Listen Sedo, I'm a big customer of yours. I have 4,000 names there, I've sold about $30,000 of names from your site in the last year. So I think I've earned the right to say this for the tenth time publicly,
YOUR REVIEW OF COMMENTS SUCKS!!!
It really does.
I've been waiting three days wondering what a bidder is telling me in their comments with the bid. I have no idea. Who knows?
I know last week one evening I placed a comment with a bid that might have been instructive to the other party, but instead of waiting until the comment was reviewed, they canceled the transaction. What if I had said "hey, I'll give you the .net and ,org and .info for this price too"? I've done thatbefore and had the thread canceled. The other party never knew.
This is so stupid, Sedo. I've told you over and over to get rid of this. No one likes it. What are you afraid of? Someone might call me poopy pants or something and hurt my feelings? Oh, I know, someone might send off their email to me, to get around the 10% fee. Most people are not like that. And if they wanted to, the contact info is easily found in the Whois record.
I know you only have 35 hours in European work week to think this over. But think! No one likes this. Get rid of it immediately please. We could be losing sales, so you could be losing commissions. In fact, I'm ceratin you are.
I have to admit, I must have called my Sedo rep (I was selling at the time) on numerous occassions to "hand hold him" through out the process. I would love nothing more than end users to contact me directly (I am listed in the WHOIS record), but for some reason, people prefer Sedo (I guess it has to do with their sense of security?)..
Anyhow, sorry to hear about your troubles. I recently sold dotCom and during the neg. process, I told the buyer about incl. the dotNet version, and Sedo let it go through? I must've been lucky....
I'm having the same issue with a domain I'm trying to acquire. Last counter-offer by seller was on 22-Nov and their comment is still not reviewed... I would like to read it before considering my next move... so yes I would say this is interfering with the course of my negociations.
I've asked my rep to have a look.
Slobizman: I understand you are angry but... I assume the other party was simply not motivated enough to pay the price and your comments would probably have made no difference.
Sedo should consider removing the need for prior approval of comments.
Most of the time sellers can contact you via whois direct. If they bid via Sedo it's most likely because it's convenient to them or they want to remain anonymous.
This review thing is VERY annoying indeed. I can understand that Sedo would want to keep an eye on messages (as I believe Afternic also does), but that shouldn't mean hiding the message before it's reviewed. I agree that this waiting period is probably hurting sales.
BTW, at Afternic, from many hundreds of messages, I can't remember anyone ever mentioning their email address to me. And I would certainly never mention my email address, because I would not want to risk getting banned.
Exactly. I have never received anyone's email through Afternic's messaging system either.
There are othjer problems associated with this too.
1. The Cooling off period. As with any item one is interested in buying, ther is a time of heightened interest in the name, yet after 1-3 or 4 days of no action on it, the buyer may have "cooled off". There are even laws about this for auto purhcases--the 3 day rules in some states where a buyer, once he feels buyers remorse, can bring the car back. Psychology can play the same role in domain names -- a purchase is a purchase. I might be hot for a name Frdiay morning, and then by Monday I've thought it over and changed my mind.
It's so frustrating going back and forth on a name sale, getting closer and closer and then I recieve an offer that is near what I might accept, and the dreaded "under review" comes up. All the energy is now gone. We were close, but all negociation is now stopped. The moment is gone.
In addition, someone may have found a different domain after the "cooling off" period. With time to think it over, they shopped around and found a different name to do the job.
Or, they could have simply spent their available funds on something else over the weekend. Especially now, with the holiday season.
2. Auctions. Sedo's new auctions begin from the date of the last offer, not when that offer is accepted. So if the offer is late Friday (or Wednesday or Thrursday with a 3-4 day weekend) and it's an offer I might want to send to auction comes in with an Under Review offer comes in, I will not send it to auction until Monday when I can read what they told me. Might have been something important or interesting. At this point my auction period has potentially been cut in half, or nearly so.
Solution: All they need to do is review comments after the fact on a random basis. And on the comment screen place a warning of what would constitute a banning.
I appreciate that they review comments from the seller...otherwise...it would be easy for a seller to say.."Yeah, I get $500/month from this name". And it might not be true.
However, it would be nice if Sedo posted the comment and then said (This comment has not yet been reviewed). Then, you could at least see what they were saying. Then Sedo could review the comment and have it say (This comment has been confirmed)
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Sedo is not going to fact check the comments. Do you think they take the time to run whatever the seller says against research they'd have to spend time doing. No way.
Here is a perfect example of a comment that would be valuable to read. He made the comment early on 11/24, and today 11/27, three days later, I was finally able to read it. His bid amount was too low, but I thought I'd wait to see what he said before taking action. like cancelling or countering.
His comment was:
Good evening,
I would like to buy [redacted].com and [redacted]s.com.
I think you are the same vendor for both.
My offer for [redacted].com and [redacted]s.com : xxx USD.
I'm sorry, but I'm french and I don't speak very well.
Best regards,
Well, being able to sell both the singular and the plural together is a whole 'nuther story. Had I done what so many do to me when my comment is under review and the bid is seemingly too low, I would have simply canceled this thread, and the bidder would have thought I had seen his comment and rejected it. As it is, I'm have a different counter in mind.
And I had to write a post it note on my moniter to remember to read the comment, by the way. Sedo only tells you when an offer is made, not when the hidden comment is unveiled. Had I not seen the post it this morning, after a relative-filled Thanksgiving weekned, I'm sure I would have forgotten about it.
Totally agree. That really pisses me off. I got stuck every time there is a bid with comments. I can't decide whether put on auction or make a counter offer. That STINKS! I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to post dumb comments. If they wanna make some sweet deal with the owner, they would just look up the Whois and send them emails.
That's really a con-seller scheme.
Very good points, slobizman. I believe Sedo is open to suggestions when strong arguments are provided, and threads like this may convince them to reconsider their policy.
I know I've made these same points to them in the past, to several various people there. Nothing ever sounded like anything was going to come from it. One person told me "their programmers are very busy."
Totally agree! In my case its not a comment but a domain that is "under review" to be auctioned. the domain is parked at godaddy, i'm listed in the who-is. oh yeah, maybe i should mention that they are reviewing my domain for the past 8!!!!!! days! all the more reason to sell domains via tdnam
So, it's been 2-3 days, and we know Sedo hangs out in the forum. But, we have not heard any comment form them here. Obviously, there are many, many people who would like to see them make this simple change.
Well, I was exicted with a negociation going on quickly in the last ten minutes, and DAMNIT, the bidder made a comment. Since it's midnight now in Sedo Europe, I guess that will give the buyer time to cool off for 8-10 hours. Thanks Sedo.
To others here: Can we stay on topic (Sedo Comment Review only) please. This is an important topic.
Please share your stories of the Sedo comment review has screwed you.
I'll keep this thread going until they are sick of it and change something.
Last edited by slobizman : 11-28-2006 at 03:08 PM.
I agree on the frustration of Sedo comment policy - I have spoken to "senior" Sedo staff about this personally at "major" domain conferences. They smile and nod and seem to be listening intently but nothing changes.
Another idea around the comments (if they insist on them) is how about giving the person making the comment an ability to not let the price be seen until the comment is cleared -that way the other party will not see the price without the comment.
Also - the internet is a 24/7 business - with a number of transactions done on the weekends. In order to stay relevant and competitive Sedo is going to have to figure out a way to automate (read this as "cancel the stupid comment system") or have people vet comments on the weekend.
Sedo has made some great changes - particularly with Sedopro (my monthly revenue went up immediately after they made the changes to their feed. They are a pioneer in this area - and I know they are responsive - and their leadership is heavy with sharp smart people. (Yes I know this sounds like I'm sucking up to Sedo - but really this is all true - they are a very good company) - but lets go from Good to Great here and make some significant comment system adjustments.
Yes, niceguy, you're right. I feel the "nod and simile" in my emails and phone calls as well.
What's crazy is that it's one of the easier things they can do to improve our experience. I have an even eaiser they smile and nod over. That is, I requested a "on vacation" flag that we could set in our profile that is displayed on the bidding page. Either it just warns the bidder that the seller is on vacation, or it stops any bidding until vacation is over. Anything, even the simplest solution would be helpful. I'm going to Italy for a month next year and I'm telling my wife I'm not going to be doing domain business while there. I can just see all the bids that went unreplied to (and lost sales due to my seeming uninterest) piling up.
Guys start a thread in DNforum.... they have their own dedicated forum there... eventhough it's been a while since I last saw them commenting on something.
I heard that that they decided to stop commenting in forums because forum members have the tendency to group up and attack them.
I think they are seriously undestaffed because it seems that many things that need their attention, are being neglected by them due to lack of time
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I had sent the link to this thread to Sedo and and recieved a reply. They WILL NOT change their practice. Sometimes the comments aren't nice enough to read I guess.
Anyway, I asked him if I could quote his response, which I will only do if he okays that. I don't like publishing private emails without the sender okaying it.
Stupid Sedo 
