the PERFECT domain auction site...

[domain4profits]

describe what would be the "PERFECT" domain auction site for you?

- what features you'd like to see
- what would be the perfect price to post or to pay if you sell or totally free
- what are some cool tools for domainers

let's bounce some ideas

 

[Tikkun]

I would take a system and beautiful UI like Protrada, and go from there. Protrada seems a little broken to me (probably because it doesn't have enough users), but I love the idea behind it. If you could buy a service to fix up, I'd recommend this one big time. It has so much potential. (I really wish more people would sign up and help make even better)

Personally, I'd really love to see as much data on potential domains as possible. EASILY see (without additional clicks) domain age, PR, links into the domain, etc. Alex ranking. All the kind of stuff those automatic name appraisal services use.

See if it's on blacklists (has a bad history). I'd love to know if it's ever been successfully used (which I'll use archive.org for), or if it's simply been for sale or left forgotten it's entire life. Estibot.com, domainindex.com, domaintools.com, all have lots of good data to evaluate domains, and are worth taking a close look at.

The more you automate the types of things we all do, the better. I mean, heck, I MEAN to do a lot of the above, but I don't always. It's tedious to do this stuff by hand. But you could automate it all so easily. What's tedious for us as people, is something a computer can do a million times over if you just program it and spend some time debugging it. Program once, use a zillion times. So it's great that you're asking all this.

 

[Tikkun]

Oh, and NO bad registrars allowed to participate. Snapnames has cleaned up a lot over the years, but they still have some really bad guys on there that they don't seem in a rush to spank (like these TotalNic dudes that have been ripping people off for -14- years now!!) That's so uncool.

Really, if you're trying to make an auction place, if you act fast you can pounce on everything bad Snapnames, NameJet and GoDaddy does. Just see what people hate, and DON'T do it.

Learn from Snapnames that NO bad registrars should be allowed, and customer service should be snappy
Learn from GoDaddy that you shouldn't sell domains you don't yet own yet, and your written customer service should NEVER be dicks
Learn from NameJet that shill bidders and artificial bid inflation ain't cool in a financial market

Frankly, I'd go to Trader Joes and learn customer service FROM them. Be genuinely good to people, LIKE people as human beings, and try your best to make their lives easier. Doing that, you'll make more money than anyone else by far. Most online services really don't understand this. The magic of capitalism is really helping to relieve others of pain and/or trying to help them lead an awesome life, and they give you money for this, and you buy stuff that takes away your pain and makes your life better. When everyone has the other guy's best intentions at heart, capitalism is balls out awesome. It can work well and helps "all boats rise".

Oh... and use UserVoice!! One of the best tools EVER for software development. Bigcommerce was teeny tiny, then they installed UserVoice, and by LISTENING carefully to customers (and having them FEEL listened to), they blew up and became the giant they are today.

Just a few details here, but still worth the (quick) read:
https://blog.uservoice.com/bigcommerce-custom-design-uservoice-site/

 

[Biggie]

the perfect auction... is where the domain sells above your highest expectations, period!

what website, platform, module, etc. which produces that result, is irrelevant.

however, when one or more services, events, conferences, etc., consistently produce such results, then they become relevant when deciding which auction site to list your names.


the sub-issues, which any and every entity may have issues with are :
timely payments and transfers, along with the reliability, credibility and stability of the auction script and back-end customer service.

as is, none are perfect, but they all pretty much serve intended purpose.

imo....