1 for the seller but in the aggregate might allow BIDO to be roll out new features, augment resources, etc.

   —-answer—-

   Hi Leonard,

   Agree with you there’s no way telling how Bido will look in a year from now. We have some ideas, but things do change quickly here as we test and learn. We’re in agreement things could improve in terms of quality listings and voting and are hard at work making those changes. A lot will be clearer by end of year.

   Thanks for the feedback!

   Sahar

4. 4 Leonard Britt
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 11:58 am

   p.s. You might find it interesting what SEDO has to say about BIN buy it now fixed pricing…

   http://sedo.com/links/showhtml.php3?Id=2507&tracked=&partnerid=&language=us

   —-answer—-

   Thanks for the note, eBay has also indicated that a while ago. We’re not ignoring this and are hard at work to find ways to help sellers sell.

   Best,

   Sahar

5. 5 Erhan Yilmaz
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 12:29 pm

   I think this platform is very much promising, but you have to somehow break the vicious cycle of:
   poor domains –> less bidders –> sellers afraid to list good domains –> poor domains

   —-answer—-

   Agree. Most of our time these days is work related to these issues, it is top priority.

   Best,

   Sahar

6. 6 theoretical
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 1:02 pm

   Here’s my feedback. Keep working at it. I’m sure you’ll figure it out

   http://www.utterdomain.com/2009/10/problems-with-bido.html

   Best of luck
   -Andrew

   —-answer—-

   Hi Andrew,

   As for trademarks, our position is similar to others, it is not for us to decide what is and what isn’t, we discussed it in length before. Just FYI, most of the English language is trademarked and even with famous trademarks, there is always a possibility of fair non profit usage.

   Besides, some good and constructive feedback here, some of the things are being addressed as I write this as we are continue to work on the platform.

   Best,

   Sahar

7. 7 Craig Ham
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

   Knowing me, this is probaly a really stupid idea so feel free to make fun but what about starting the auctions at $1 with the OPTION of a small (and FREE) reserve upto a maximum amount of …. lets say $28 ;). Any reserve above that falls under the payment rules as they are now. Might make things more fluid, who knows.

   Just an idea to throw in the cooking pot.

   Regards
   Craig AKA Cannedmeat

   —-answer—-

   Hi Craig,

   It’s a great idea….if you run a charity, not a business

   Best,

   Sahar

8. 8 Anthony
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

   Sahar … my 2 cents.

   I am really not sure why anyone would experiment

   with reinventing the wheel … its obvious the Sedo forumula is

   extremely profitable … if I had your time and resources I would

   duplicate Sedo and add a feature where you can instantly upload/pull

   all my domains from Sedo to Bido and charge a few points less.

   I’m certain you would get more market share and domainers from

   the world over would rejoice … again in my humble opinion.

   Anthony
   AssociatedForums.com

9. 9 Jarred
   Oct 15th, 2009 at 6:58 pm

   Thanks for the feedback and for taking the time to write your thoughts for us.

   @ Patricia - we spoke over email as well, this notice you envision we should provide actually does exist. We are reviewing its accessibility. Regarding the suggestion for a bulk tool, watchlist, etc., lets just say that a lot of things are in the works so just bear with us while we bang it all out.
   @ Samit - many good points, I agree with 3 and 4 as well. Regarding 1, 2, and 5, not much more to add to that aside from reiterating that Bido balances things differently.
   @ Leonard - identifying quality is something we continue to work on, appreciate your insight. We recently released the CSV downloads to make it easy to locate domains of interest, Hot domains in the submitted tab, and others. It’s no secret, we’re nowhere near finished with enhancements to these core issues you pointed out. Appreciate your keeping them at the forefront of what we do. Stay tuned and thanks for being along for the ride.
   @ Erhan - We’re aware of the dreaded cycle, as you would probably imagine. We have some features, enhancements, and other things to introduce that will help and keep the traction in the right direction. We watch it with a microscope. These improvements we’re building are constantly being peppered in, evaluated, adjusted and balanced accordingly. In a few months, let’s revisit the topic if necessary.
   @ Andrew - there’s a feature on Bido at this very moment that we released silently a few days ago. If a buyer becomes unresponsive after a seller transfers the domain, the seller becomes eligible for payout automatically. If the buyer has truly not received the domain, they can intervene this process. All self-serve and on the Bido website. Regarding your other concerns, some of them are reasonable requests and we work hard to address those. We’re listening and we appreciate your time to share your thoughts with us.
   @ Craig - we had $1 auctions once upon a time, it wasn’t attractive and didn’t make much business sense for Bido and the majority of our sellers that became affected by such sales. When we changed the pricing format, we actually made good with the sellers that had auctions for less than $28 as if it were the new minimum of $28. Lets not do that again.

   Regards,
   Jarred

10. 10 Aubrey
    Oct 16th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

    I don’t have any “holds” to hold you in at the moment. I’ve posted any complaints or concerns I’ve had at the Namepros forum, or submitted a ticket with Bido support, and the response has always been pretty quick.

    My advice is to keep your eyes on the prize, which is liquidity. The number one problem with the domain resale market is a lack of liquidity, and it seems to me that Bido has done a better job than most of gearing their policies towards improving this. I believe they can improve it further, though, and they will get a lot more business if they can do so.

    One suggestion I do have, is to have your network of experts at Bido systematically appraise the domains that have been submitted. Incentivize them to appraise the domains accurately based on actual auction sale price. Perhaps give awards to those who have the most accurate appraisals. Require them to appraise submitted domains that are displayed to them randomly to assure that all domains are eventually looked at and appraised. Give each expert an appraisal rating so that everyone can see who the best experts are. If that works out, eventually you could get rid of voting and have acceptance to auction based on appraisal above a certain price instead.

    —-answer——

    Hi Aubrey,

    We plan on making changes to the expert format in the near future. The way it is right now obviously does not work, and we will adapt to find better ways. Voting works fine however could work better, and we’re committed to making improvements to this area of the site as well.

    Agree on liquidity as number 1 issue. Thanks for the feedback !

    Sahar

1. 1 Bido.com - Social Auction Platform - OFFICIAL THREAD - Page 46 - NamePros.com
   Pingback on Oct 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
2. 2 Feedback about Bido - DNForum - Domain Sales, Domain Forum, Domain Appraisals, Domain Registrars
   Pingback on Oct 15th, 2009 at 10:55 am
3. 3 5 Suggestions to Improve Bido | mwzd.com
   Pingback on Oct 15th, 2009 at 11:47 am

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