I for one will be taking the "buy back" on every name I had in the auction. At $5 per name, there really isn't much discouraging me from taking anything less than I want for them...
If we were to plan this more in advance, I'm sure we could get a few people together who could help with the setting of reasonable reserves that the sellers would be happy to sell with.
As has been said a few times already, it's very discouraging to bid when you really have no clue what the current owner is holding out for. Placing a 7,5k bid on 3Par's lot was 7,5k I could have bid on other people's names had I known this wouldn't meet his reserve, in example...
Many thanks to bfluid and mwzd for their efforts. I miseed the auction due to the odd timing (my local time).
As many had pointed out next time we should have a Reserve price auction or atleast a higher buyout clause(may be something like 5% of the winning bid). It would definitely make the seller & buyer more serious.
I agree, buy out clause makes it dumb because then you have a bunch of people bidding as low as possible to make money off the clause and they majority over the serious bidders.
I made out well on my domains I sold, I was happy with the decent pricing, but I saw alot of good domains get low balled.
I think all the kudos for organising this and getting it together goes to bfluid. He put in a LOT of effort and hard work to get it together. I just stepped in to help out an overworked fellow NPer who was handling more than one person should.
And even though we agree the results were not as great as they could have been, it was a great learning experience for all involved and for me too, as it was my first live auction as an auctioneer.
And it was way more effort than most other people are willing to put in - everyone talks about it, here's someone who went ahead and did it. Getting the permissions, managing submissions, creating lists, updating lists, answering endless pms, rectifying errors, getting the word out, inducing people to blog about it and much much more.
Hats off to you Ty, and congratulations.
Congrats also to NP management and staff, for proactively providing their facilities and support.
My analysis -
1. The Easter weekend hurt, a lot of people who could/should have been there were not. Choosing the right date is more important than we thought. So no weekends, holidays and major 'family' days for live auctions.
2. The time confusion hurt too, people were there for one hour before the event even started, restless crowds are not the best for auctions.
3. The $5 buyout clause for high value (or even not so high value) domains didn't work either. I'd think a reserve price as start would work a lot better, NP auctions follow this format. While this might mean less bids, it would ensure that those that did receive bids would be sold. And sellers wouldn't be out anything (not that $5 makes a difference).
4. There was no paid advertising to support the event, something that seems to be a must for domains that value in at $300k or more. Maybe a payment for each lot would keep out the low value names, bring the list down to a more manageable level (2 hrs).
5. A themed auction might also be desirable - a. High Value names (above $10k) b. Middle value names ($1k-$10) c. Low value names ($100-$1k) would also be better in attracting the right crowd for each event. Someone with $100k to spend might not want to hang around for 2-3 hours.
I'm sure I'll have many more ideas once my coffee goes in but these are off the top of my head. Thanks to all the sellers, bidders and participants, cheers!
Agree with mwzd 100% on all points and I really do appreciate the work Ty put into this, as well as everyone who helped out in whatever way they could
Advertising is crucial if we are to get the crowds that will generate the bids. Advertising does usually cost money and making this the best it could be may very well mean charging a fee to list domains so that advertising can be purchased. Definitely worth repeating that it was very kind of RJ and NP Management to provide free advertising for the LLLL.com Auction on Namepros.
I'm sending Ty 1000 NP$ now as a thank you for taking the time to put this all together. I really admire the initiative he took here and hope some of you will reciprocate my donation to Ty and we can convince him to give this another shot down the road.
It was definitely a plus for me. I would personally say it I dont regret spending 5 hours of my time. Looking at the bids and the trend of bidding gave me a new perspective to the whole thing. Now i know what to expect and what to put up for sale at the auctions.
Agreed, i got lower bids than expected on my domains, but my domains also got a bit of exposure and i have been contacted already for similar names in a specific price range. That, for me is great news.
Speaking about the faults in the auction, there oughta be a few hiccups in any new endeavour, but overall it went down quite smoothly. I hope the next auction is not very far away; already looking forward to it.
And btw, i would think we need to contribute a little towards bfluids efforts; in the form of donations however small they may be, to encourage him to keep up the good work
Once again, great work done guys.
bfluid and mwzd - Thank you for your effort. I hope there will be 2nd 3rd 4th LLLL Live auctions (be it big or small, don't really matter). It is even better if this could become a regular event.
Here are my suggestions:
1. I am not sure if this has been done. Is it possible to have minimum waiting time between each call for bid? eg.
Going once - (minimum XX seconds wait) ->
Going Twice - (minimum XX seconds wait) ->
And - (minimum XX seconds wait) ->
SOLD.
2. Is is possible to include the domain name when the high bid is announced?:
HIGH BID $65 - XXX.com (Lot xx for package deal) or
XXX.com $65 - Going once
Late comer will have an idea which lot is being auctioned.
3. It would be nice to define the bid increment.
$1-$100 - min increment $5
$101-$500 - min increment $10
etc
4. Is it possible to use NP's live auction' prebidding system for LLLL prebid? It is clean and easy to track.
5. Auctioneer: please appoint a proxy if you intend to bid.
6. Auction crowd: "Bid only, No Chat, Use PM" - Let the auctioneers do the talking. Auctioneers please invite a moderator to take control of the chat room. Restless crowds should be warned.
yes, good point.
Recommend implement following features:
1. As with other auction practice have a published reserve which if met the seller is obliged to sell.
2. 20% penalty (yes 20%) if the seller fails to complete the sale if the reserve has been met.
3. 10% penalty if the seller fails to complete on a sale with no reserve.
Note: with the current low penalty rates, several sellers are just using the auctions to get a free valuation snapshot and have no intention to sell.
The above penalty rates will ensure only genuine sellers participate.
This will just ensure that people won't even submit names.
Kind of harsh don't you think?
You want the coil.com owner to pay $1k for a $100k name with only a $10k bid? Illogical to say the least. I'd keep my names out of any auction with these terms.
I just stepped in to help out an overworked fellow NPer who was handling more than one person should. 
. I though it would be held at 23 not 22 . I saw a lot of bargain if seller do not use buyout clause.
