flip.uk - .UK Domain Auctions and Marketplace

[WalkinDude]

5 mins. At any time someone's device or computer can crash or something goes belly up. 5 mins ensures enough time to find another device. Wifi can go for example.

That said Rome wasn't built in a day and I'm personally delighted the number of options is increasing for UK Domaining.

[whispers too much grey on the webpage feels like there's a colour missing].

 

[lazarus]

I have set it back to 5 minutes

 

[Hay]

@lazarus - I've not used flip yet but just looked at the homepage for the first time and i felt lost with all the domains listed, i know each card/section has a header but you really have to look through the page to identify which is which.

For example on DL they have showcases on the homepage then gems on another tab, maybe you could add a colored section for showcases perhaps even on its own row so nothing else is shown on that row.

I think if you were to help some auctions stand out better than others then you would attract more bids because with this being the first visit i honestly couldn't tell you which domains are bids and which are not and which are auctions and which are not... obviously after spending several minutes on the site you would know what's what but i assume on my 2nd visit i would forget and have to check through them all again.

I think if i recall, most websites have no more than 2-3 seconds to grab the visitor's attention before they hit back or go to the next website, i think you could make it much more attractive to bidders if you could highlight areas better.

great job so far though, i know how time consuming it is

 

[lazarus]

Hi Ben

Thanks for that.
You are spot on. the first 2-3 is very important and I will be working on some of your ideas to improve this.
Yes very consuming but input from users is gold dust and I do plan to spend more time on the user experience.

Cheers!

 

[super-whois]

I wouldn't usually share sales data, but as a one off, I thought I’d share some of my flip.uk auction sales stats for September. All stats are for auctions that ended in September, therefore some were started in August. These stats are only for auctions, and do not include direct sales.

Number of domains listed: 44 (some were poor, but nothing too fancy, and mostly .uk drops)
Number of domains sold: 26 (and one didn't meet a reserve)
Total sales: £2733
Average Sale: £105.12
fli.uk Platform Fees £0

Had I listed these on a different platform, I probably would not have sold 15 domains, as the sale price was bellow the starting bid of £50, Instead I would have probably lost out on £340 of sales, and end up paying someone £75 for the privilege of being hidden gems.

Estimation if the same domains were put on a different platform:
Estimated Sales: £2393
Estimated platform fees: £240
Net Sales: £2153

I therefore think that in September, I was £580 better off by using flip.uk. I could be wrong, but I'm thankful for @lazarus for providing an alternative, along with taking action on a user that was identified as a shill bidder.

 

[Ben Thomas]

I wouldn't usually share sales data, but as a one off, I thought I’d share some of my flip.uk auction sales stats for September. All stats are for auctions that ended in September, therefore some were started in August. These stats are only for auctions, and do not include direct sales.

Number of domains listed: 44 (some were poor, but nothing too fancy, and mostly .uk drops)
Number of domains sold: 26 (and one didn't meet a reserve)
Total sales: £2733
Average Sale: £105.12
fli.uk Platform Fees £0

Had I listed these on a different platform, I probably would not have sold 15 domains, as the sale price was bellow the starting bid of £50, Instead I would have probably lost out on £340 of sales, and end up paying someone £75 for the privilege of being hidden gems.

Estimation if the same domains were put on a different platform:
Estimated Sales: £2393
Estimated platform fees: £240
Net Sales: £2153

I therefore think that in September, I was £580 better off by using flip.uk. I could be wrong, but I'm thankful for @lazarus for providing an alternative, along with taking action on a user that was identified as a shill bidder.

Yep

 

[Admin]

I wouldn't usually share sales data, but as a one off, I thought I’d share some of my flip.uk auction sales stats for September. All stats are for auctions that ended in September, therefore some were started in August. These stats are only for auctions, and do not include direct sales.

Number of domains listed: 44 (some were poor, but nothing too fancy, and mostly .uk drops)
Number of domains sold: 26 (and one didn't meet a reserve)
Total sales: £2733
Average Sale: £105.12
fli.uk Platform Fees £0

Had I listed these on a different platform, I probably would not have sold 15 domains, as the sale price was bellow the starting bid of £50, Instead I would have probably lost out on £340 of sales, and end up paying someone £75 for the privilege of being hidden gems.

Estimation if the same domains were put on a different platform:
Estimated Sales: £2393
Estimated platform fees: £240
Net Sales: £2153

I therefore think that in September, I was £580 better off by using flip.uk. I could be wrong, but I'm thankful for @lazarus for providing an alternative, along with taking action on a user that was identified as a shill bidder.

That's a brilliant share, thanks for doing that and really well done. Flip for the win.

 

[DJ]

Is it possible to add a delete option to the finished/closed auctions please?

Thanks

 

[JMI]

It still looks like overall domains are getting better prices on DL. Free is great, but ultimately if I want to auction something I wanted best price for I'd stick it on eBay and pay the fees, rather than gumtree and hope someone found it. I base this on the number of people using reserves because they are worried about someone getting a bargain. I think the £50 barrier on DL promotes minimum level of quality.

 

[Ben Thomas]

It still looks like overall domains are getting better prices on DL. Free is great, but ultimately if I want to auction something I wanted best price for I'd stick it on eBay and pay the fees, rather than gumtree and hope someone found it. I base this on the number of people using reserves because they are worried about someone getting a bargain. I think the £50 barrier on DL promotes minimum level of quality.

Because DL has been around for years and years. Has established traffic and is well known. Time has been good to DL. And perhaps time will good to Flip too.

 

[JMI]

Agreed, and Rome wasn't built in a day and all that, but if at the end of the day I need to auction my domains for the best price I can't see any benefit.

 

[Ben Thomas]

Agreed, and Rome wasn't built in a day and all that, but if at the end of the day I need to auction my domains for the best price I can't see any benefit.

... at present. But, you know, Flip needs some big sales to put it on the map. And it’s my belief it will get them. Like I said, DL is old world.

 

[JMI]

eBay and Facebook are old world but unfortunately first move is a massive advantage in business. To write DL off because he's got more important things to do than keep some millenials happy by making it responsive and turning it into a poor mans DAN or Sedo lookalike would be a naive mistake. All the pro domainers who actually have proper, decent domains (not a some .uk ror drops no one wanted) won't give a shit about the DL site cosmetics or that it's not got some fake avatar of a so called "domain sales expert" freak with a weird name on the landing page, they'll care about the credibility of the auction house, millions of pounds of previous sales history and who's running it will enforce fake bids etc. If DL does have a cosmetic redesign what will everyone have to moan about

 

[Ben Thomas]

I am in the car on the way home, but I just briefly read your email and the part about the domain sales expert cracked me up so much that I had to reply with Siri. I agree with you, it is not about site cosmetics, however I do believe that in this day and age more people are browsing the Internet on their mobile devices than they are on desktop. Therefore, a domain law alternative is welcomed, not least because it isn’t run by an egomaniac.

 

[seemly]

"All the pro domainers who actually have proper, decent domains" won't be selling on domainlore though, will they? They're more than likely the buyers.

Even if you have a large number of low-end domains sell due to no-minimum sale price on flip, that qualifies for a shit tonne of bonafide completed transactions, satisfied customers, and sales revenue over a period of time because the entry level is lower.

That's not a bad thing, because it's a numbers game.

All it needs is a small handful of half-decent domain sales on its books, maybe with some PR of current/recent eye-catching sales, and it can begin to gain some momentum.

Further to this, looking at the top 10 Domainlore sales by price alone, how many do you feel should be there? The portfolio of quality domain sales isn't there (in this tiny snippet)

https://seemly.co.uk/domains/prices?source=domainlore&rows=10&price=desc

 

[Ben Thomas]

Slightly off-topic, but I'm flabbergasted that someone would spend £30k+ on healthcare.uk, just to put a wall of text and links on it like we're in 1991

It's also a shame, most of these domains are either parked, non-functioning "under development" kind of sites, or owned by the government through a proxy of embarrassment (we all know which one I'm talking about there lol). But yes, you're absolutely right. And DL itself started somewhere once. With 0 sales and 0 traffic.

 

[DJ]

Slightly off-topic, but I'm flabbergasted that someone would spend £30k+ on healthcare.uk, just to put a wall of text and links on it like we're in 1991

It's also a shame, most of these domains are either parked, non-functioning "under development" kind of sites, or owned by the government through a proxy of embarrassment (we all know which one I'm talking about there lol). But yes, you're absolutely right. And DL itself started somewhere once. With 0 sales and 0 traffic.

Wasn't HTB.O.UK bought by the infamous Yogi24?

 

[super-whois]

Further to this, looking at the top 10 Domainlore sales by price alone, how many do you feel should be there? The portfolio of quality domain sales isn't there (in this tiny snippet)

Worth noting:
holiday.co.uk - The winning bidder has opted in to keep details of this auction private.
gay.uk - This sale was not completed.
remortgage.uk - Wrong auction id
holiday.uk - The winning bidder has opted in to keep details of this auction private.

 

[Ben Thomas]

Worth noting:
holiday.co.uk - The winning bidder has opted in to keep details of this auction private.
gay.uk - This sale was not completed.
remortgage.uk - Wrong auction id
holiday.uk - The winning bidder has opted in to keep details of this auction private.

Yes, it does beg the question how many of these actually complete.

 

[seemly]

Worth noting:
holiday.co.uk - The winning bidder has opted in to keep details of this auction private.
gay.uk - This sale was not completed.
remortgage.uk - Wrong auction id
holiday.uk - The winning bidder has opted in to keep details of this auction private.

Non-completed sales:
In the world of scripting, when a platform marks an auction as finished and there is a winning bidder, that is considered a sale.

Unless I want to manual verify sale announcements (which I don't), I have no way of verifying platform sales at Domainlore, Sedo, or any other news outlets.

Domainlore does provide a secondary feed of "completed" sales, which again runs through a script when the feed is updated. That means if you go to the following URL you will see only completed Domainlore sales:

https://seemly.co.uk/domains/prices?source=domainlore&rows=10&price=desc&status=complete

As mentioned previously, I have no way of verifying this status on any other news outlet or platform, so this is considered an inconsistency, and is why I provide the filter.

Private:
When a sale is marked as private on Domainlore, if it's not prior to when the record is stored, then I have no way of knowing this has been initiated.

I could periodically ping that sales page - which I have no intention of implementing. Where is the gain for me?

Incorrect auction ID:
No idea about this one. I consider this a Domainlore issue, as DN Journal also announced the completed sale at the price defined, but doesn't provide a link to the sales page. Maybe I should just remove that link.

https://dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/2019/20190925.htm