First Ever .co.uk Auction!

[Retired_Member38]

Ah right, thanks

 

[PanzerWagon]

Bit of a flop.

 

[ian]

Disaster at the hands of a poorly managed Sedo team, shame on them, and shame for the sellers.

 

[Brassneck]

Disaster at the hands of a poorly managed Sedo team, shame on them, and shame for the sellers.

It went completely as I expected. Sedo haven't got a clue on how to run a UK auction (typo domains, poor choice of domains, ludicrously high reserve prices) and it really looks like the pool of UK buyers is limited to a small number of resellers when it comes to auctions. I do wonder how / if some of those super premium domains will ever sell at a price that meets seller expectations as the market just has so little liquidity in it.

Stephen.

 

[Retired_Member38]

It went completely as I expected. Sedo haven't got a clue on how to run a UK auction (typo domains, poor choice of domains, ludicrously high reserve prices) and it really looks like the pool of UK buyers is limited to a small number of resellers when it comes to auctions. I do wonder how / if some of those super premium domains will ever sell at a price that meets seller expectations as the market just has so little liquidity in it.

Stephen.

I don't think there was a super premium domain in the auction - there was a bunch of average domains, at above average prices really. Obviously none of this helped via Sedo's shoddy running of it.

There was no way any of the £25k+ reserve domains were going to sell.

 

[uretopia]

When Sedo declined to list juicer_co_uk in this auction because "Quality requirements not met", I thought this must have been some kind of pretty special premium domain auction. Was quite surprised, therefore, to see typos, a hyphenated domain and US spellings in there!

 

[Murray]

When Sedo declined to list juicer_co_uk in this auction because "Quality requirements not met", I thought this must have been some kind of pretty special premium domain auction. Was quite surprised, therefore, to see typos, a hyphenated domain and US spellings in there!

come now.. in all honesty you wouldn't swap juicer for menshoes?

 

[uretopia]

come now.. in all honesty you wouldn't swap juicer for menshoes?

I think gender specific garden tools could be a growth area

 

[ian]

I don't think there was a super premium domain in the auction - there was a bunch of average domains, at above average prices really. Obviously none of this helped via Sedo's shoddy running of it.

There was no way any of the £25k+ reserve domains were going to sell.

Do you not class it_co_uk as a "super premium domain"? Not questioning you, just interested to know. Is it because it possibly is too generic and couldn't be branded easily?

(sorry Mark, hope you don't mind me being specific to one of your domains).

 

[invincible]

Do you not class it_co_uk as a "super premium domain"? Not questioning you, just interested to know. Is it because it possibly is too generic and couldn't be branded easily?

(sorry Mark, hope you don't mind me being specific to one of your domains).

The domain name as an acronym for Information Technology, no in my current opinion. I'd expect an I.T. Services company to use something much less generic. However it could possibly be a really nice domain name and web presence for something named "it".


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Retired_Member38]

Do you not class it_co_uk as a "super premium domain"? Not questioning you, just interested to know. Is it because it possibly is too generic and couldn't be branded easily?

(sorry Mark, hope you don't mind me being specific to one of your domains).

Do any Information Technology companies brand what they do as IT?

I don't think that they do... but anyone else using the domain would likely have people mistakenly think its tech related. imo this 2 letter domain is worth less than any other similar one, not more.

3 wiki pages then IMDB... no fun not being able to rank for your own brand name. https://www.google.co.uk/search?site=&source=hp&q=IT

There is no way this domain was going to fetch anything in the reserve range it was listed at in a random, horribly promoted Sedo auction. To go for that price it'll need to sit for months/years and wait on a perfect end user coming along. imho I don't think that that day will ever come along at that price... but who knows.

I think skiholidays.co.uk was the best domain in the auction, if you're looking at anything with a realistic chance of being developed.

 

[PanzerWagon]

Why do people love 2 letter domain names? They look crap IMO.

IT is so limited. 10 years ago it might have been worth something to an IT company selling it support or something but now everything is cloud based it's pretty worthless.

 

[julian]

As probably already been said 99% of the 'better' missed the glory years of early/mid 2000's where they would have gone for their reserves easily.

A lot of stuff there that looks great but really hard to make work unless have proper development plan, or course as a long term investment might be ok based on corporate lottery ticket scenario.

 

[DaveP]

It is true, sadly domains no longer fly off the shelf like they did even up to a few years ago. Heck I only started domaining in 2007 (albeit only .com) but I remember back then even in .com was still possible to hand reg a domain and flip the next day for easy profit. Like others above me have said there are certain domains though that have really missed the boat.

 

[murph]

I get the arguments so far, but recon IT has great brand appeal. Put serious money behind it and it.uk could be a household name. Don't see why it has to relate to computers at all.

 

[Murray]

Why do people love 2 letter domain names? They look crap IMO.

2 letter .coms sell for big money

I didn't like the look of ll.co.uk but ll.uk look great

I can imagine there becoming a prestige in having a ll.uk and that prestige will reflect in sale prices

 

[julian]

not quite as good as LL.UK but I think some LN & NL work v.well as .uk where looked a bit odd as .co.uk

V4.co.uk was floating about on here while back V4.UK like slurp, slurp &
4K.UK, 4G.UK, 3D.UK etc, etc

2 letter .coms sell for big money

I didn't like the look of ll.co.uk but ll.uk look great

I can imagine there becoming a prestige in having a ll.uk and that prestige will reflect in sale prices

 

[PanzerWagon]

2 letter .coms sell for big money

I didn't like the look of ll.co.uk but ll.uk look great

I can imagine there becoming a prestige in having a ll.uk and that prestige will reflect in sale prices

I can't see IT.uk as mentioned above being that brandable. The term IT is so well known it's going to be hard to shift that perception of computers surely if you put something non computer related on it. You'd need to get people to say it like the word "it" rather than the acronym.

What does everyone think of Appliances Online switching to ao. com.

I wonder if they had started out on ao .com what they would be like today? Would they have done better or would they be worse off?

I would say getting a 2 letter domain off the ground would be far far harder than appliancesonline .com, so they got to a certain size then made the switch which seems a better way of doing it.

If I was starting a new site I'd like to give people an idea of what it's about on first glance and I think in some cases longer words are more memorable than just 2 letter, with IT and LL it's difficult.

 

[invincible]

2 letter .coms sell for big money

I didn't like the look of ll.co.uk but ll.uk look great

I can imagine there becoming a prestige in having a ll.uk and that prestige will reflect in sale prices

The reason that two letter .com domain names can sometimes sell for big money is they have worldwide appeal. Clearly *.uk domain names do not and because they do not there are obviously far fewer potential suitors for those; certainly far fewer with the budget and inclination to spend on a two letter *.uk.

Many years ago a fellow domain name investor and I discussed the attractiveness of three letter .co.uk domain names compared to the then unavailable two letter .co.uk domain names. He was of the opinion that there were more businesses with business names that were better suited to three letter "acronym" .co.uk domain names than there were businesses with business names suited to two letter "acronym" .co.uk domain names.

I do wonder if two letter domain names, and definitely one letter domain names, are just a bit too brief for the majority of businesses to make use of aside from the likes of multinationals; a bit like seeing an old and not very valuable car with a very valuable number plate on it.

 

[PaulOckenden]

I put a couple of my domains (cider and effective) into this auction, just to test the water. I deliberately set low reserves, so I could see how much they might go for in a Sedo auction.

Based on this experience I don't think I'll bother listing my more valuable domains next time they run a .co.uk auction - this really was a shambles. I suspect both domains would have gone for more had I listed them on ebay!

Oh well, two buyers will be happy bunnies!

P.