PushToAuction.com Helps Get Domains on Sedo™ Auction

[Michael]

I just wanted to let everyone know who hasn't already heard of the site that PushToAuction.com is a place to market domains that you would like to push to auction at Sedo™.

But what does Sedo™ think about all this?
I spoke with Mark Klein, Sedo's director of business development, about the concept, intent, and implementation of the site. He is well aware of the site's existence, and hasn't expressed any desire for us to stop providing this service to industry professionals.

But won't this lead to a lot of canceled auctions?
The answer is no. I worked closely with Tom Fell, Sedo's North American risk management coordinator, to monitor several hundred auctions started through the site. He was unable to find any correlation between an auction having been started from our site and an increase in canceled auctions. Essentially, the ratio of completed auctions to canceled auctions on Sedo as a whole was not markedly different then the ratio for ones started from PushToAuction.

But won't this encourage favors?
We have made the site as anonymous as possible by not having user names and requiring logins. If you don't know who made the offer, you won't be inclined to reciprocate.

So, how does it work?
You list your domain for free on PushToAuction.com. If someone browsing the site would be happy purchasing your domain for at least $60, they will proceed to make the offer through Sedo™. Once the offer is received, the seller is obligated to push to domain to auction. We also have a featured listing option available for $5 that places the listing on the home page and the top of its category.

Are people having success using the site?
Absolutely! At the time of this post, PushToAuction.com has started 271 auctions. Of those, 255 have already ended with sales totaling $79,117, an average of $310 per domain. The highest sale so far was 6JJ.com which closed at $1,068. These stats are updated live on the right side-bar. Not bad for having only been live four months :tu:

So what's in it for buyers?
Two things. The most important benefit from the site is saving time. Let's say you want to buy a CCC.com at fair market value. You go through Sedo making a few dozen offers, but every single one of those gets countered with $30k+ (as usually happens on Sedo). You just wasted hours of your time searching, and you don't have your domain. Instead, just pop on PushToAuction.com, go to the Acronyms category, make a single $60 offer, and seven days later you have your domain at a fair price.

The second reason buyers use the site is they are hoping to get the domain cheap. Imagine if you made a $60 offer on a domain that is $300 min wholesale and nobody noticed the auction. You just got a bargain! The truth is that rarely happens, but there's no harm in trying, you never know when you'll get lucky

Am I going to waste time clicking a lot of dead links?
We wouldn't do that to you. There are sophisticated programs running in the background that maintain the site. If a listing gets deleted from Sedo, the listing automatically gets removed from the site. If a listing gets pushed to auction, it automatically gets moved to Current Auctions. When an auction closes, it automatically gets moved to Past Auctions, the price gets recorded, and the home page stats get updated. This update happens once a day at 5am EST (GMT -5).

We've spent a lot of time creating the site, promoting it, and making sure Sedo is comfortable with it. We hope it provides a valuable service to the community and makes the process of buying or selling a domain more efficient.

Domain Name Wire even did a feature on the site, click here to read it.

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Michael]

I'm working on a bulk submission option now, but I'm having second thoughts about going forward with it. I'm worried it will lead to everyone submitting their entire portfolios without putting thought into whether each one is worth $60+. If each listing takes time to add, users will be more inclined to only submit the good ones.

I'd rather have 2,000 listings on the site with 90% being worth $60+ than 80,000 listings where 2% are worth $60+. If the latter happens it will be like Sedo all over again, and people will still have a hard time getting noticed.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

 

[Michael]

PM replied to. For anyone else wondering, I checked with Sedo and the min bid for .ca is $110.

 

[Michael]

Everything gets approved within 30 minutes now as long as it is listed for sale on Sedo, so no need for a confirmation email. If it isn't on Sedo when you submit it, the listing gets deleted from the database. The only ones that don't get automatically approved are featured listings because I need to verify payment first.

I'm working on adding the ability to sort by date right now as a way to let poor-quality submissions fall to the bottom. If a domain is on the site for a while and didn't get a bid it'll keep dropping farther down the list. Adding voting is lower on my to-do list, but something I would like to implement to measure quality and help the cream rise to the top.

When the site is more well-known I'll also change the "Hits" sorting method to be hits/week, because right now domains that have been on the site longer have an advantage at getting more hits, and thus isn't the best indicator of quality.

So far the site has sent more than 52,000 hits to Sedo listings.

Edit: Sorting by date has been added and is the default method.

 

[FreshAvails.com]

If you're not confident that they will break $500 I would wait the 30 days before listing them on PushToAuction.com.

I do not see a 30 day minimum on their site. Can someone who knows confirm this? Has anyone sold a name before the 30 day period and not been charged the flat fee min? I have been told by others that as soon as the name is accepted and resolving, the "parked at sedo" applies.

 

[Michael]

Hmm, that's weird, I remember reading it on their site a few months ago. I just got off the phone with Sedo, and the rep said their rule on that recently changed, and that there is no longer a rule regarding the number of days it needs to be parked at Sedo. Thanks for bringing that to my attention Spartan, +rep on the way.

 

[GF]

I visited PushToAuction.com and found it:

1. Very clean and professional
2. Full of tons of great domains
3. EASY to use!

Great work on this site, Michael! :tu:

- GF

 

[ripley]

Going to check it out myself today.

ripley.

 

[Charley]

But won't this encourage favors?
We have made the site as anonymous as possible by not having user names and requiring logins. If you don't know who made the offer, you won't be inclined to reciprocate.

Wouldn't it lead to shill bidding ?

 

[ripley]

Shill bidding is always possible, regardless of the venue. Is there a potential for abuse? Sure. But there's an inherent potential for abuse in any auction system.

ripley.

 

[Michael]

Wouldn't it lead to shill bidding ?

There's no more potential for abuse than at Sedo itself. You don't know who placed the bid, and you don't know who owns the domain (unless you whois it). Sedo doesn't require private whois, so this is exactly the same level of protection provided by them.

Using this site is no different than having a $60 price expectation on your Sedo listing, it will get the offers coming in so you can do an auction. The only difference on my site is less clutter so you can actually get noticed.

 

[JoshuaPz]

A couple of hours ago I placed a bid on a word listed under "Dictionary Words" that I only realized later was actually a typo of dict. word and should be been placed under the typos section. The buyer accepted my bid, which was for pretty significant amount of money. I later realized my mistake and sent an e-mail to Sedo urging them to annull the transaction, then messaged the domain owner to request he write Sedo as well. Although this situation came about because of carelessness on my part (and the seller's), I really think the owner of PushToAuction.com should take pains to ensure thatall self-claimed "Dictionary Words" submitted fit the bill.

 

[Steven]

JoshuaPz, just out of curiosity, will you be willing to disclose the name?

I hope things work out well for you.
Just have to double check always before making the bid as well.

 

[Michael]

Can you PM me the domain and I'll get it taken care of. I try to make sure everything is put in the proper category, but every once in a while something will slip through the cracks. Buyers should always do their homework on a domain before making an offer though. Thanks for the feedback, and I hope you get it straightened out to your satisfaction.

Edit: The domain has been moved to the Typos category.

 

[JoshuaPz]

I'll reveal the domain once we get this issue squared a way. It's an extremely easy one to mistake for the actual dictionary word, so much so that Estibot values the typo at close to $1K, and it even has a Wordtracker/day of 7.

JoshuaPz, just out of curiosity, will you be willing to disclose the name?

I hope things work out well for you.
Just have to double check always before making the bid as well.

 

[paxton]

I've had several successful sales through PushToAuction.com. It's perfect for names that are not premium, but have considerable reseller value (such as LLL.info).

Although it's very simple to submit domains, it would be nice if there was a feature to add multiple domains at once for the same category.

 

[randomo]

I've had several successful sales through PushToAuction.com. It's perfect for names that are not premium, but have considerable reseller value (such as LLL.info).

Same here! It's a great service. On the forums, people frequently post pleas like "A $60 bid will send this domain to auction." PushToAuction is the answer to their wishes.

 

[Michael]

Thanks for your feedback guys! I'm working on bulk uploads now and hope to have it ready soon.

 

[h3rm4w4n]

It need more payment option, for example by NP $

 

[boja]

is it okay for a co.uk? since I can't submit a domain co.uk :wave:

 

[Michelle]

Thanks for your feedback guys! I'm working on bulk uploads now and hope to have it ready soon.

Give me a shout when bulk is available :p

 

[Broker]

I dont get it, push to auction for $60? Whats to say I dont accept the $60 offer then your user pushing it/making an offer is mad?

 

[Michael]

is it okay for a co.uk? since I can't submit a domain co.uk :wave:

I just tested it with a .co.uk and it submitted fine. Are you sure you typed it correctly?

Give me a shout when bulk is available :p

Will do mellow

I dont get it, push to auction for $60? Whats to say I dont accept the $60 offer then your user pushing it/making an offer is mad?

I've had 2 emails from people complaining that their $60 offer didn't start an auction. One the seller was out of town and started it when he got back, and the other got deleted. It isn't a major concern at this point.

It need more payment option, for example by NP $

If you want to pay by NP$, just submit it as a standard listing, donate 250 NP$ to me, and in the subject put the domain name. I'll make it featured manually.

 

[E-Thunder]

Seems like a good concept. Just added a domain to try out the site.

 

[hookah]

Nice and useful service! Thanks.
Are you going to include a 'bulk submission' option?