Yes there were problems with the internet both in the room and to the Hotel that day. Many confirmed that they had very slow or broken connection which was unfortunate in a number of bad luck events for that day.

In regards to selling domains in Auctions, like with anything, Auctions are good when there are multiple bidders bidding. We have had great success in auctions and selling domains higher than posted reserve prices consistently. Our average sale price in auctions is higher than all others in average price paid for domains. this auction was just under $9K per sale and that was without one big name selling. We are usually between $15K – $25K per domain sale compared to $2K for all other companies auctioning online or live. So I would disagree that it is not a good venue to sell names.

I do expect the extended auction to heat up over the next two days to make up the difference of where we missed in the live event. I also expect our Showcase auctions to start to really perform well each month and the live auction at DFG in January to be really good.

It is still an usual time in the market. The economy is still being tested and the domain industry being tested even more. I do know that some large transactions are happening although many cannot be reported due to confidentiality and private sales.

Thanks for everyone’s comments and input.

Unless it was a bandwidth issue there should have been an option to view the live auction full-screen. It was very difficult to watch even on a 15″ laptop and I had a colleague struggling to watch it on his mini laptop. Every site including US Stream lets you a watch an event in full screen. Hope this can be addressed in the future.

A premier auction of this type with high-end buyers in attendance should be concentrated on maybe 50 high-end domains rather than rushing quickly through a list of 200 mostly so-so and low end domains. Moniker Marketplace, Afternic, Sedo and the extended auction would be better for the lesser domains.

A few auctions back, it was suggested to elliminate the reserve price (safety net) so it would get good interest.
It was my decision. So, I don’t blame anyone else.
The one word domain went for a fraction of its wholesale value.

I learned my lesson.
I haven’t offered any since than but if I did, I would only offer them with a fair reserve price.

Many good domains are not submitted for this reason. Why not let people choose either the live or extended, or both? Such a simple, positive move would give sellers more control over which forum their domain appears in. Sellers could then do a better job of pricing their domains.

its annoying to have a disconnect between the buyers and sellers, and to have a dead auction. its much worse, i think, to lose a domain for a few grand cause the auctioneer wants to see activity.

buyers should set reserves where they are willing to dump a domain, sellers should buy if they have a reasonable revenue model to be productive at that price point. but letting domains sell at these lousy auction prices kills the comparable sales numbers and valations of everybody’s portfolios.

howard

Sorry to post my opinion but the auctioneer was not the problem and I didn’t think he was terrible.

He moved along and passed domains when nobody bid.

If he passed a domain too quickly anyone from the audience or online could have asked to have a domain resold. I left before the end so I don’t know if that happened. I don’t know if anyone complained that they didn’t get a chance to bid, maybe that could be blamed on the auctioneer but that certainly couldn’t be enough to blame the low dollar volume on.

As for his spotters? There was nothing to spot.

Fact is that the reserves were simply too high.

The auction was just a list of domains for sale. An auctioneer can’t get people so excited that they start at a high price all by themselves.

I’ll bet that if ALL domains in the auctions were started at HALF the reserve, you would have done at least AT LEAST twice as much in sales.

Think about it. Why does Moniker have auctions? To sell domains. If your domain suppliers don’t want to have realistic reserves, have fewer domains in the auction.

Now that’s an auction!

I heard may rumors about the auctioneer problem including one that he thought the auction was today and thought he was getting in a day early.

I thought organictea.com was a good buy as well.