Flippa Domains and the Quest for a (Near) Perfect Marketplace

[FlippaDomains]

// Flippa Domains -- FAQs and Feature Requests //

Rules: stay on topic. If you have a valid feature request, it will be added to the original checklist. "Likes" and "Thanks" will help rank things higher. Anything critical that fails to deliver a suggestion for improvement and/or anything off topic or that doesn't stimulate the discussion will be deleted.

Let me be very clear that below are suggestions we've heard or are hearing about currently, and some we are already working on behind the scenes. I mostly want to hear from those I haven't spoken to yet.

///

Upgrades

• What if we slashed their prices?
  
• What if we got rid of them outright?
• What if a seller had to apply to receive an upgrade?
• etc

Bidder Aliases

• Will this expose shill bidders?

Auction Saturation

• What if we limited the number of auctions?

etc

 

[FlippaDomains]

@cncventure This entire thread will be revised and reopened in the coming weeks. Lining up some good and positive changes currently. Thanks for everyone's input thus far.

 

[JB Lions]

First, I noticed you have names now for bidders, so that's great, now the bad.

Why, do you still have the auctions extended by an hour each time a new bid comes in? The domain sales are a drop in the bucket compared to other sites with domain auctions and a new bid only extends the auction a few minutes. There is a reason why they do this. The back and forth gets the excitement going, the competitive juices flowing, an hour puts people to sleep. It's a sales killer. Is that going to get fixed sometime soon?

 

[FlippaDomains]

First, I noticed you have names now for bidders, so that's great, now the bad.

Why, do you still have the auctions extended by an hour each time a new bid comes in? The domain sales are a drop in the bucket compared to other sites with domain auctions and a new bid only extends the auction a few minutes. There is a reason why they do this. The back and forth gets the excitement going, the competitive juices flowing, an hour puts people to sleep. It's a sales killer. Is that going to get fixed sometime soon?

Can you link me to what you mean? We hadn't changed that yet.

As for the extension time, I happen to agree with you, but for some reason our research suggests otherwise. I'd like this to be changed, but am unsure it will happen at moment.

 

[JB Lions]

Can you link me to what you mean? We hadn't changed that yet.

As for the extension time, I happen to agree with you, but for some reason our research suggests otherwise. I'd like this to be changed, but am unsure it will happen at moment.

The first auction in my sig, I now see names for bidders.

What research? Is it research you can share? Because I think Snap, NJ, GD have more data on that. And their extension time is very similar, just a few minutes. And if you've only done it one way, how could you have data on the shorter time? Was it shorter in the past?

 

[JB Lions]

@FlippaDomains - Just tried your app out for the first time yesterday.

First, it was hard to login (iphone) once I filled out username, the password part went way and vice versa. Forgot how I eventually got signed in.

Start page, not a big deal but should be links to account, it's Established Sites, Starter Sites, Domains Names, Mobile Apps, click one of them to get to another screen where I can get to the link I want on the bottom, the Me link. The bottom row has 5 links, the Me link is the one missing from the start page.

Unless I'm missing it, I have no idea where to accept or reject new bidders from the app. There was nothing at all under Notifications where I figured it would be. Tried my watchlist, can't accept from there.

 

[PNW]

I've had three auctions paid for at Flippa in which I canceled them all early (no bids, low offers [who cares really]). However, they still came up as unsold and could be seen in search results on Google. For the first two which I ended a long time ago, the only option to delete the listing was to "Buy a privacy upgrade" for something like $25 which seemed like a very shady practice to me.

Now, I've logged into my account today and for the old ones I ended early I was able to select to "Buy a privacy upgrade", but for free this time. However, the last one I closed early was somehow relisted and I selected to close it today; this time I have no option to "Buy a privacy upgrade."

In my opinion all unsold auctions should be removed/deleted or placed into "draft" mode so they are not indexed and never should anyone have to pay to delete a listing they paid for to begin with.

 

[FlippaDomains]

@menzl Get in touch so I can manually remove/hide those for you.

 

[PNW]

I appreciate that. I did and it's now resolved - Thank you.

 

[dncafe]

What is the current Flippa policy with removing the sale price after the auction is over, both sold and unsold?

Aside from private listings, why is it the practice of Flippa to leave the price after the auction is over?

 

[FlippaDomains]

What is the current Flippa policy with removing the sale price after the auction is over, both sold and unsold?

Aside from private listings, why is it the practice of Flippa to leave the price after the auction is over?

This may or may not change in the future, but for now it is just the way it is. I cannot speak of what the architects of the original platform intended; there are pros and cons to both sides.

If you need anything removed, just ask.

 

[FlippaDomains]

I know I set this up and then pretty much abandoned it. I will be revisiting this soon as our development scope kicks into third gear. Some good things to share, no doubt.

 

[voiceofreason]

The first auction in my sig, I now see names for bidders.

What research? Is it research you can share? Because I think Snap, NJ, GD have more data on that. And their extension time is very similar, just a few minutes. And if you've only done it one way, how could you have data on the shorter time? Was it shorter in the past?

How I wish Flippa would shorten auction extensions to 5 minutes. I know myself the fervor one gets at other auction sites. A lot of high bids are being lost by giving an hour long extension.