Auction Preview for Monday, April 21. — Domain Roundtable

Will this year’s Domain Roundtable auction beat last year’s sales tally? It will be an uphill battle.

Domain Roundtable’s live domain name auction kicks off tomorrow at 11 a.m. PDT. Last year’s Domain Roundtable auction introduced a fresh wave of technology into live auctions by broadcasting live and accepting bids over the internet. It was also deemed successful with over $3 million in domains sold. (There were a couple hitches, still, counting an auction that lasted way too long.)

Will Monday’s auction sell as much as last time? I suspect it won’t, and here’s why.

First, there aren’t any killer domains in the auction with good reserves. The last auction had Invention.com that sold for $500k and Rebate(s).com that sold for a combined $1 million. The big ticket domains in this auction seem overpriced for the typical domain investment bidder. Consider these:

Smash.com $300k
Hike.com $620k
Holiday.com $6.5 million
Illusionist.com $280k

The two two character domains in the auction, KG.com and FG.com, seem priced only for end users at $500,000 each.

Second, the auction will be way too long once again. People will lose interest. Domain Roundtable decided to give all paid attendees a guaranteed listing in the auction. As a result, there are over 300 domains in the auction. A live auction shouldn’t have more than a couple hundred domains. If you’ve ever attended one, you know how people start to walk out following 150 names or so. Unless the auction runs much faster per name than the last one, this will stretch four or more hours. At least it starts early.

The saving grace could be a number of mid-range domain sales.

Don’t get me wrong — I’ll be excited if the auction surpasses the last one (in dollars, not time). But the odds are stacked against it.