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Alternative to SEDO - What are you looking for?

Discussion in 'Domain Research' started by bens, May 29, 2010.

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  1. bens United Kingdom

    bens Active Member

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    I know it's been discussed many times on here before but i'm looking for up to date ideas and suggestions for a realistic alternative to sedo. Any ideas are welcome but here's a list to start your creative minds ticking.

    • The site should be exclusively for .uk domains?
    • Commission on sales, fixed fee or some kind of site membership?
    • domain parking?
    • auction functionality?
    • free for anyone to list domains or by member invitation only?

    I could go on but i want to hear your ideas. Let me know in thread or via PM.

    Thanks
     
  2. Domain Forum

    Acorn Domains Elite Member

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    IWA Meetup
     
  3. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, quality not quantity, and quality not quantity.

    Those are the 10 most important things to consider if you're building a Sedo-killer.

    In 11th place would be ".co.uk domains only. Absolutely NO .org.uk/.me.uk no matter how good"

    Get those 11 things right, and the actual mechanics (auctions, parking, etc.) can be worked out as you go because you'll already be building on a more SOLID FOUNDATION than any existing domain sales venue!
     
  4. doodlebug United Kingdom

    doodlebug Retired Member

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    I know that I'm sick to death of trawling through heaps of crap and it's so annoying when you search for eg, sport and get stuff like 1234hoopmaster.com :confused:

    1, no domains to be posted without being accepted by the site operaters.
    2, would be nice to see more fixed price domains.
    3, generics only.
    4, no dodgy exensions, as Edwin said .org .uk and .me.uk etc
    5, a fixed price for selling wether it sells for £100 or £10,000
     
  5. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    I'd add "No domains under 1,000 pounds". If you're going for quality, that's not going to be a restriction. If it's a restriction, you're not going for quality!

    It needs to be aimed at - and make its money from - sales to end-users. Creating another platform for domainers to firesale names to each other for pennies on the pound is a waste of effort.
     
  6. GreyWing

    GreyWing Well-Known Member

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    Trouble is if you want to remain friends with people in the business, you'll struggle to maintain quality and friends.

    When I was operating domain pawn, 90% of what I got was people trying to "dump" their names and wanting loans of £xxxx against them.

    So you might find you pee a lot of people off when turning people's domains down and you would be turning 90% of them down in my opinion as a rule.

    Same with Denys on Domainlore he got a lot of bad attitude from people because he turned their names down.

    So if you are going to do it, prepare for a bit of bad feedback no matter whether you are right or wrong.
     
  7. doodlebug United Kingdom

    doodlebug Retired Member

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    It doesn't help though when he lists not very exciting names on there and turns down names of mine such as >
    smallinvestment#co#uk
    largeinvestment#co#uk
    domainnamecatching#co#uk
    expiringdomainnames#co#uk

    I got a message saying that the domain industry wouldn't be interested in the bottom 2, why wouldn't they :confused:

    I don't see what's wrong with my selections and he does give the impression that it's personal ?
     
  8. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    To be blunt, you're not going to succeed if you have to worry about friendships. That will handcuff the business too much. You're already fighting an 8,000lb gorilla in the form of Sedo (when you look at their market presence, marketing budget, etc.) so you can't allow ANY "brakes" on the expansion of the new business.

    Yes, it's a very different proposition from simply buying/trading/bartering a few domains on Acorn or elsewhere - but that's the only conceivable path to success.

    History is littered with the corpses of companies that tried to be a bit too "nice", whether to key customers, suppliers or partners...
     
  9. retired_member21

    retired_member21 Retired Member

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    Ref: Greywing's comments perhaps a sort of DMOZ setup could be run - e.g. volunteers manage certain sectors/keywords on behalf of the organisation. Could all be logged/recorded etc for future use/improvement
     
  10. Systreg

    Systreg Well-Known Member

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    There was another long topic listing the same sort of ideas on this very subject just a few weeks ago, no idea of what to search for to find the topic url, someone else might remember it.
     
  11. GreyWing

    GreyWing Well-Known Member

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    And you ain't going to succeed if you disreguard friendships in this industry. That's the reason we don't place our names with Sedo anymore, because they have pee'd people in the industry off.

    All I'll say is it's a very difficult balance to tread and until people have tried to run a business on it, they'll not know just how fine that line is.

    One of your unique selling points will be your contacts in this industry, ignore that and it's over before you start.
     
  12. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Hey, I'm not talking in general - I get on well (I think / I hope) with a lot of folks in the industry.

    But in the SPECIFIC context of this thread, i.e. how to build a Sedo-killer, I believe my remark remains very valid...
     
  13. GreyWing

    GreyWing Well-Known Member

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    You'd be surprised how quick bad feeling would grow if you started turning their names down for premium auctions, it is genuinely like telling someone their baby is ugly and still trying to remain friends and get them to shop with you and tell their friends about you in a postive fashion.

    With regards the specifics of this thread, I'm assuming that Bens is considering starting an alternative to sedo. So just warning him that if you are going on quality, then get ready to take some shots from people.
     
  14. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Likewise, I was just pointing out that if he doesn't go all-out for quality, I really can't see what the potential "edge" over Sedo might be.
     
  15. doodlebug United Kingdom

    doodlebug Retired Member

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    Any feedback on what it's like selling on Namedrive and do you have to park iwth them or can you just sell on there ?

    Thanks :cool:
     
  16. foz

    foz Well-Known Member

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    I see no chance for a self employed individual taking on Sedo. They just wouldn't have the marketing muscle to get traction. It needs to be a well resourced entity with an established .uk retail business, a top .uk Registrar. A Registrars core business is to sell domains, so why not extend that to the after-market?
     
  17. retired_member12

    retired_member12 Retired Member

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    Whatever alternative is suggested, I don't see why ANY domain name should be rejected. A shop is a shop, a simple set of drop down filters should allow you to filter extensions. Banning .org.uk and .me.uk names smacks of trying to keep the 'working classes' down simply to keep .co.uk names high. They're already naturally the first option, why build a site to say 'fuck off, you're undermining our profits'? If they're cream, they're cream!
     
  18. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Because there are already plenty of large, busy sales sites that accept everything: Sedo, Afternic, etc. etc.

    They're too well-established to be beaten head-on so the only possible chance is to attack them along an approach that they can't match. One such approach is to limit the listings to high-value, top quality .co.uk domains.

    None of the major existing domain sales sites can/will be able to match that, and if the new "Site X" starts to get some real traction in the UK market, in the form of significant sales (in raw number of sales, AND in average prices achieved per sale) then gradually the large portfolio owners may come out of the woodwork and commit some or all of their inventory to it. And many of those portfolio owners don't currently work with ANY of the existing sales sites, no doubt because they don't want their domains to be stuck on the shelf with millions of other names.
     
  19. doodlebug United Kingdom

    doodlebug Retired Member

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    Acorn + Domain Monster = solution
     
  20. GreyWing

    GreyWing Well-Known Member

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    The only way it would work is that if it was made up and run by members on here, it was .co.uk focused, it only accepted quality and premium names.

    So what I would say is to justify premium names, the people who ran the site (had to be about 7+ people) all vote anonymously (so not to invite arguments) and decided what got accepted. Maybe even a charge per application of 10 names then people would think before they submitted names.

    Roll all that up into a ball and you have something.
     
  21. doodlebug United Kingdom

    doodlebug Retired Member

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    Brilliant idea using a panel to vote, no direct blame then when someone wants to list dashingwindowornaments.co.uk

    Definitely charge for listings, would be nice if someone offered a site to list quality generics where the site actively promotes the site in the business world.
     
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