One of my favorite songs from the 80’s is “Don’t pay the ferryman” by Chris de Burgh. The song refrain goes like this:
Don’t pay the ferryman
Don’t even fix a price
Don’t pay the ferryman
Until he gets you to the other side
Today, Rick Schwartz announced in his newsletter how a new TRAFFIC auction formula “will shake things up.”
In essence, Rick is introducing flat fee pricing for any domain to be auctioned at TRAFFIC, unless it has gone through some yet-to-be-specified approval process by industry giants Sedo and Afternic.
Exactly how these domain lists by Sedo and Afternic will be formulated, using what type of criteria and who would approve which portion of those lists is yet to be seen. I foresee a lot of behind-the-scenes “networking” – in the byzantine sense of the word – in order to have domains approved so that no flat fee is charged.
Meanwhile, TRAFFIC currently displays the banner of an apparent member of the Domain Elite at web sites such as Domaining.com – the motto is “Because Poverty (still) sucks”.
I see some conflict between the motto and the new flat pricing for auctions.
In 2008 – my first TRAFFIC conference – I submitted a handful of domains, none of which was sold at the auction, despite setting low reserves at that time. Subsequently, I was fortunate to sell one of them – 360.org – for $25,500 on Sedo, all while nobody was willing to spend mid four figures for it at the TRAFFIC floor auction.
Don’t get me wrong.
TRAFFIC is still great for networking and for forging new relationships, although a lot of the same attendants and domain “icons” tend to make the event essentially a club meeting.
However, the ability to send some domains to auction at no pre-cost has been a definite reason in order to also attend the TRAFFIC conference, perhaps to further promote those domains. With the introduction of the flat fee for domains with a minimum asking price of $5,000 one wonders why this is done at a time that the economy is bad and domain capital is low.
At the same time, smaller, daily networking events introduced by DomainFest appear to have bitten down on the conference market, at an affordable attendance fee.
The Holy Grail of every conference-sponsored domain auction, is the elusive end-user, preferably one loaded with investors’ money. If these investors flocked en masse to TRAFFIC, then the flat fee would be justified.
I would still like to pay the domain ferryman his fees, *after* he delivers my domain to the other side.
At the inverse of you I think it’s smart because:
– It’s optional, you can go through the approval route or force your domain get listed even if auction advisors tell you your domain is not appealing or has a too high reserve according current market, or has already auctionned without succees previously, or … You have no obligation to take this route to auction your domains, but it exists and this give an opportunity to the ones that are motivated and want to take this risk.
– There is allways a percentage of “no logical purchases”, for these purchase may happen, you need to serve domains that should have never been approved or list for such reserves.
Francois – in the past I’ve had so-called “experts” attempt to define my reserve or asking price. They were wrong and very far from defining the true value and eventual selling price of domains I held. The process will generate a silent and non-transparent channel that will not allow the masses to reach to potential buyers through TRAFFIC. For what it’s worth, they might as well keep the domains e.g. at Sedo and do all the hard work of gathering end-users to form an auction themselves, why send them to TRAFFIC?
To justify a “raffle ticket” approach, on a sliding scale no less, in order to place a domain on auction, without an actual sale one has to provide an exclusive group of buyers that would attend the conference or attempt to bid remotely. Either way, the risk for the seller is great and it literally cuts down on the number of people with the financial cushion to do that.