domains Pheenix goes to public auctions on multiple backorders

[Name Trader]

I just received this in the mail,

3. Public Auctions coming September 19th.

All domains that have multiple backorders on it will now be available for Public Bidding for any backorders being released on or after 2015-09-19.

As a precondition, if someone did not have a backorder on the domain name prior to it going to auction, their minimum bid is at least $59 in order to participate in the auction.

I predicted on NP's that other backorder companies would change their model. Of course I was thinking of SnapNames/Namjet. So Pheenix were the first one to do it. Makes sense, imho.

 

[Arca]

I wonder if drop catching services focus and allocate resources to domains with multiple backorders only ?

Focusing more of their resources on domains with multiple backorders makes sense financially, since there will be auctions, and they will earn more on what they catch. But if Pheenix is mostly focusing their efforts on domains with multiple backorders, it doesn’t make much sense to backorder with them anymore, since the domains they focus on with multiple backorders will enter public auctions (and there will be no “bargains”, which I thought is the main draw of Pheenix), and if you are the only person who backorders the domain, they usually won’t catch it since they appear to put less resources towards it, and they are hardly able to compete with SN and DropCatch even when they do (or even hand registrations sometimes).

Of course it varies, Stub mentioned that they catch the majority of the names he backorders, which is a really good catch rate. For the mostly low competition names I order they probably catch around 10% or a bit less, and it looks like the “glitch” above might be happening a lot, because several of these names do not appear to be caught by SN and DC (though sometimes by HugeDomains corporate backorder due to their broad algorithm they often catch even the most "hidden" gems) or any of the other main dropcatchers.

A few months ago, I used to comb the dropping lists during the drop, and handreg whatever decent names were not backordered. I remember sometimes an ok 5L.com would drop, and I would go to reg it, and it would be available, and then I eventually decided against it. Then and hour after the drop, I would check which of the “potential” domains I found had been registered, and sometimes they had been “caught” by Pheenix, a long time after I had decided against hand registering it.

I will start using DesktopCatcher to catch exactly the same names as I’m trying to get with Pheenix from now on, because there at least you get in a request per second or so, and the name would be caught seconds after dropping, so while it can’t compete with SN and DC, at least it should be more effective than *some* of Pheenix attempts at backordering, as pheenix apparently sometimes do not send even 1 request until way after the name has dropped, for certain names (while in other instances they do perform well and catch competitive names).

 

[Name Trader]

Of course my success rate at Pheenix varies considerably. But I would guess, on average, its greater than 50%. But of course, every day is different names, and they may not always be the same desirability every day. I have only encountered 1 domain which I backordered, which I was able to hand-reg. That's quite a small percentage of my backorders at Pheenix. But I am very interested in your experiment with DropCatcher, and your success/failure with quality and not-so quality domains. Keep us informed.

 

[Paul123]

I would like to say that I have only heard good reports about DesktopCatcher on the forum.

I have been traveling now for 6 months and have not ordered it yet. However I return to the UK at the end of the month until the New Year and will buy the software for sure. People that have it do seem to recommend on here. I know it won't match the 'top boys' but I think it serves a purpose for the right domains IMO.

Best,
Paul

 

[cocaseco]

I have used Desktop Catcher for quite awhile now and I get reasonable results. The only problem is the need to have a lot of accounts, each with money on account. Takes awhile to get setup, but then its golden.

 

[webm]

In my state, the property-resale market was going going high, thousands of properties changing hands everyday. The government was seeing it hopeless with their 8% tax on every transaction. Some wise office from the government came up with the idea of increasing the tax to 17% and all seemed settled.

The result? After 3 months, Government's total revenue declined by a steep 35%. So let's say, where they used to earn 100 bucks in previous quarter with 8% commission, they earned only 65 with the 17% tax as people literally stopped trading in aftermarket property.

So the question is, Will the move of opening up public auctions, justify against the number of loyal customers who will stop pheenix altogether after this move? If their ultimate goal is profit itself, this strategy is double edged sword and may backfire in terms of less people ordering at pheenix due to this change, and declining the overall revenue. That's something @gorilla_bob needs to give some thoughts to.

Not really a wise move to change your only USP and slap your "laser-targeted" client base. Especially in these tough times of DropCatching trying to catch not only domains, but more and more customers.

 

[campout]

Has this started? I can't even find the Public Auction page on Pheenix.

 

[Ted.T]

I think it will continue under the Shop page.

 

[campout]

the Shop page.... I feel like that's where I should go if I want to buy a Pheenix T-shirt or baseball cap

 

[main]

It is pretty interesting to see all the .cc domains Pheenix catches on the public auction.

 

[silentg]

Is the site down? It's not loading for me right now.

 

[TrendWatcher]

Server is striking against public auctions i think
Pheenix is offline for almost a day now

 

[Jasonn]

Server is striking against public auctions i think
Pheenix is offline for almost a day now

their servers seem unreliable. sometimes it takes forever to log in, sometimes it doesn't work at all.

 

[Ted.T]

With all this changes, Pheenix became completely unreliable. Extending the auctions is not the best solution for offline site...

I see the following error "Fatal error: Call to undefined function geoip_country_code_by_name() in /home/pheenix/public_html/backorders2/inc/tokens.php on line 11"

They invested in new registrars, but didn't care about their main site... Who needs a backorder service that doesn't have a fast and reliable site?

It's slow and freezes a lot... The shittiest backorder site I've seen...

 

[cyc]

Not responding again................................................................................................................

 

[indiegrind]

ok, I have been catching a few very good names lately, but I cant wait until I can transfer my names out with this instability.

 

[gorilla_bob]

Thanks guys for all your patience as we went through a downtime recently. The site is a lot more responsive now and loads up fast as lightning.

@Truname.com, I'm glad that we are catching great domain names for you and we hope to continue to do that. I hope that you re-consider keeping your domain names at Pheenix as we continue to grow. I think you will be very happy to stay with us.

@all, the reason for the downtime was due to a third party software that affected the performance of our servers. This was not seen during testing but came very apparent once the new version was placed onto the Production website. We've got a great team here and they were able to figure this out and resolve it.

Thanks all for being such loyal customers.

Bob

 

[discobull]

Thanks all for being such loyal customers.

Yes, you did have loyal customers. It's unfortunate that you've chosen to go the public auction route instead of being loyal to your customers in return.

 

[gorilla_bob]

Discobull,

We have a lot of loyal customers. And we have been getting a lot of people that like our public auctions. It's a transition that had to be made and at all times, we kept in mind that there was a segment of people that didn't like it so much in the beginning.

If you give it a try, I think you'll find some good things about our auctions.

Bob

 

[discobull]

we kept in mind that there was a segment of people that didn't like it so much in the beginning.

That "segment" is otherwise known as the vast majority of your customers.

If you give it a try, I think you'll find some good things about our auctions.

Ok fine. Please explain what aspect of paying more for domains you think I will like? Or is it that you think that after I lose the domain to someone that didn't do any research and didn't get their backorder in on time, that I'll enjoy knowing that the time I took to find the domain benefited someone else's business instead of mine?

 

[Jasonn]

Discobull,

We have a lot of loyal customers. And we have been getting a lot of people that like our public auctions. It's a transition that had to be made and at all times, we kept in mind that there was a segment of people that didn't like it so much in the beginning.

If you give it a try, I think you'll find some good things about our auctions.

Bob

it makes it pointless now to backorder with pheenix unless you are guaranteed to be the only backorder. When an auction goes public and up to 69 with the first public bid, i might as well of just backordered at snapnames and paid only $69 instead of biddin against someone who never even backordered the domain. the advantage pheenix had against other services was the cheaper price. with the public $69 auctions this is largely no longer the case.

 

[Asfas1000]

@gorilla_bob Please consider keeping the private auctions for domains with less than 5 bids.

 

[tonyk2000]

It would be probably time-saving to avoid slogans like "the customers are enjoying conversion to open auctions format" on this forum. We are all pros here and we all understand what happens and why. Such a slogan is more appopriate to a newbies board.

Returning to technical issues. Would pheenix be so kind to check what member is initally considered as "highest" bidder in case of multiple equal inital bids. Earlier, it was always who placed the backorder earlier, and the members nickname was always shown in the bottom of the bidders list. Now, it may or may not be the case. I've seen "just started" auctions with all equal inital bids and no bidding activity so far, but with the winning bidder not being the member who placed the backorder first (in sense that thier nickname is NOT in the very bottom of bidders list).

 

[gorilla_bob]

@discobull I think you would be surprised at the diversity of our customers.

You now have the opportunity to review and bid on domain names that you may not have initially backordered yourself. Who knows, you may find a great bargain on a domain name that you personally did not backorder but would like to have.

@Jasonn If you are using Pheenix it means that you are enjoying our low prices. If you feel that paying $69 on every domain name you backorder is fine, then snapnames may be good for you. But a lot of people enjoy the low prices that we've been able to maintain.

@Asfas1000 Thanks for the suggestion. I think currently we have a fair system in place. For the people that backorder the domain name ahead of time, they like that they have a chance to win the domain name at a very low price. And if there is an auction, anyone from the outside needs to pay almost triple your initial bid just to enter the auction.

@tonyk2000 Would you mind sending support the ticket as this way it can be tracked and you can get a quick response in fixing it as this forum is not appropriate for handling support issues.


Guys, the thing is...the industry has changed, and it will continue to change. It's the ones that see this and that can adapt to new environments that will stay ahead of the curve. There are many things in the industry which have changed that I would have liked to have not have changed, but it happens, and one must adapt and see how to win in the new environment.

Bob

 

[Jasonn]

@discobull

@Jasonn If you are using Pheenix it means that you are enjoying our low prices. If you feel that paying $69 on every domain name you backorder is fine, then snapnames may be good for you. But a lot of people enjoy the low prices that we've been able to maintain.



Bob

I was enjoying the low prices but now for whatever reason more domains are going to auction and all but one have been jacked up by people who didn't backorder the domain. i'm talking auctions that had 2 or 3 bidders. every single one ended up going for way more than it would of had it been a closed auction. its great for you guys, not so great for those who have been supporting pheenix since day 1.

 

[main]

@gorilla_bob Please consider keeping the private auctions for domains with less than 5 bids.

@Asfas1000 Thanks for the suggestion. I think currently we have a fair system in place. For the people that backorder the domain name ahead of time, they like that they have a chance to win the domain name at a very low price. And if there is an auction, anyone from the outside needs to pay almost triple your initial bid just to enter the auction.

@gorilla_bob, we all realize that Pheenix is looking to maximize their revenues by turning to the DropCatch model of public auctions for caught domains with multiple backorders. It's good for your company and perhaps it is a necessary evolution for you to compete. But maximizing your revenues equals higher prices for your customers. What people don't appreciate is Pheenix trying to spin this like it somehow it's somehow good for us. Just be honest.

As I've written before, the domainers that this new platform benefits the most are the domainers with extremely large bankrolls. The 1%ers of the domain world. What it in ensures is that the majority of the auctions will be won by a small group of domainers with big pockets. This is a fact.

@Asfas1000 has suggested an excellent solution that would alleviate frustrations of a large percentage of the average domainers. Perhaps private auctions for 5 original backorders or less may be too much to ask, but maybe 3 would be more realistic. This makes sure you still maximize your revenue on even moderately competitive domain names where you make the most of your money anyway, while at the same time keeping the domainers who spend lots of time researching for hidden gems from the drop happy.

You mention outside bidders need to pay almost triple the initial bids to enter the auction, but that just isn't a barrier at all.