=== Live Auction 07/23 Review ===

[Johnn]

We had around 50 members in the chat room last night and 13 names/lots sold out 55 lots.

I want to take the the time to thank you all members for your support especially Dadster and BILLBO help. I would like to donate 2,000 DNF$ each to these outstanding members as a token of appreciation.

We started at 8:00PM EST and finished around 11:30PM. A lot of DNF$ prizes were given to members who answered the trivia questions.

We had a great time last night and I believe there is a demand for Live Auction here.

We all learn from our mistakes and I'd like to take this opportunity to receive feedbacks and suggestions from members so we can better organize the next Live auction.

- It would be nice if we can have an automated script for auction submission as it takes too much time to combine the list especially with all the reserve auctions via PM
- Many members are not aware of the auction. We can have someone to design a Banner and ask Adam/Mediahound to put the Banner up.
- Bi-Weekly auction would be better than once a week auction

Feel free to post your Feedback and Suggestion here and we will decide when the next live auction will be.

Thanks,
John

 

[Sonny Banks]

Thanks Johnn, Dadster and BILLBO for this beautiful auction tonight. eace:

My suggestions for the future are:

- Start auction at 6 pm and not 8 pm because for many european members 8 pm is too late (2 in the morning for some).

- Make a banner on DNF homepage promote these events and open a Sub-forum section only for DNF Live Auctions.

- Make possible for members submit more than 1 lot only and increase the number of lots in general.

- Set the reserve low.

- Make Johnn President of the Usa. :lol:

 

[Bill Roy]

A few things 'might' help.

1) Stated bidding increments.
2) Reserve price set as a maximum multiple of opening bid price, i.e. if reserve is $1,000 then opening bid price must not be less than $250 (one-quarter of reserve) or $500 (one-half of reserve).
3) Alternate the starting times between auctions, if running two auctions a month one will start a little earlier than last nights 8pm EST.
4) An earlier closing time for submissions, we can then vet the domains - one last night got through and had to be withdrawn from auction.
5) Automated scripts (as suggested above) would be fantastic!

Just my off-the-cuff thoughts for the moment.

 

[krossat]

Maybe for smaller number of lots a themed auction is better? Buyers have more choice knowing which theme is being held? Like "Special LLL.net Auction" etc?

 

[nattydomain]

Just my 2 cents......

The "other" domain forum has chat room auctions about 2x a month and they run it pretty smooth for what its worth. Here are a few things I think may bring more bidders/sellers to a auction like this...

1. PROMOTE...PROMOTE...PROMOTE....
When you list a auction for sale and you do not advertise outside of the forum then you cant expect a lot of people to come in. A few post about is not bringing in people from OUTSIDE who could turn into new membres here AND bring in more bids.

2. NO TALKING RULE
Its fun to chat before the auction BUT during the auction when you have a lot of side talking and saying "hi" to each person that comes in, it throws off the auction and seems unprofessional. Think about this....Your at TRAFFIC and its auction time. Could you imagine if everyone is talking amongst themselves and waving and saying hi to each person that passes thrgh the doors? They would have to stop just to tell everybody to shut up....

3. 3 MINUTE RULE
When doing chat room auctions it seems we let the name sit on the screen for a good 3-4 minutes before anyone bids (depends on the name) and then from there are trying to encourage bids. If its laid out in the begining you will have a much shorter auction but then as well people will know by you stating this very early on AND going back to #1 PROMOTION once that name hits the screen they have 3 minutes to get their bid in.

4. PROMOTE...PROMOTE...PROMOTE...
If you dont do this then the seller has no real way of getting the most for his domain. With so many domain blogs and websites picking up those blogs the word should spread like wildfire. Hell even if you spent $100 to promote it outside with banners and text links say a month prior to the auction I belive a LOT of people would mark their calendars and get ready. Traffic lets you know a year in advance when it is and every time it draws near people get more and more excited. Im not saying that this style of auction is even CLOSE to traffic but with the "other" domain forum already ahead of this medium, DN Forum can turn it into a MUCH BIGGER event that attracts much more $$$$

5. SIDE NOTE
Just a thought that came by...How about appointing a MOD whose ONLY JOB is setting up these chat room auctions. He/She would be responsible soley for marketing, setting up, scheduling, accepting names etc......

Ok im done but would love to see this as a monthly event!

 

[Johnn]

Contest Winners from Last night Contest:

Piccasoface - DNF$500
TheInvestor - DNF$500
Compassion - DNF$500
Draggar - DNF$500
Wzhxvy - DNF$500
RareIQ - DNF$500
Krossat - DNF$750
GeorgeK - DNF$750

DNF$ should be in your account now.

Congratulations.

John

 

[Biggie]

the first one went well

some glitches but great job by Johnn and those who assisted to get it started.

I would like to see all names start at the reserve

no sense in taking up time bidding if the bids don't reach the reserve!

some are setting prices too high

last night saw a LLLL.com starting at $150, with a reserve...

when most names like these start at $69 on namejet and snapnames all day long.


I got bored of waiting on the next names to come up so I left early.


but I'll be waiting on the next one!

 

[tekz999]

Accept pre-bidding.

 

[dadster]

I think it went well

Would like to see increments in bidding - and this is a complaint received. Once bids hit say 50 dollars - bids must be in 5 dollar increments, etc.

As to a previous comment - I was the one who had a 4 letter .com with a start of 150 and a reserve - maybe I set my pricing wrong, maybe I just dont know how to price domains. But you did have the option to bid or not - and you chose not to.

Also, Johnn, thanks for the DNF - appreciated but totally unnecessary - I volunteered and an volunteer is just that.

Great job Johnn and a very good start to livening up chat room.

All the best,

Frank

 

[krossat]

Exactly why themed Auctions work better for smaller lots.
Targeted audience is attracted and more sales are converted.

Also Thanks for the DNF's Johnn!!

the first one went well

some glitches but great job by Johnn and those who assisted to get it started.

I would like to see all names start at the reserve

no sense in taking up time bidding if the bids don't reach the reserve!

some are setting prices too high

last night saw a LLLL.com starting at $150, with a reserve...

when most names like these start at $69 on namejet and snapnames all day long.


I got bored of waiting on the next names to come up so I left early.


but I'll be waiting on the next one!

 

[-MM-]

Well I have tried to access the chat room but for some reason I cant get in so thats why I did not attend.

I do think its too late for us peeps in the UK and pre-bidding would be nice. I would drop reserve prices as this just wastes time. I would just ask for the reserve price to start the name.

Glad you all had a nice time

 

[theinvestor]

Many good points mentioned here...

Let me go over the ones i believe are necessary.

1. 8 pm eastern is too late if we are going to have 50 lots ...maybe try 7 pm..or 6 pm eastern.

2. Increments on bidding (good point by dadster). I do not like bidding up by $50 when the bidding is at $800 and then getting outbid at $810...this discourages me from bidding.

3. If you want the auction to run quicker then...do not set a reserve and make the starting price the reserve. OR ..BillBO mentioned the 1/4 reserve. If reserve is $1000 starting bid must be $250. That way people know if they are close...

An extra note on this...if we can ask if reserve has been met...and the mod can hint if it is close...you might as well just tell us. If that is the case...then BillBO's suggestion works perfect.

4. Okay...Trivia questions are nice...but when the auction is long..it becomes painful. The fact is...we are here for the auction. So...in my opinion there should be no trivia questions. That doesn't mean you can't give DNF$. You can give DNF for things relating to auction. For example : Lowest winning Bidder, Highest winning Bidder, First winning Bidder of auction. etc etc. There are an endless amount of ideas you can do that do not slow down the auction.

5. It would be nice if we did not have to refer to the auction thread page. A lot of the time, it was hard to tell what was on for auction. Because it was not separated by spaces. I could do this...it would take 15 minutes of my time, and that way when they are posted...people in chat do not have to refer to another page and can tell what is being sold very clearly.

6. Promoting is always a good idea.

7. The point mentioned above of chatroom moderator for auctions is also a smart idea.

8. Last point... 3 and a half hour long auctions are too long for people. Especially those who are waiting for specific names to come up. So i think...instead of bi-weekly. Having an auction once a week with 20 names would be better.

Lastly, i'd like to thank John for being able to use his resources and come up with this auction. I want to thank Dadster and Billbo for helping out and running a very smooth auction.

 

[draggar]

Thank you for the DNF, Johnn and the auction was great last night. It was very nice to see as many people participating in the acuction as we did (and yes, we did have some buyers).

Congratz to the DNF winners, sellers, and buyers, some good deals were made last night.

 

[tekz999]

It would be great if Johnn can post an auction summary for each auction lots.

 

[GAMEFINEST]

I missed out, dammit.

 

[Onward]

Pre-bidding is important...I wanted to bid a one or two, but got tired of waiting...and had to go.

Great effort though with the orgaization and execution.

 

[Johnn]

It would be great if Johnn can post an auction summary for each auction lots.

http://www.dnforum.com/f31/chat-room-live-auction-6-thread-312462.html#post1508394

 

[Johnn]

Pre-bidding is important...I wanted to bid a one or two, but got tired of waiting...and had to go.

Great effort though with the orgaization and execution.

Can't do it manually - We don't have any script yet.

 

[Mazkel]

Thanks for all the effort and hard work to DN mods and members. Mine didn't sell..till next time.

 

[Commerce]

Overall a really great first effort.

I think we should really be thankful for the outstanding efforts put forth by Johnn, BILLBO and dadster - they are all true and valuable assets to our community.

I noted the comment above regarding entering chat. I too found entry slow, but the system did catch up and I got in just fine. I guess the message there is to be patient - given the number of folks, entry to the room was slower, but the room's performance itself once in was stellar throughout despite the large crowd in there.

I would also suggest that there be a hard time out end to the auction. In other words, start it as it did, but end it, say 2 or 3 hours in, no matter what is left and push the left over names to the next auction.

The auction time and length must have been particularly brutal for our friends in Europe and India. Perhaps if there were a defined hard out, this might make things easier on everyone. The end of the auction did not have the energy of the beginning (understandably) - it was very long.

Some great feedback by others in this thread too, so I won't restate.

Again - great job by the Auction team - the outstanding members here at DNForum make it everything it is.

-Commerce