flip.uk - .UK Domain Auctions and Marketplace

DJ · Oct 17, 2020

I lot of online retailers survive and do well despite Amazon's dominance.

Competition is never a bad thing and there is obviously a place for both DL & Flip.

It is also not a direct comparison as Flip also offers fixed price listings with landing pages. You can use this feature without ever using the auction platform.

Perhaps we can get the discussion back on track and offer constructive feedback on how @lazarus can continue working hard on improving things.

That reminds me, @lazarus did you see my comment about having an option to delete finished/closed listings?

Cheers!

DJ · Oct 17, 2020

I will also make a list of features or additions that I would personally like to see added (I appreciate not all if any will be possible):

1. An ability to filter auctions that have a reserve from the search.

2. The ability to set the auction start price from £1-£500 for example. This will remove the need of a reserve altogether and might encourage people to bid and might stop people using the platform, with no intentions of actually selling it by setting a high reserve price, just to get a guide of what the domain might be worth.

3. Limiting the amount of times somebody can re-publish a domain or make it a requirement that the price needs to be reduced or the reserve needs to be removed if no bids were placed. It gets a little boring seeing the same names cycling through at the same price or with a reserve even though they had no bids before. i.e. "Sorry we noticed that you have already listed this domain within the last 30 days with a starting price of £50. Please reduce the price by at least 20% of wait 30 days before relisting".

Thanks!

WalkinDude · Oct 17, 2020

DJ Wood said:
I lot of online retailers survive and do well despite Amazon's dominance.

Competition is never a bad thing and there is obviously a place for both DL & Flip.

It is also not a direct comparison as Flip also offers fixed price listings with landing pages. You can use this feature without ever using the auction platform.

Perhaps we can get the discussion back on track and offer constructive feedback on how @lazarus can continue working hard on improving things.

That reminds me, @lazarus did you see my comment about having an option to delete finished/closed listings?

Cheers!

Yes, the idea I thought was to make suggestions to support what it is not redefine what it is to the point it's just a DL clone.

One more of my own.

Could there be a button enabling the domain owner to see with one click which domains have bids on them as that would save a bit of time?

lazarus · Oct 19, 2020

@DJ Wood & @WalkinDude
I have noted your suggestions. My next development drive is in a couple of weeks. I will see what I can do.

BTW. Just looking right now across the many platforms and as far as quality domains at auction go (Excluding SEO Domains) I see a clear difference

Cheers, Laz

WalkinDude · Oct 20, 2020

Justice Department And 11 States Sue Google For Violating Antitrust Laws

Early days but I hope to see a day when the same companies and businesses are no longer able to occupy entire realms of potential digital commerce by remaining permanently in top positions for search results for literally millions of specific search requests.

If you want to shop on Amazon it seems natural to me to search 'Amazon' then go to the site and search for whatever it is you are after. Not if you type in any shippable product whatsoever you get amazon results first and foremost each and every time perpetually. Little man/woman entrepreneur doesn't even stand a chance.

I think by any reasonable expectation if I type in 'uk domain Auction' thus specifying I want yanno 'uk domain auction' results then as things stand you'd expect to see DL and Flip in top half of top page at the very least. That's a fairly specific search request imo, not much vague about it.

lazarus · Oct 21, 2020

@WalkinDude

WalkinDude said:
Could there be a button enabling the domain owner to see with one click which domains have bids on them as that would save a bit of time?

This page in your dashboard will show you your auctions.
There is a filter at the top to show only auctions with bids.
https://www.flip.uk/members/selling/browse/open/?listing_type=auction

I hope this helps.

lazarus · Oct 23, 2020

What's the feeling on showing a reserve range?

When an auction has a hidden reserve it could show as a guide (£1 - £100) or (£100 - £500) or (£500 - £1000) or (£1000 - £2500) etc for example...

Cheers, Laz

WalkinDude · Oct 23, 2020

lazarus said:
What's the feeling on showing a reserve range?

When an auction has a hidden reserve it could show as a guide (£1 - £100) or (£100 - £500) or (£500 - £1000) or (£1000 - £2500) etc for example...

Cheers, Laz

Just my 2 cents but that one I'd wait on. Folks can pm for example and a low starting bid on reserve brings in more curiosity than a pile of domains with high openly disclosed reserves.

You could however refuse to list domains with unrealistic reserves on them. I'm assuming that's already being done. Reserve feature is good for domainers but has to have some measure of independent realism to the reserve prices set.

DJ · Oct 23, 2020

lazarus said:
What's the feeling on showing a reserve range?

When an auction has a hidden reserve it could show as a guide (£1 - £100) or (£100 - £500) or (£500 - £1000) or (£1000 - £2500) etc for example...

Cheers, Laz

I would prefer being able to set the start price rather than a reserve as I feel the reserve can actually put people of from bidding (but that might just be me). This way the auction is fully transparent and if the buyer is happy, they will bid and if they are not, they won't. I've seen a lot of people starting auctions at £1 or £10 with reserves higher than £50 and I always wonder why they didn't start at £50 in the first place. I guess they are doing this in order to be promoted to the 'Showcase' or 'Popular' auctions section, which seems unfair, especially if the reserve has been set unrealistically high.

I guess you could always give the seller the option of disclosing the reserve price at the time of listing the auction. i.e. 'tick this box if you would you like the reserve price to be hidden'?

Cheers!

WalkinDude · Nov 5, 2020

Just as felt like some momentum was building up...Lockdown Episode II is upon us.

diablo · Nov 6, 2020

@lazarus Really love the clean simplicity of flip.uk!

One suggestion: the auction pages show time left, but could the end date and time show too? Useful for quickly noting when auctions end.

lazarus · Nov 6, 2020

diablo said:
@lazarus Really love the clean simplicity of flip.uk!

One suggestion: the auction pages show time left, but could the end date and time show too? Useful for quickly noting when auctions end.

Hi Diablo, You can switch between time left and end time on the page that lists all the auctions.
But I will add it to the actual auction listing page too.

Cheers, Colin

DomainMagic · Nov 10, 2020

DJ Wood said:
I would prefer being able to set the start price rather than a reserve as I feel the reserve can actually put people of from bidding (but that might just be me). This way the auction is fully transparent and if the buyer is happy, they will bid and if they are not, they won't. I've seen a lot of people starting auctions at £1 or £10 with reserves higher than £50 and I always wonder why they didn't start at £50 in the first place. I guess they are doing this in order to be promoted to the 'Showcase' or 'Popular' auctions section, which seems unfair, especially if the reserve has been set unrealistically high.

Cheers!

I agree, I'd like to be able to start @ £50 where I'm happy to sell to a single bidder and not do reserves

I'd also like to be able to catch something when it drops and list it quickly same day while its still fresh with others who may have also been after it rather than wait over 24hours.

So combine both those, Catch > quick list starting @ £50.. rinse and repeat

lazarus · Nov 10, 2020

Hi Domain Magic.

If you catch a domain and submit it to auction, you will get an auction page straight away but it just has not started yet.

You can get the url of the auction page from...
Selling -> scheduled auctions. If someone types in the domain this is also what they will see and you can immediately start promoting wherever.

Hope this helps.

lazarus · Nov 24, 2020

Some really nice domain auctions happening right now on flip!

Systreg · Nov 24, 2020

I see listings have watchers, but how do you actually watch a domain?

I've looked through the help page and nothing mentioning it. I assumed there would be a watch this domain button on the domain listing page, but nothing there either, I'm stumped, so how

lazarus · Nov 24, 2020

Hiya, Just click the heart next to the quick bid button.

To see your wishlist / watchlist just click the heart next to the search box. (I will be changing the icons to an eye icon in the next update)

Once you have added a domain to your watchlist you will receive an email the day the auction finishes.

Systreg · Nov 24, 2020

Ah, I only look at the site on my phone, so I don't see a heart icon next to the search button.

Then I just had a face palm moment, when looking at any listing on my phone, it only shows share, print and report buttons under the make offer button, UNTIL, I just turned my phone sideways and then I see a heart icon next to those other 3 I mentioned

, now I know.

Had the same problem the other day when I had an offer on Flip, got the email saying there's an offer, go on the site and see the domain under offers received, but can't see the offer listed, UNTIL, I slid screen from right to left and then I saw the offer details slide in to view, bloody phones lol

lazarus · Nov 25, 2020

Hiya,

Yeah some bits, especially in the back end need improvement when using a mobile.
Cheers

Jameso.0 · Nov 25, 2020

One thing i find complicated at the moment is finding things in the marketplace. I want to buy domains there but filtering by domain character length doesn't seem possible. Would be grand to get better filtering options in place. Much prefer flip than DL, has bags of potential.