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Important Upcoming Changes on Netfleet.com.au

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chris

Top Contributor
Thanks for the sneak preview, it looks awesome!

It's very clean and polished, nice work guys :)

Cheers,
Chris
 

Blue Wren

Top Contributor
"All auctions will end at exactly the same time – 2pm AEDT (1pm AEST) – so for that critical final 10 minutes of an auction, I expect we will experience quite a show."

The servers are up for the task right? :p
 

aus11

Top Contributor
To standardise the auction platforms, we will remove extended bidding from Aftermarket Auction domains. We will also be lowering the starting bids for Aftermarket Auctions to $10 – to align with the other auctioned domains.

This is a great addition! And I really like the new design. Any reason you guys are changing from Blue to Green?
 

Chris.C

Top Contributor
Great news...

So is Oct 31st still the target launch date?

To standardise the auction platforms, we will remove extended bidding from Aftermarket Auction domains
As someone who lists domains for sale on the AMA this would concern me.

A lot of retail buyers aren't used to bidding at online auctions for domains and I suspect they wouldn't understand snipe bidding, which is what will end up happening.

Is there not a way to keep this feature, but maybe reduce the extension time to 60 seconds or something (or even as low as 10 - 20 seconds)?

For clients selling domains via auction or as standard catalogue listings, this $49.95 will cover an administration fee (managing funds/support) and the Change of Registrant fee.
So does that mean there will be no more 8% commision?

Ie rather than pay 8% commision when selling the domain you guys will take the $31.52 ($49.95 - $18.43 COR) as payment?

Also I'm assuming the listings will still be free and we will be free to set a reserve if we host our domains with you guys?

Also when bidding on AMA domains will the current rule of the first $10 is free for the first bidder apply?

If this is the case then domains owners that list their domains for no reserve but only receive a bid of $10 would effectively be selling their domains for $0, which could be promblematic...

Due to popular demand, we will also see the return of the push to auction feature – where sellers will have the option of pushing a standard catalogue listing domain straight to auction, using the current bid price as the starting bid/reserve.
Sounds good.

Though will we be able to push to auction, without using the current bid as the reserve price?

Ie if someone bids $500 for a domain on the standard catalogue, we can push it to auction with current bid of $500 but we can set a reserve of $800 and a BIN of $1200.

This way we can push a domain to auction when the current bid isn't at a price we'd be willing to sell it for, as well as set a BIN price if the buyer wants to take it off the auction early.
 

Mark

Top Contributor
So is Oct 31st still the target launch date?

I'm afraid we are going to push it back one week, so we're looking at Weds 7th Nov now.

As someone who lists domains for sale on the AMA this would concern me.

A lot of retail buyers aren't used to bidding at online auctions for domains and I suspect they wouldn't understand snipe bidding, which is what will end up happening.

Is there not a way to keep this feature, but maybe reduce the extension time to 60 seconds or something (or even as low as 10 - 20 seconds)?

All retail buyers do not understand extended bidding, and to be honest extended bidding so far has not appeared to work - to avoid confusion and for simplicity/standardisation, we've decided to remove it. If we see a negative impact on prices, we will of course consider bringing it back. Also important to note that retail buyers, in theory, would blow domainers out of the water with their bids, so snipe bidding shouldn't be an issue.

So does that mean there will be no more 8% commision?

No, we will keep charging sellers the 8%...which I extremely low as it is I think.

Also I'm assuming the listings will still be free and we will be free to set a reserve if we host our domains with you guys?

Yes, we will not charge any fees to list if your domain is with us.

Also when bidding on AMA domains will the current rule of the first $10 is free for the first bidder apply?

If this is the case then domains owners that list their domains for no reserve but only receive a bid of $10 would effectively be selling their domains for $0, which could be promblematic...

We are discussing this at the moment. Either way, by setting a reserve you wouldn't be risking selling for $0.

Though will we be able to push to auction, without using the current bid as the reserve price?

Ie if someone bids $500 for a domain on the standard catalogue, we can push it to auction with current bid of $500 but we can set a reserve of $800 and a BIN of $1200.

This way we can push a domain to auction when the current bid isn't at a price we'd be willing to sell it for, as well as set a BIN price if the buyer wants to take it off the auction early.

No - domains pushed to auction will use the current price as the starting bid and there will be no reserve possible. Essentially the domain will sell if you push to auction.

Hope that helps Chris, and answers your questions. Once we go live, I'm sure we'll be tweaking the processes as we go to achieve the best results - so nothing is set in concrete.

Thanks
Mark
 

johno69

Top Contributor
So if you sell a domain with a $10 no reserve who pays the $49.95 fee :confused:

The blog says:

To keep things consistent for newcomers to the site, we will be adding a “Buyer’s Premium” to all domain names of $49.95. For expired domains, this essentially replaces our cost of registration of the domain, which is currently $49.95. For clients selling domains via auction or as standard catalogue listings, this will cover an administration fee (managing funds/support) and the Change of Registrant fee.
 

Chris.C

Top Contributor
No, we will keep charging sellers the 8%...which I extremely low as it is I think.
I agree your commission rate is great.

That said, the low commission rate is more than offset by the introduction of the new "buyers premium" which makes AMA domains $50 more expensive to buy than they were previously if the seller is looking to make the same margin.

I think this, in combination with bids starting at $10, will SEVERELY reduce the number of domains that sellers will be willing to list on the AMA.

And given that the average sale price in the first 10 months of the AMA was $138 I think it's safe to assume that the majority of AMA domains sold for the $100 minimum bid.

Now obviously NetFleet needs to make money, but at the same time, given that NetFleet makes $11 commission on the average AMA sale currently, and the BULK of its AMA sales going forward are likely to remain domains that are going to sell for <$250 I suspect you guys will make more money out of the AMA by increasing the volume of transactions.

In this sense removing the $100 minimum bid, is a good thing, but it will be a waste of time if sellers stop listing their domains (because they don't net an acceptable return via the AMA) or have to put on higher reserve prices (which will reduce sales) to justify selling the domain, which is what I suspect will happen under the new system given the new buyers premium and removal of the $100 minimum bid.

I've seen hundreds of domains listed on the AMA that aren't terrible but probably aren't worth $100 at a domainers auction, but that would have fetched between $15 to $25 on Snapper. So whilst they have passed in previously, under the new system I think if they were re-listed they would have a reasonable chance of getting bids.

However, I suspect many of the same owners who were willing to sell in the past won't bother listing them again because they know they are pretty much guaranteed they won't get a $50 bid (when you add a $50 bid plus the new $50 buyer premium you a price equal to the $100that the domain failed to achieve on the AMA last time).

So knowing that at best their domain will only sell for $20 or $30 on Snapper AT BEST and once you take the commission out they will be left with an amount so small that they will question whether it's worth their time to list the domain at all when and they can just hold it until they find an end user, which isn't what is in NF's best interest either because you guys get paid when people list and sell via your auction.

That was the great thing about you guys changing the rules to make listings free and offer free reserve (which were strokes of genius) because they substantially increased the volume of domains being listed by offering current domain owners the chance to make a reasonable return without any risk.

And whilst I have no idea what sort of costs goes into running the AMA, I would think that if it were possible to make it more attractive for current domain owners to list their domains for sale, it would help the new AMA, ie if $20 of the new $50 buyers premium went back to the seller, I think that would be enough to incentivise domainers to sell these <$200 domains with low or no reserve, and I suspect it's these domains that will likely make up the majority of domains listed on the AMA for the next couple of years.

This would still see NF making a minimum of $11 per transaction plus commission (which is still more than it does currently) and I feel creates more of a win-win-win-win for the buyer, seller, netfleet and the industry.

You could even take it a step further do something like, giving the seller $25 of the buyers premium if they opt to put their domain up with no reserve. That would really spice things up and help generate some turnover.

This might sound crazy but I also think having a successful AMA where sellers are willing to liquidate their domains at fair market prices has bigger ramifications for the entire industry as well, ie if the NF AMA becomes a cost effective place to liquidate ALL calibre of domains (not just domains that will fetch $250+) it reduces domainers portfolio holding risk and that will give domain investors more confidence to go out and both buy more domains (both on Snapper and when hand registering) because they will know that even if their original plans don't work out they have a low cost place to recoup some, if not all, of their initial domain costs.

Not to mention being able to being able to tell retail buyers, hey even if you pay $XXX - $XXXX for this domain today, it isn't a sunk cost, you can always recoup some of your investment at any time by selling it on the NF AMA if things don't work out!

Plus I think it will help to build more industry data which will aid in legitimising the industry as a whole.


We are discussing this at the moment. Either way, by setting a reserve you wouldn't be risking selling for $0.
True, but for a lot of the <$250 domains reserves aren't of major use, I think the most important thing is that the seller has incentive to sell.

No - domains pushed to auction will use the current price as the starting bid and there will be no reserve possible. Essentially the domain will sell if you push to auction.
Yeah I think did this once under the old system and I remember it being a stupid mistake.

From memory I got an offer on a domain for $600 via the Standard Catalogue - I thought it was worth at least $1000, and naively thought rather than negotiate the buyer up to a fairer price I'd try pushing it to auction and let the the competition for this decent domain do the work for me...

Of course that isn't how reality played out.

Ultimately all it did was piss the buyer off (no one likes negotiating a price for a domain only to have the seller then push it to auction to try and pressure more out of them), but in this case no one else bid, which meant that rather than get $600 +GST and the buyer paying COR which is what I would have got if I had of concluded the sale via the SC, the domain sold on the AMA for $600, with GST included, with me needing to pay COR and the 8% commision...

So I went from netting $600 (with the ability to still negotiate for more) to netting $442...

Worst of all was that after the sale I accidentally left the domain listed for sale on NF SC and received an offer for $1200 about 3 months later... if I had of been able to set a reserve higher than the current offer price I could have ensured that I'd earn at least what I had been currently offered or in the best case scenario the domain might have passed in and I'd have gone on to push it to the AMA with a minimum bid of $1200 3 months later...

Once again, it always comes comes back to risk/reward.

It doesn't make sense to push domains to auction if you get a healthy offer via the SC given that the chances of getting another end user who is educated on the value of domain and willing to bid more is always very low and it will cost at least 8% for the privilege to even try and you are guaranteed to piss the buyer off who might have been willing to buy more domains...

Just saying.
 

Mark

Top Contributor
Whoops, nearly missed.

All good stuff Chris, appreciate you taking the time.

I think in summary sellers can cover themselves by setting their reserve prices, and we're hoping to see significant improvements with the new format, with better prices achieved, which I believe will more than compensate for any small pricing differences.

With push to auction, if you don't want to risk it, you don't have to do it.

We're pretty embedded with our proposed structure at the moment, so we're going to run with it as is, but I have taken your points on board and we will closely monitor over the next few weeks.

If we don't see an improvement, then we will of course look at better alternatives.

Thanks
Mark
 

Chris.C

Top Contributor
I think in summary sellers can cover themselves by setting their reserve prices.
I suspect that all domains listed will require a reserve given that if only one bidder bids, that will mean the domain will sell for $0 which will mean the seller gets paid nothing, which will mean it is a very high risk strategy to have domains with no reserve unless you are 100% certain it will get multiple bids.

Then I guess the real question is will bidders waste their time bidding at an auction where all the domains have reserves.

I don't know what the stats are for the current AMA, but my suspsion would be 90%+ of domains that have reserves when listed aren't reached. If this was the case and people came to believe that there was no point bidding because the reserves were rarely reached they might stop bidding.

Maybe not showing whether a domain has a reserve or not could be a potential option, and having the reserve just basically acting as the first proxy bid might encourage people to make initial bids like they would on any other auction, and then if the domain doesn't make reserve it just comes up as passed in at the end of the auction? Thoughts?

we're hoping to see significant improvements with the new format, with better prices achieved, which I believe will more than compensate for any small pricing differences.
I hope so too!

With push to auction, if you don't want to risk it, you don't have to do it.
I understand. I was just giving you the other side of the coin.

That said, if there are others out there demanding the feature obviously some are finding success with it. I'd love to know the stats, if/when you get some on the feature.

ie, like how often the domain goes on to achieve a higher result than it was pushed to auction for.

We're pretty embedded with our proposed structure at the moment, so we're going to run with it as is, but I have taken your points on board and we will closely monitor over the next few weeks.

If we don't see an improvement, then we will of course look at better alternatives.
Totally understand. Results and data are always a better guide as to if something is more or less successful. I was only mentioning a few things that I forsee as being "potential" stumbling blocks. I'd be very happy to be wrong though.

:D
 

Mark

Top Contributor
Pending any last minute glitches, we are on target to roll out tonight guys - we're closing Snapper until complete.

Will keep you updated

Cheers
Mark
 
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