opinion Does the industry need another auction place?

[AndyM]

Just a general query.

Do you think the industry could benefit from another auction/market place.

A site built by domainers for domainers.
A site that wouldn't charge astronomical success fees and listing fee's.
A site that could potentially go into direct competition with Flippa. (eventually)

Let me know your thoughts and opinions and then watch this space!

Thanks in advanced
AndyM

 

[Name Trader]

Totally get you there stub. I personally like the yellow-ay/orangey-gold but I know I need to consider other users opinions. Hoping to replace those tiles with logos/images that the user can upload themselves.

I understand that was probably the point. I have two observations. If there is no logo uploaded, a white space would be the best depiction of a blank space, than having an ugly yellowish color And secondly, relying of uploads from users is going to boarder on the sublime to the ridiculous. It might actually detract somewhat from what you are trying to develop. One option might be to have a range of pastel shades for the poster to choose from instead. At least it would be more consistent. Or the pastel shades might be fixed to specific, or groups of TLDs, which buyers would become familar with.

 

[Mister Funsky]

I agree re color...it must be easy on the eye with a simple layout..open a browser with your site, daddy, und, flip, etc and jump from one to another and take note of your immediate responses (I know it is hard to do when one is your baby!).

You clearly have coding skills...just a passing thought was touching base with Rob at Epik...of course you would not give any secrets up but considering they are getting ready to deploy an auction house (to liquidate domains by domainers) there may be an opportunity for knowledge exchange.

 

[eternaldomains]

Just a general query.

Do you think the industry could benefit from another auction/market place.

A site built by domainers for domainers.
A site that wouldn't charge astronomical success fees and listing fee's.
A site that could potentially go into direct competition with Flippa. (eventually)

Let me know your thoughts and opinions and then watch this space!

Thanks in advanced
AndyM

Auction definitely needed. Especially $0 upfront listing fees. And payouts via direct debit (ACH/SEPA/BACS) + ability to choose listing currency & payout currency separately. Better still adopt Payoneer directly for payouts. Push/Transfer agents include weekends if possible. 5-15% commission fees probably acceptable.

Color scheme must change. Now look more like "some shady darkweb site" or some gaming/betting/ponzi site. Not good either way. Pastel color is better.

 

[.X.]

I think we need a new, more innovative, more transparent auction market place.

A actual live auction market place is extremely appealing to me.

 

[tonyk2000]

Another auction site means another hoop I have to jump through to get myself verified to participate in an auction. It also means another auction site to watch for. It’s more important to build a platform buyers want than one sellers want.

It also means another place to remove fresh acquisitions from. If I catch the domain today - in many cases I will need to remove it from sedo, afternic and / or uniregisistry as the previous owner or owners never bothered to.

As a matter of fact, in current business environment, another auctions place may not survive. If it is not powered by a registrar for domains registered with this registrar. Registrar-based auction or marketplace would be another story...

If, however, something is really under development (both in design and business aspects) and if this thread is not completely hypothetical - then I wish best of luck to the owners Something fresh is definitely needed.

 

[AndyM]

7 months of development is well and truly under way. This is a marathon not a sprint as I'm doing it all myself while working full-time and have a young family. Taking on board all your thoughts , opinions and ideas is at the forefront of this project and I'm loving and appreciating all the feedback.

What I would like to do early next year is to get a hand full of people to sign up at no cost for the purposes of testing and make sure that the interface is easy to use and appealing. Run some dummy auctions to make sure everything is working as it should.

So for now I'm going to look at colour theory and I'll get back to y'all soon.

 

[nononsense123]

I love this idea. One specific suggestion that someone else also voiced: Make thematic divisions in the marketplace. com, ngtld's..
more if possible: emerging tech, liquid domains, numerical domains, one word, 2 word and so on

 

[Domain Monk]

I need site like efty or Dan able to host an auction just on a click

 

[tonyk2000]

Design and backend are important, no doubts. What is more important is payment processing, in- and out- payments, antifraud and the like. It also opens a lot of questions: jurisdiction, VAT, invoicing etc.

 

[carob]

It’s more important to build a platform buyers want than one sellers want.

My thoughts exactly - do buyers want another platform? Will they use it? Can it cover its costs? Just things to think about before investing.

 

[eternaldomains]

My thoughts exactly - do buyers want another platform? Will they use it? Can it cover its costs? Just things to think about before investing.

What buyers want - they don't really care as long they get the domain they want in the end. It's what sellers want that's lacking. Anyone who does outbound + auction knows this.

============

To add, about verification: Just do like what Sedo do, verification mainly for buyers who spend high amounts. Or even better, follow DAN, who only ask if a suspicious credit card is used (but you'll need to adopt some kind of payment system like Ayden). To impose on sellers is just simply trying to take away hard earned money. All that talk about money laundering is just pure BS when the super rich don't even want to use these channels for such purposes.

 

[tonyk2000]

All that talk about money laundering is just pure BS when the super rich don't even want to use these channels for such purposes

Yeah, but the marketplace still needs to be "compliant" to survive. Which may be mission impossible nowadays, at least for a new player. A number of non-US banks already (100% voluntary) stopped doing USD transactions because of high compliance costs. So, how will financial side of a new auctions place operate is the biggest question.

 

[twiki]

Not to discourage you, because I'd love to see more QUALITY options .. but the truth is that we see a thread like this several times a year ... usually one or two sites get started .. but never end up with "the right stuff" and all end up fizzling out.

The reason it fizzles out is because building a marketplace is a costly, risky, tremendously difficult endeavor. Especially done right. Running it is also costly. A subscription based model will not be feasible unless you charge a significant number.

Source: I used to build marketplaces, and still have one as system but it's not being operated.

 

[twiki]

Yeah, but the marketplace still needs to be "compliant" to survive. Which may be mission impossible nowadays, at least for a new player. A number of non-US banks already (100% voluntary) stopped doing USD transactions because of high compliance costs. So, how will financial side of a new auctions place operate is the biggest question.

Compliance will take you mid-six figures at least. You can safely bet on 1M needed overall.

 

[twiki]

The main reason for fizzling out I think, is because nobody can build a website with the volumes needed to make it successful. We can't compete with the big boys like GoDaddy, Afternic, Sedo, SnapNames, NameJet. And without the volumes, buyers and sellers won't come. Also, I think the "right stuff" is subjective and differs with different people. But, IMHO, that is not the primary motivation for these new sites failing. But I would never discourage anyone from trying

You are entirely right. Also see my posts above.

Technically its' difficult but the highest difficulty is breaking the profitability barrier. That is where 99% of launched marketplaces fail in the end. They do not get enough traction.

 

[eternaldomains]

Compliance will take you mid-six figures at least. You can safely bet on 1M needed overall.

Wha??? Sounds like this whole verification nonsense in nothing more than racketeering against small businesses if that figure is true??? Any reference so we can check out?

And would you mind sharing what kinds of costs are involved for a marketplace? I can only think of hosting costs since I don't have much exp in making websites.

 

[twiki]

Wha??? Sounds like this whole verification nonsense in nothing more than racketeering against small businesses if that figure is true??? Any reference so we can check out?

And would you mind sharing what kinds of costs are involved for a marketplace? I can only think of hosting costs since I don't have much exp in making websites.

It depends on how you build the payments process, but if you (for example) want to commission trades and make everything smooth for users, you need to become a payment processor and that's 500K. Everything else comes on top. There's also security certification etc etc.

CC issuers specifically deny third-party intervention in the sales process. The entity charging must be a registered payment processor, and the other party is the buyer. So the marketplace has no place in that unless registered.

There are some marketplace payment solutions but each has their pros and cons. For the one I worked on, the only solution found without enormously expensive fees was to "force" the sellers to register as merchants with the payment provider via the forms inside the marketplace offered by the payment processor. The marketplace never took off though.

The issue is that you cannot tap directly in the money flow for a comission. That's not allowed. For intangible goods there is also the possibility of late fee-charging, such as later fees charge on the seller's card. But you assume a risk there. If there are any previous costs, such as domain registrations supported for example (not the case I guess), worker salaries, servers, whatever else, you will be at a loss each time a client does sell their stuff but does not pay to you in the end. So... there are a lot of unknowns.

Marketplace building is not for the faint-hearted, nor for the low budget ones.

Edit: for more precise insight you need to talk directly to cc processors, this is just side info as I'm not in the industry, but based on hurdles we have faced.

 

[twiki]

BTW - due to these issues for our marketplace we simply ditched CC payments as it was a regional one and in an industry where COD payments are most used (by individuals), and wire transfers by companies. So we never built that CC part. Nor could we afford it at that time. Nor could we identify a payment provider that could indeed provide a barely decent solution.

The 500K lump would have been the only thing solving the problem. For example software like Wave apps Accounting is free, but they charge a commission out of transactions processed on behalf of their users, so it's a nice model. But they are registered payment processors so they have paid up.

 

[manpreet]

Just a general query.

Do you think the industry could benefit from another auction/market place.

A site built by domainers for domainers.
A site that wouldn't charge astronomical success fees and listing fee's.
A site that could potentially go into direct competition with Flippa. (eventually)

Let me know your thoughts and opinions and then watch this space!

Thanks in advanced
AndyM

Yes definitely needed. The more the better. Domaining will keep growing and so will the number of Domainers with dreams. Looking forward to your new site!

 

[AndyM]

Have toned down the yellow for this page just now.

Priority is back-end and functionality just now now - design/UI/UX will come later.

 

[AndyM]

I need site like efty or Dan able to host an auction just on a click

The idea is to have something similar to efty, more the portfolio management side of things (not the personal market place ect) and from there you can send your domain to auction in just a couple of clicks.

 

[BrandAptly.com]

I don’t like the idea. Another auction site means another hoop I have to jump through to get myself verified to participate in an auction. It also means another auction site to watch for. It’s more important to build a platform buyers want than one sellers want.

I partially agree with you. While I support the idea of more niche-focused domain marketplaces, I believe the environment should be more buyer (end-user) focused and less seller convenient. After all, we don't build this platforms to entertain ourselves; we build them to move domains.

 

[AndyM]

So I've created a home page for you to sign up/register your interest for when we get closer to the launch date. This is also to give me an idea of the genuine interest in the platform.

So feel free to sign up today https://kingdomnames.com/

 

[AndyM]

Follow on Twitter https://twitter.com/kingdom_Names and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kingdomnames/

 

[eternaldomains]

So I've created a home page for you to sign up/register your interest for when we get closer to the launch date. This is also to give me an idea of the genuine interest in the platform.

So feel free to sign up today https://kingdomnames.com/

Signed up. BTW how many signed up so far?

Follow on Twitter https://twitter.com/kingdom_Names and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kingdomnames/

IMO I wouldn't bother with social especially these days since there's just too many petty little things that can cause massive account destruction/password leaks/etc. So I don't bother with social anymore.

Prioritizing on posting updates here instead of social medias would probably be better for exposure.