Sedo’s monthly GreatDomains event used to be awesome. Great inventory priced to sell (good for buyers), bidding wars (good for sellers) and so on. I hope Sedo can manage to bring back the magic because unfortunately, things aren’t exactly rosy at this point and I don’t understand why.
I mean it’s not like organizing the event once a month is that much of a logistical hassle. You review some domains, communicate with buyers and bam, there’s one half of the equation. Then you advertise that event accordingly (compared to other industries, advertising on domaining-related sites is ridiculously cheap) and bam, there’s the other half.
Now of course, when one out of two or both dimensions are neglected, problems start to appear.
If the inventory isn’t appealing enough, buyers will gradually eliminate the event from their radar.
If the event isn’t advertised enough, sellers won’t want to list domains and will eliminate GreatDomains from their radar as well.
Vicious circles and all that.
I would have understood if the event were hard to organize or something to that effect. In that case sure, I can see why Sedo would want to take its foot off the pedal.
But organizing and promoting a decent monthly GreatDomains event shouldn’t be all that complicated, so I fail to see what exactly the problem is/was.
For a reasonably long period of time, GreatDomains auctions used to have a very well defined place in the ecosystem.
I hope Sedo manages to make that happen again because the more decent sales venues there are, the better off everyone will ultimately end up being.
July 22nd, 2014 at 6:26 pm
I think Sedo has had its day personally. Removing auctions from the front page was probably the begininning of the end with domainers. Losing godaddy has now probably sealed it for them.
This is a company that has been mismanaged.
July 22nd, 2014 at 6:43 pm
The selection process for “great” domains became arbitrary many, many, years ago and it is very clear it is based on an inside track. The quality of the domains has suffered and I don’t even watch it anymore on a monthly basis.
July 22nd, 2014 at 9:56 pm
Yes, domain selection for public auctions can seem arbitrary and unfair at times. Theoretically any auction should offer an attractive potential ROI. On the other hand, where do you get inventory when investors don’t want to sell at reseller prices? I believe another factor is all the investor capital spent this year on new TLDs. There just isn’t much left for buying aftermarket domains.
July 23rd, 2014 at 10:48 am
I agree, Sedo’s Great Domain Auction has seemed to suffer. The inside track deal seems to effect people submitting good domains, and getting rejected for “Doesn’t meet quality standards” and then they accept much worse domains you see in auction, leaving many of the domains that would actually perform in the auction out. On top of that, once your domain is rejected, by a bad or biased opinionated judgement call by whoever is looking over or accepting domains that day, you can’t submit it again at a later time, for maybe a second opinion or chance. I understand some people submit crap domains sometimes, and ask way to much of a reserve, so they get rejected, but when you submit keyword domains, at a price equivalent or lower than the Sedo suggested sales price that their own platform suggests, and they get rejected without another opportunity, it’s just a bit of a turn off for their auction platform. I would give their auction platform a grade of “Needs Improvement” and maybe more transparency on the inside of what’s going on with the people in charge of selecting their Auction Domains to make it more fair for sellers and a possibly better overall Sedo Auction platform and more revenue for them in the end.
July 24th, 2014 at 12:42 am
Jason I have had this argument with sedo many times and it is frustrating. There are a few select people who get their names in constantly and very nice names are rejected as fast as submitted. I have scores of emails. But I did finally give up the fight and quit submitting.