Today a partner of mine who I have bought a premium .TV with in the past received and email regarding a domain he filled out the form of interest for and it reads as follows:
"Hello,
You submitted an interest in DOMAIN. We are holding a negotiated sale process whereby we are soliciting bids.
The reserve price is $X,XXX.00 USD and the “buy it now” price is $XX,XXX.00 USD.
Please reply as soon as possible but no later than April 18th."
So it seems to me that emails are going out now and it looks like an auction format. What I do not see in this email is anything that says PER YEAR. This could be an error or really big news.
Since I know the domain that was referred to in the above email, I can tell that the reserve is slightly high but not bad but the BIN is very high for the domain, IMO.
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It is very possible that those who got email and/or phone calls inquired on a name that received multiple interest. This is just a hunch on my part. I guess we will have to revert to the OLD saying I once heard well I pledged my fraternity 20 years ago from Active brothers in the house when we inquired about Hell Week: " All will be revealed."
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Right Sanchay and this is a complete non transparent way to do things. Where you could be bidding against yourself or Demand Media.
At least Verisign gave deals and discounted regs. Not anymore a flawed process where you have no idea what's going on except to trust Demand Media.
Example Hello this is Sanchay I am interested in Surfing.tv
What is your bid?
$3000
Sorry you were just outbid
By who?
No one actually we just think we can get more out of you
Will that happen ? who knows the process is set up to be non transparent, A reserve and a Buy it now ?
Now what about the ongoing renewals ? and what about people who already own Premiums I think Millers stated Education was $7500 a year why should he not get a flat fee?
These were not reserved from day one like .mobi so having this auction process is not the way to go for the domain owner. Now if you wanted to start every auction at $50 no reserve that's another story. IMO
Not only that but having an auction and a buy it now in such a non transparent way, you have no idea how many people are bidding, and who is looking at what domain?
For instance in an ebay auction or real time auction there is a time line and you can guage what type of interest is involved. Here you have no idea when the deal could go down, they could simply take a premium, and test the waters with it, then decided to hold it on the shelf for a while...
They should just put up all premiums right now and have them for an auction, 7 days and let people bid.
Either that or release them at midnight or high noon on a date.
I whole heartedly agree EQ that this transparency is not a good move. It will backfire. I for one will never ever bid against a ghost bidder and the only way I would ever pay BIN in this situation is if I felt BIN was a fair price. I highly advise anyone who plans on engaging in a multiple offer situation to only bid as high as you think the domain is worth to you or to your business. Multiple offers have a tendency to drive egos and prices way up. Just my opinion.
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While the auction process is not ideal in terms of people interested in buying a certain domain, isn't it great for the overall value of our other premium and top .TV names if these prices shoot through the roof?
It depends. For one, we may never know the sale price as many businesses will sign NDA when acquiring most probably.
Secondly, while end users/businesses have more funds than your average person you must remember that a business, imo, is least likely to buy at an exaggerated price. A successful business will only acquire what is fair market value. If they cannot get that than an alternative solution will come into play. Bidding against ghost bidders is extortion in my book. As pointed out in this thread, it should be an open auction if DM is choosing this route.
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Well put SKG, I guess only time will tell. I'm hoping that some of the prices are released by the buyers and people start to take a second look at the obvious viability of .TV . With the official May 1st launch coming up and theses auctions apparently underway this quite possibly could be the last few weeks of relative calm on the .TV front in terms of mainstream exposure. Let's hope so at least. Still some awsome deals to be had on the aftermarket, but I think those days are numbered.
By the way, I can share the pricing in the example of above.
Reserve: $2500
Bin: $25,000
Here is something interesting. If I search this name at Enom.tv and look at the url bar for what we think is the pricing I will find 2500, which in this case was the Reserve.
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Well I doubt that prices will be released by anybody, not the registrant,Demand Media or Verisign. Why would they? One company may bid $30,000 to get their Initials and another only $5000
Now there are plenty of "premium domains" no one wants I guess they will just be glad you regged it for $500.
Again what about Renewal Prices? For new and existing domains
And there will be some hype for comparable domains maybe, but because someone regged Surfing.tv for $20,000 does not mean socks.tv will get offers Domains are uniquely individual
I just got a note from enom on Florida.tv. $7,500 reserve and $25,000 BIN. I asked them what the annual renewal would be and they said $7,500. If you pay over that, looks as though any amount above reserve would be paid the first year only with following renewals at the reserve price. I will not be buying Florida.tv so help yourselves :-)
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Well that is what FLORIDA.tv was $7500 a year with Verisign so the only new thing is the buy it now. So that is a total joke now to pay $25,000 if the buy it now meant buy and only $50 reg fee that would be interesting IMO
This could be an incredible cash cow for them if tv does take off. Every year, there are likely to be X% of premiums not renewed.... so presumably they'll go through this process again. So even if the BIN is one time and the reserve is the annual renewal fee, ongoing revenues are likely to be much more than the reserves after these premiums are sold.
I think before the premium owners let the name drop they would sell it for next to nothing on the open market, to try and get back whatever money they can from their bad investment..............
I dont see it being dropped unless the name itself is that awful or overpriced that prospective buyers see no value in the name at all, no matter how cheap the seller offers it at ..............
Actually, come to think of it, I can think of quite a few!!!!!!!!!!!!!............at least one good thing will come out of the FYN prices (FUXX YOU NOW) that is - it will act as an extra mental precaution to do your homework on the name before you buy....
1. They are running an auction. I think I have been around long enough to allow myself to call an "I told you guys so" on this one since that is what I predicted when they first reserved the names
I think localexperts was with me on this prediction and a couple of others that I am forgetting
2. The renewals fees are what shows in the URL. Congrats, EQ etc for calling this first
3. The BIN is a distraction. Ignore it. The BIN is saying "stop the auction" and give me the name before you even see what others bid. Of course a seller is going to demand a very high price for giving up the right to see what others bid. So just ignore it. I will be shocked if more than a fraction of these names trade at the BIN.
4. The auction format appears to be single blind, though I guess they could come back for multiple rounds.
It is not particularly more or less "fair" than any other auction format. Most research on auctions suggests either all auction formats are about the same in expected values or, if there are optimal auction formats, single blind is not actually optimal for the seller. (buyers are afraid to overbid).
They probably know this is sub-optimal but don't have the infrastructure / time to run it more optimally.
In any case, I am not sharing any ideas with them on this topic (hello Quinn!)
5. Auction Strategy:
Your auction strategy should be very simple. Bid a price that you would be happy to pay for a name and feel you got a good deal and then go have a beer. Ignore other bidders, phantom bidders, etc. Nobody should or can force you to pay more than you want to pay for a name...
NOBODY ON THIS BOARD (OR ALMOST NOBODY) *NEEDS* A SPECIFIC DOMAIN.
Remember, there are plenty of .tvs in the secondary market at very reasonable prices
6. the higher the prices now, the better for existing domain holders. if you have any doubt about this, ask yourself how you would feel about holding, say, education.tv for XXXX/year if ENOM went and regged the rest of the names for $1/year.
7. If Enom is thinking about this right, they should aim to disclose as much about pricing as possible to show that end-users are paying high values for their .tv names. It would help them with weaker names they are trying to sell to establish public values for the more expensive one. I think NDA is a non-issue. It certainly has not stopped .mobi from bragging left and right about flowers.mobi, etc when sports.tv regged for the same price per year.
This of course would help existing domain holders too, but the reason Enom should do it is because it will help them.
One last thought...
I think enom is going to be a bit disappointed at the bids they get.
Florida.tv was available for 50-70% off $7,500/yr up until December and nobody went for it.
And it is not like they have done their end-user marketing yet, so I am not sure where all this extra demand is going to come from unless everyone on this board loses their mind and starts mortgaging their homes to buy domains at 5x the price they could have had them in December!
on this one since that is what I predicted when they first reserved the names