A little over a decade ago, I learned a valuable lesson about why the reserve price exists.
Having won a non-reserve auction on eBay for a LLL.com that ended up being sold for approximately $157 (not a typo), I listed it for sale a few weeks later.
Feeling overly confident about its closing price, I listed it without a reserve, pocketing about $220. So after commission, I made about $50 bucks.
While sometimes a domain auction might attract enough eyeballs to invite competitive bids, I would still not advise the listing of any valuable domain without a reserve.
I’m certain that the owners of jax.net that was sold at TRAFFIC Las Vegas for $1,000 are sharing the same sentiment by now; having sold them the domain for twice as much, they are now learning a hard lesson in economics, due to not using a reserve price.
If your investment in a domain asset isn’t ‘reg fee’ then you need to roll your acquisition cost into the reserve price, as the minimum price you would accept.
To succeed in the business of domaining, one needs to follow the same old principle that applies in every branch of commerce: buy low, sell high. If you just want to gamble your money, there’s always the quarter machines in Las Vegas.
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