TRAFFIC Auction

[GoPC]

Also... there is no fee if the domain is never presented either... so as a seller, your risk is pretty limited.

GoPC

 

[Raider]

BTW - Christies and Sotheby's do charge an initial fee for first timers and in about 50% of their events.... and goes through a pretty stringent selection and qualification process for bidders. The $2K fee at TRAFFIC is also in indicator that those that attend are serious about their business and the industry.

Moniker is not Christies and Sotheby's, and I think it's very misleading to say they charge admission, they do for selected auctions, which are seldom and are NOWHERE near the $1850 Mr. Schwartz is charging to get in the door, Its easy to pass the buck and say you have nothing to do with what TRAFFiC charges, Schwartz passes the buck to Moniker and vice versa, all you guys work together....if this is about getting a select crowd at TRAFFIC, why not donate some of that extra cash to charity?.

 

[austinandrew]

I just wrote an article about how auction fever helps sellers in auctions like SnapNames and TRAFFIC. You can read it here.

 

[Monte]

RaiderGirl - TRAFFIC is an invite only conference....it is NOT open to the public. They have the right to charge what ever they want and invited guests have the right and decide to attend or not attend. And you are right, we are not Christies or Sotheby's....We sell domains and they do not. They are the premier auction houses for merchandise and physical real-estate, and we are the premier place for domains.

Moniker does not profit from the admission fees to TRAFFIC, those fees pay for the event, the venue, the food, and a lot of the money goes into a reserve defense fund to help domainers such as your self with your rights to participate in this industry...perhaps you were not aware of this: http://wadnd.com/.

thanks

 

[Creature]

Moniker is not Christies and Sotheby's, and I think it's very misleading to say they charge admission, they do for selected auctions, which are seldom and are NOWHERE near the $1850 Mr. Schwartz is charging to get in the door, Its easy to pass the buck and say you have nothing to do with what TRAFFiC charges, Schwartz passes the buck to Moniker and vice versa, all you guys work together....if this is about getting a select crowd at TRAFFIC, why not donate some of that extra cash to charity?.

As a seller who cares about admission fees? It doesn't matter who's buying. Sellers don't have anything to lose. You can put a reserve on the name and there's a strong chance your domain is going to make more money that it would outside the auction due to 'auction fever' created by Moniker. As for the charity thing, unless there is affiliate commission involved, forget it.

 

[Monte]

Also Sellers do not have to attend the conference to participate...the Buyers do.

 

[dmyre]

I've submitted a name with a reserve, so it won't cost me anything unless the name sales. It's worth the effort...

 

[Raider]

Also Sellers do not have to attend the conference to participate...the Buyers do.

I read somewhere in the thread, that an owner or someone acting on behalf of the owner had to be present...can you provide a link with more information about the auction, fees etc?

In reference to what Traffic charges for admission, I realize you have nothing to do with it, I was making a point that the inflated TRAFFIC admission combined with a 15-20% auction commission is too much to take, it really makes you and Schwartz look Greedy.

 

[Monte]

RaiderGirl - The sellers do not have to be present...the buyer's do in the live auction. The silent auction will allow invitees to access the system once they meet the criteria to bid as well.

The conference fees are for the conference. They are not inflated but rather standard for these types of conferences. If you go to the Affiliate Summit, SES, WebmasterWorld, Ad-Tech, you will pay $1K - $3K for the conferences. The fees to sell domains are only paid if there is a sale. It is 10 points under what is standard for live auctions and not a "greedy" fee. No one has to submit their domains and no one has to attend the conference if they feel it is too expensive. Still do not understand what your point is. If the conference and the auction are completely voluntary, it is up to the attendee to make the decision to pay and go or not. If you do not want to go, then don't.

 

[Raider]

Compared to most trade conferences, and I've been to many, $1850 is quite excessive, and so is 15-30% commission for a domain sale. You have the right to charge whatever you want too. Inflating the prices sends a clear signal you care nothing about the crowds your shutting out, I thought one of the major objectives of these conferences, was to promote the industry...I guess not.

 

[mjnels]

someone likes hearing themselves talk..

 

[Monte]

Yahoo pick up: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061011/clw019.html?.v=64

 

[dmyre]

So, where's the list of domains? I want to check and see if my name is listed...

 

[cayars]

Something many of you have not thought about in this discussion.

Houses/Property do not sell themselves. An agent is almost always involved. It takes quite a bit of time on the Agent's part to sell a house. They may show a person 10 or more houses. This will probably take an hour or so each (minimum). If they "sell" the house they have a lot of paperwork and hand-holding to do and then there is settlement. Needless to say an agent has a lot of time involved in each sales. They do this for 6% to 8%.

Traditional auction houses aren't usually in the 25% commission range. More in the 10% to 20% range. Only high-end, VERY specialized auction houses can get a 25% premium. Auction houses have expenses not incured with domains. They need physical space to store the merchandise. Sometimes this is very expensive as they need climate controlled environments and massive security to protect the merchandise. They pay pretty hefty insurance rates also due to the fact that they have such expensive items there. None of this really applies to domains. They don't need special environments, you can store one or 1 million domains in the same amount of "space". There isn't specialized, high priced insurance needed to cover things like water damage, theft, etc. No security is needed to protect the items, etc...

Saying 25% is charged by these premier houses isn't really true. Some items yes, but most things they sell aren't at this level. They also (at least used to) use a sliding scale so that the more the item sells for the lower the commision is ie. 25% of the first $25K, 20% of the next $25K, 15% of the next $25K and 10% on anything else. <-- made-up illustration on tiered commissions.

Traditional auctions also have different obstacles then domain auctions. Besides physical space to store the items, there also needs to be "viewing rooms" and security setups and security people. Buyers want/need to see the items before they purchase/bid on them. Only so many people can look at an item at one time. There really is no counter part to this in domains. If you have the domain list ahead of time you can determine the value yourself before the auction. There is nothing to "see" per say at the time of the auction.

You can sell more domains in a given period of time then any normal auction item. You certainly can sell a whole lot more domains then houses in the same given time it takes to sell a house. These don't need to be $100K sales. 20 smaller $5000 sales add up to the same amount.

IMHO, it is deceptive to do the comparison to premier auction houses as they have FAR more expenses. They also have a long, long history that distinguishes them from every other auction house. Something no one (including Moniker and Sedo) in the domain industry can even come close to. One of the reasons people use these "high-end" auction houses is because of their staff or PR guys. The PR guys see certain items and make lots of calls and visits to existing buyers. They work hard to make sure the right people are at the event and interested in the item! They do a tremendous amount of hand-holding and kissing. They put politicians running for election to shame with their people skills. This part CAN NOT be underestimated and is why people use them at these high-end auctions. They do a tremendous amount of work before the item ever makes it to the auction. This just does not translate to domain sales at this point.

If you were to "try" and model domain sales after these premier auction houses and take all the expenses into consideration and then base your commission scale on top of their model you would probably be setting commissions in the 5% range and certainly no more then 7% to 8%. A sliding scale of 8% to 10% (and dropping based on tiered sales price) would probably be more in line comparison wise.

Having read this, I'm not against Moniker taking a 15% commission. We are all capitalists! I just wanted to point out that everyone is comparing apples to oranges and there is very little basis for doing this once you "truly" understand everything involved in the process of high end auctions.

My $0.02,
Carlo

 

[Creature]

Carlo......interesting post. Imo the most striking difference between traditional auctions and live domain auctions is that there is only one 'live' domain auction on the planet as far as I know. We all know about the Moniker auction so the PR can't be too bad. Anyway my point is that until there are many live domain name auctions it's difficult to make comparisions. We have one choice at the moment and it doesn't seem too bad The 'sliding scale' examples seem very sensible to me.

 

[yulili]

Fearless - that's right, we are MONIKER baby. Even Ocean Tomo admires what has been pulled off with a live domain auction. They still can't get more than $15K for a domain.

Like I said, 5% does not make or break a domain sale and given that the standard fees for live auctions are 25%+, I think taking any more time defending the fee any further is wasting time. There are a lot of costs to prepare and conduct an event such as this and we will work our hardest to make sure that folks get their monies worth.

Recently I bought a premium domain name using Moniker’s escrow service. The domain sale was reported in this week’s Domain Journal. The deal almost fell through because seller wanted to split the Moniker escrow fee. I refused. The point I am making is that 5% will make or break a deal for me. I do have a few top-notch premium names and a 2000 name domain portfolio. I choose not bring any names to the Traffic Auction because the 15% fee.

Having said all that, I have to thank Traffic, Moniker and all others who bring media exposure to the industry. The exposure benefits everyone including me. We are all having a free ride.

 

[EM @MAJ.com]

I have one question.

Where to see the list of live and silent auction?

Thank you,
Em

 

[Monte]

TRAFFIC East Auction FAQs are posted: http://www.moniker.com/auctions/traffic-east-2006/faq.jsp

We will have a preliminary list of premium names up on the site on Monday and a more comprensive list by the middle of next week for all to see. I can also send anyone interested a scrubbed down list of names by email if you are going to be a buyer at the conference.

You will then be provided instructions to start your selection process on what names you will want to see up for sale at auction.

email me if you have any questoins.

 

[DomainBuyerBroker]

Monte,

You are a good man for hanging in there under fire. Just remember, the pioneers take the arrows.

With that said, I have submitted a long list of decent domains with reasonable starting bids and no reserves for the auction. Auctions are auctions, some lots will fall flat and some will take off. As long as a seller gets a big enough check, s/he should not complain. Since attendees/bidders have to pay about $2k just to be able to bid, I am confident that my check will be big enough

With that said, I vote that the auction continue to be exclusive...for the Players and not the haters.

See you at TRAFFIC...my first time...finally!

 

[Monte]

rsequin - i have taken many, many, many arrows for this industry on so many different fronts...the arrows just go through me at this point.

I always have defended our industry, our position in it, and always will. At least you all will always know where I stand... and all of you will want this event and the other 4 Live domain auctions we will do over the next 12 months to be successful--- as they will benefit all of you...wether you want it to or not.

See you at TRAFFIC!