Flippa Strategies? How Much Do Upgrades Work? Any Tips To Share? Let's Discuss!

[NameFu]

I've hear a lot of things from $1 reserves to setting an auction for no longer than 7 days. Does anyone have any tips that are proven to increase your bids?

One things for sure:

1) The more views you get, the more likely you'll get more bids
2) The longer your auction, the more exposure it *could* get before it closes

But what about the other factors like advertising upgrades? Have any of you had luck with any kind of upgrades in particular? I for one have never tried the premium auction upgrade before, but I'm seriously considering it.

Another factor is how an auction's description is composed. Any tips to share? I'm always an open book and looking for input from others.

One thing that I've seen work over and over again with some of the more successful sellers is listing the past sales history of similar domains with the same keywords. I think this is becoming a popular tactic for a reason, but do any of you believe that doing this can cause harm to your auction's appeal?

Another tactic that I've seen used by some sellers on Flippa is keeping it REALLY simple. And by that I mean max 5-6 sentences. Sort of a take it or leave it approach....letting the domain speak for it's self?

It's worked! But maybe different strategies for different domains? Let's discuss!!

 

[FPForum]

We all have opinions. But are we forgetting the bad rep Snapnames got from their 'little' issue? Flippa is a giant. I don't seriously see a worker shill bidding, ever. It could happen, but I think Flippa would try their best to avoid that stigma.

Yup..and GoDaddy had to go through something similar (Adam Dicker). I think in the interview here he mentions having a crew of like 12 people.. That many employees is probably much easier to oversee then the other two. Flippa has a pretty good reputation and I just don't know if they would risk it.. But once again, to each his own

 

[HeyNow]

Yes there is a difference but that does not mean flippa is driving up the price of that. What are they gaining a 10% fee, it is different if they gained 100% profits but their are not.

They're gaining sellers. They're gaining new profits on new sales from repeat and new sellers.

I get the feeling the spin-doctors are in the house, trying to obscure the reality of Flippa's policy as described by their own CEO in this interview, question and answer #6: http://tldinvestors.com/2012/11/quick-chat-with-david-slutzkin-ceo-flippa.html

 

[FlippaDomains]

Hey Everyone -- I'm Flippa's Domains Manager, and while a bit late to this thread, I'm going to be replying to individual comments as NamePros allows. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss best practices for domain sellers, as well as set the record straight in regards to our employees and their involvement in the marketplace. Anyone who would like more information can contact me directly.

 

[FlippaDomains]

I've hear a lot of things from $1 reserves to setting an auction for no longer than 7 days. Does anyone have any tips that are proven to increase your bids?

One things for sure:

1) The more views you get, the more likely you'll get more bids
2) The longer your auction, the more exposure it *could* get before it closes

But what about the other factors like advertising upgrades?
Another factor is how an auction's description is composed. Any tips to share?

Hi there,

Here is the general email I share with new sellers, as far as best practices are concerned:

My recommendations in setting-up your listing are as follows:
-- set an opening-bid of $1, with low- or no-reserve
-- set the auction's duration at 14-30 days, careful not to end it on a weekend
-- redirect the domain name to your Flippa auction, so type-in visitors will have the option of bidding

In starting the bidding at $1, domains will receive more bids, which bounces the listing into 'Most Active' territory, which increases exposure (thus helping to generate more bids, and...the cycle continues).

Furthermore, I blog and deploy a domains-only newsletter to over 170,000 subscribers every Thursday. If your domain hits 'Most Active' status, there's a good chance it will receive weekly coverage. Extending the duration 3-4 weeks helps extend this coverage.​

Premium Upgrades are most effective, though costly and usually only a worthy investment if you're selling a higher-value asset. Established sellers have less trouble listing $1 Reserve auctions and getting traction, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for newbies (unless you're fine with fire-sale'ing stuff).

It takes about 1-3 months to get more established as a seller, through consistent effort.

Here to help with any further inquiries!

 

[FlippaDomains]

Is it just me or are there people bidding on their own auctions and even buying their own domains when it doesn't sell, for the sake of not having an unsold auction on their record? It seems like there is a lot of this going on...

If you or anyone sees any evidence of this, you must immediately email Support@Flippa or hop on our Live Chat. We have a zero tolerance for this or related behavior, and since this past year have beefed-up our Trust and Safety + Customer Success Team, to deal with such suspicious activity.

 

[FlippaDomains]

That is against Flippa's rules. Any suspected shill bidding should result in a intimidate ban. Wasn't there a thread on here recently by someone that got banned because he claimed a friend logged into his own Flippa account from his laptop or something?

Interested in being pointed to that thread -- as I've stated earlier, our Trust and Safety Team is vigilant, and unfortunately, sometimes that means false positives as far as account bans are concerned! Cleaning up the marketplace is an ongoing process, but if someone feels they made an honest mistake, we do listen and take all into consideration...

 

[FlippaDomains]

Yeah, I know it's against the rules, but I'm totally convinced that people bid on their own domains because their auctions start almost immediately with 1 bid. I've also seen 2 people who admitted to buying their own domain in comments. For example there was a guy who put up a domain and it sold for 50k and he actually admitted when it was relisted to a commenter that he bought the domain in his previous auction....why woud he do that I have no idea, but he didn't get banned from what I can remember. I do see people getting banned often on that site though.

My biggest problem with Flippa is when people are lying about their exact match searches. There's one particular seller who has sold many domains for 15 - 30k dollars and he's almost always exaggerating his google numbers.

Also very often I see people saying that their google search results are actually exact match searches....it's disgusting and flat out lying. Even if they don't know the difference between search results and exact match searches they should still get penalized for this kind of nonsense...because they put buyers at risk with their bold ignorance....

1/ It's totally against the rules to bid on your own stuff, so please report this to myself or Support immediately, if you suspect anything.

2/ This also bugs me -- erroneous stats. STAY TUNED for a major overhaul of the domains page, that will make it harder for sellers to fluff-up stats in this way. As a caveat, however, the buyer must always do their due-diligence...This is not the responsibility of Flippa's Domains department; that said, we are ensuring that all Website listings become stat-verified.

 

[FlippaDomains]

If you want me to answer your question its $250

To mark the answer in bold - add $5

To include italic lettering - add $9

To have me post my answer to my twitter feed that no body reads - add $45

To have me email my answer to my entire email list of newsletter subscribers that could care less - add $75

I hope this answers your question

PS you are better off spending money asking domain shane to mention your listing (think he charges like 15-25 bucks). Obviously if you have a bad domain nothing matters.

Sellers that work with me get discounts on upgrades (2-for-1 Premium upgrades, free listings, etc) and we have a new section emerging called "Flippa Exclusive," that is completely free for hand-picked premium inventory. Please contact me to assess the best strategy for the listing(s).

 

[FlippaDomains]

Does anyone knows what happens when a new bidder places the highest bid in the last hour of your auction but you are not online to accept or reject the bid? Will the auction be extended with another hour anyway?

You can allow for auto-approval of bids, and yes -- that will extend the auction. But if you choose to manually approve bidders (which we recommend, so you can vet their legitimacy), the bid won't count until you approve.

 

[FlippaDomains]

I'm sure there is shill bidding going on through Flippa..but, you could probably expect that just about anywhere. I personally have tried the frontpage listing upgrade before. It does increase views but so many people buy them your listing will only be there for 24-48hrs. Never tried the full premium upgrade, but I have received "free" premium upgrade promotions before through email which I've taken advantage of... It has increased the views quite a bit. As for bids, that can be a little hard to really pin-point because I've only done it twice and I use multiple methods for promoting my auctions.

@dv82 to answer your question..it does extend it by an hr whether you go in and confirm it or not..You could wait until there is 5 minutes left and deny it if you want..you still get the extra hour out of it!

Interesting; I've actually not experienced that -- regarding listing extension. Thanks for schooling me on it, haha

 

[FlippaDomains]

Interview with Kevin Fink that explained a lot, mention the interview for free credits

Yes, Upgrades are expensive, and must be fine-tuned to work for different types of listings. That's what the staff is here for -- to help with this. Reach out to us and ask questions!

 

[FlippaDomains]

A few methods I use for promoting my flippa auctions...
1) Putting the sale banner for my auctions on a webmaster forum I've started running. (Plus my other domain related sites/blogs)
2) Tweet the auction with a link to it (don't forget the popular hashtags like #Flippa #Domains #Sedo #Afternic..etc.)
3) You can always throw a link to the auction in your signature
4) Always pay attention to the emails they send out. Inside you will almost always find something like a free upgrade, credits for making a listing, 2-for-1's, they offer a variety of promotions inside their emails..but the emails won't be titled "free promotion inside"...
5) If it's an end user related domain..Don't hesitate to send out a few emails to potential buyers. I don't always include the auction link in my initial email..but if you get a response you can always send it over to them.
6) Comments. Anytime you have a number of watchers they get emailed everytime a comment is placed. There's been times when I've had a number of watchers, posted a comment with something like "Only 3 days left..get your bids in now!"..."only 48hrs left, times almost up!" and then had one of them jump in and place a bid. It's not common (especially for long auctions) for people to tap the Watch button and then forget about it.
7) The "External Links" portion of NP and some of the other forums.

Sorry, it's not really a wealth of information, lol..But maybe something you can go on to try and get more promotion without paying. The twitters I blast on don't have thousands (or even hundreds) of followers, but a good tweet with allot of hashtags almost always gives me a quick boost in views! With a dozen or more watchers commenting is another really good practice - Don't overdue it..but one a day when it's getting close to the end usually brings in a bid or two!

Fantastic advice, and I don't have anything to add other than ...You must be ACTIVE in promoting your listing. Those that understand this, great -- if you don't get it, email us.

 

[FlippaDomains]

6) Does Flippa allow employees to bid on auctions ?[/B]

“We do allow our staff to bid on auctions as long as the bidders are
clear about this with sellers,..."

As an auction bidder, I wouldn't trust Flippa as far as I could spit. Whoop-dee-doo, they alert the Seller that Flippa's employees can bid at auctions. Like the Seller is going to not like the fact that the domain price could be pumped up artificially by the auctioneer's employees? Puh-leeeze! To me, that means the non-employee bidders are clueless that the auctioneer's employees are behind the scenes, bidding on the same names, perhaps driving up prices unbeknownst to clueless non-employee bidders.

This is madness. Why anyone in their right mind would give such a company nickel one is beyond me. But go ahead, if you're a Flippa Seller, the stank rubs off on you too. If you're a Flippa buyer/bidder, go get some help.

My response is very simple on this: so long as Employees alert the seller, the Seller may approve or reject a Flippa Employee's bid.

Employees are encouraged to participate in the process, and we value the amount of transparency we offer compared to virtually every other domain marketplace.

All this said, something you'll have to take my word on is...very, very few employees are actually bidding on anything. And I can assure you that we're not skewing anything if we do.

 

[FlippaDomains]

Quick question @HeyNow - Would you rather they be honest and tell you this up front? Or, would you rather they do like so many other places and simply make it happen behind the scenes without saying anything so you really have no clue? If the only reason you're not listing (or bidding) on Flippa is because their employees have the freedom to throw in a bid if they want then you probably need to catch up in this industry a little more. Here's a little news, lots of places do it! Probably places you're bought, backordered, or even sold before! But guess what, they never say anything so you wouldn't even know.

I've listed, sold, and not sold a number of domains and websites on Flippa since back when their marketplace was on SitePoint and Flippa wasn't even running. Not once have I ever received notice about an employee making a bid. Now sure, they might not like or want what I've listed, but it also makes me think that this isn't something they're jumping around and doing frequently. Keep in mind, once you become more active as a seller you'll get so many good promotions you won't even really be spending money on listings.

It's like most other auctions.. You want something, it's up for sale, you go (or hopefully don't have to go) to the highest amount you're willing to pay. If someone else is willing to pay more (employee or non-employee) then they're gonna get it. The fact that they the CEO is saying that actually makes me a feel a little more comfortable. Someone is actually being honest! From what I know, Moderators/Admins on NP are allowed to bid/bin on auctions. Still, you don't see it getting outta control. They might not get a commission from sales on NP, but if it's something they really want and they can afford to outbid you - they will.

It might be one thing when it's a company like SnapNames..They catch the name, they throw it into auction, and they shill bid it so the company can make a hefty profit. The story isn't quite the same with Flippa. They don't get all the money - they get a mere 10%. Even if they were able to bump up the price $1000 on an auction..that's only an extra $100 for them (probably not even worth the risk), whereas with SnapNames that would be a $1000 profit for them. Not to mention, there are probably a limited number of auctions where they could really sit there shill bid it up $1000!

IMO, it would be one thing to hear this coming from a company like NameJet or SnapNames where they're pocketing all the profits. But, it's a different story with Flippa. I really don't think they are having employees go and shill bid auctions left and right to try and increase profits. Instead, they are going to tell you when it's an employee bidding and the employee is probably only going to be bidding because it's something they actually want and are willing to pay for.

Couldn't have said it better. Again, I'm the only potential domain buyer in the company and I've pretty much stopped buying since I started (#notenoughtime). I still do bid occasionally, but much less than I did six months ago -- once, twice a month, if that. I always alert the seller, and I intend to win what I bid on, and often do. I hope that is transparent enough for you guys...

 

[FlippaDomains]

There is nothing wrong with flippa's employees bidding on auction that they're interested in. Many companies allow their employees and would prefer employees to spend their money with in the company.

@NameFlu Flippa is a great place to make money, yes they over charge for upgrades, and listing fees but the give back to their online sellers sometimes. The thing is buyers are becoming low ballers and sometimes they back out the deal for what ever the reason. "That is Business" @FPForum is 100% Correct which i know he has made good money selling domains.

I despise deadbeat buyers and have zero tolerance; we usually suspend or ban them once they mess up the process for the seller. My team and I look out for our sellers!

In the very near future, we're going to be introducing a built-in Escrow, and a bit after that, ensure new methods so if a buyer pumps in a high bid, they're held to similar standards as Namejet's and Sedo's verified bidder pool.

 

[HeyNow]

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss best practices for domain sellers, as well as set the record straight in regards to our employees and their involvement in the marketplace. Anyone who would like more information can contact me directly.

Oh, are you saying that your policy of Flippa employees participating in Flippa auctions, as described by the CEO in this interview, is not accurate? Is that what you're saying? Does that record need to be set straight?
http://tldinvestors.com/2012/11/quick-chat-with-david-slutzkin-ceo-flippa.html

 

[FlippaDomains]

It's irrelevant IMO. Would you be happier if they bid & jumped up the price compared to me doing the same? Really, there is 100% no difference. The price will be increased. Yes, I'm aware you'll quote this post and go on a rant a la "There is a lot of difference!" And then you'll go on a tirade to prove yourself. Facts are as they are: if a person bids, the price will raise, no matter the bidder. There is, as I've said, 100% NO DIFFERENCE and thus, your argument has no legs. If, on the other hand, their workers bid on domains they had no interest in, my 100% remark wouldn't be correct. But you can't bitch and whine just because a worker wanted the domain, too. If they bid merely to inflate the price, that'd be different. There are no sign of it, and there is some transparency in the issue. I trust Flippa a helluva lot more than Snapnames.

Thank you; well-said.

 

[HeyNow]

I despise deadbeat buyers and have zero tolerance; we usually suspend or ban them once they mess up the process for the seller. My team and I look out for our sellers!

Perhaps you'd attract more buyers if you'd look out for the buyers as well.

Anyway, good luck to you.

 

[FlippaDomains]

Great, then let's call them purposely uninformed.

I don't care enough to contact Flippa to ask why they choose to leave the customers/outside bidders less-informed than the sellers. Their in-place policy speaks volumes about their character, as far as I'm concerned. And due to that I wouldn't participate there, period. Like I said, the stank rubs off on the sellers too, so I wouldn't even sell there.

If you change your mind, I'd love to help you sell your domains.

 

[dannyinpt]

@FlippaDomains
Here is an annoyance for me, you watch a listing. and then the spam starts to appear SEO this to rank that from 3 to 5 different listings I am watching, and that is from the 15-20 I am watching. I would hate to guess how much in total is going on. All I can say is, twice I have reported it and sent details. Yes I get a response saying we will look into the issue, only to find the same person starts on a different listing. Why not have a policy of three same posts on three listings and you are at least stopped from listing pending proof etc. I have deliberately limited the number of listings I watch due to spam. feel for the listers email let alone the negativity.
Rant over, crack another vinho tinto.