A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post just before I had seven domains go to auction at Bido. Well, the auctions have come and gone so it is time to report on the experience! Of the seven domains to see auction only two were successfully sold. Admittedly, the domains were not of tremendous quality, but I honestly felt that they should fetch between between the $28 minimum and $50 each. Analyzing the “closed auction” list shows that Bido can be hit and miss, even with some domains that should be selling in that price range.
One of my domains, of the .CC variety, yielded a total profit of $8.69 or 31% while the other domain that sold (double-premium LLLL.com) yielded a total profit of $18.77 or 379%. When I compare these to my other domain sales, the dollar-based profit is not overly attractive, but taking into consideration the fact that I have held these domains for less than three months, the overall percentage return is extremely satisfying – although it is not uncommon to see massive returns in the domaining industry.
Onto the Bido selling process!
Submission and verification. Bido really shines when it comes to using informative emails to communicate with their buyers and sellers. The domain submission form is as simple as could be and as soon as the domains are submitted an email confirmation and an attempt to verify ownership via registrant email is performed. There are many ways to confirm ownership and if difficulties are had, the Bido support staff resolves the issue extremely quickly.
Votes. This is possibly the most difficult task in selling domains with Bido. The idea behind the voting system is to allow the community to vote for only the best domains so that the daily auctions are of consistent quality. Unfortunately, it is far too easy to have a five-person voter circle to vote in any domains. I took the route of using NamePros and Twitter to scour enough votes, but this practice is largely outlawed at various forums and I completely understand the reasoning behind this.
For me, the vote-getting was a strenuous task and while Bido offers “auction acceleration” for a price, it comes with an “(acc)” tag to show that the seller (or buyer, potentially) paid to move a domain to auction. If this tag is removed I will definitely be considering auction acceleration in the future as I feel that the time needed to get five votes, even on some good names, is too great.
Auction setup. Again, Bido really shines with the interface and ease of setup. Choose a date and time, enter a description and you are all set! After Bido confirms the submission you can start spreading the word to potential buyers by referencing your unique auction URL.
Promotion. This is really where the seller needs to put in some work. As my domains were good, but not great, I stuck to promoting at NamePros, DNForum and on Twitter. Bido does a great job promoting the daily auctions at the same venues, but it really is up to the seller to get potential end-users interested in the auction. Could I have done a better job with promotion? Sure I could have, but I felt that the domains I submitted would be of interest to the daily Bido community.
Sale process. Once a domain is sold, Bido takes on the roll of co-ordinating the payment and transfer of the domain. After the buyer pays, the Bido message system is used to co-ordinate and agree on transfer details. After a few confirmations payment is released to the buyer. From start to finish one of my auctions took two days and the other just one. I am sure that this could be a more tedious process if not dealing with domain pushes or resellers, but Bido is there to help you through if need be.
Overall I am very satisfied with my first experience as a Bido seller, but there are some issues that I have when it comes to using the Bido service to sell. First, many domains do go unsold and those that do sell are often close to the $28 minimum, however, I should note that there have been many spectacular sales as well. My point is just that it can be hit and miss. If you do enough promotion, you can surely sell your domains, but don’t expect to just coast through to a tidy profit.
Second, domains that are not successfully sold in auction are subject to a 120-day Bido-exclusivity clause. I find this to be a little long, but many auction houses do have similar clauses. My understanding, and thanks to Bido for discussing it at NamePros, is that I can ask Bido to re-activate an auction if there is an interested party. This is great to know, but it would be nice to be able to sell it in a not-so public manner if an end-user so deems. Bido is a very accommodating organization so they may have other ways to accommodate such a request.
There you have it! I have been a huge fan of buying at Bido as there are some great deals to be had and I am very happy that I took the dive into taking on the role of seller. Bido takes community suggestions to heart and is extremely thorough when it comes to instituting major changes to the website. Congrats to Sahar and the rest of the Bido staff on providing such a great service.
Stay tuned for an upcoming article on virtual private servers!
Seems like way too much leg work for the seller to have to ALSO pay a commission and, at such low sales prices too! I’ve looked at the auction history and, well, its not the venue for me. Not yet at least. They have to get more buyers, and buyers with money to spend. Some of those names are selling WAY TOO LOW.. I’m about to pick up a few myself!
I’ve got many of my domains aging into the 4-5 and 6 year time frames now and if $28 to $51 is all I could get on Bido, then I doubt I’ll ever go there. No reason to sell at $50 when I’ve spent about that much in renewal costs over six years!
I’ve been selling on Afternic and averaging $1000 per domain – albeit, its NOT frequent. However 5 or 6 of them per year is OK by me. It pays the [domain name] bills for now… Thanks for the post!
Thanks for the comment Mike – glad you enjoyed the post!
Depending on how involved the seller chooses to be there definitely is a lot of leg-work for the seller. There are the occasional $1K+ sales at Bido, but those are largely commodity domains or those where the seller has brought multiple interested end-users to the auction. Everyday there are MANY deals to be had and hence the reason why I have purchased 25+ domains through the Bido system at great prices. It is always sad to see many dozens of domains go unsold each day, but such as it is with a social auction platform.
There has been some analysis in the various forums as to the % of domains that sell and those that sell under $50 and the results most likely do shy domainers away to extent – frankly my 2 for 7 record probably isn’t too shabby. From the conversations I have been involved with and witnessed with the Bido staff, they are very happy with how things are working out at the moment and are excited about new features and the Bido Guarantee program.
It’s all about the averages and those Afternic/Sedo end-user sales are huge. It really seems like domainers are split between those looking to turn an $8 investment into $30 quickly and those looking to turn a $50 investment into $1000. I have been gradually shifting to the latter as I “trim the fat” from my portfolio and focus on the long-term and higher-return sales.
Congrats on the Afternic sales, I still have yet to have success there, but I am relatively new to them. Sedo and unsolicited contact have been the main sources of my larger sales to this point.
Sedo has sold a handful for me as well but only in the mid XXX range. Unsolicited is actually the more frequent method of sale as I guess they check into the WHOIS and just email me. I’d say that the second largest statistic for me is unsolicited NON sales…. those are when people ask if the domain is for sale, I reply “yes” and they dont ever reply back. I didnt scare them off with a quote and I’d never quote a price that way anyway.. I cant even count the number of Afternic sales “failures” where the buyer stopped in the middle of the escrow process and never paid – just disappeared. Good luck to you as well!!