Name Auction to be Open to Public — TRAFFIC Domain
The next TRAFFIC conference live domain name auction will be open for bidding by non-attendees.
TRAFFIC Las Vegas is only weeks away. This year’s Las Vegas event will be March 5-8 at The Venetian. The highlight of the show will once again be Moniker’s live domain name auction. Moniker’s last TRAFFIC auction cleared $5M in domain name sales. Moniker also sold $2M worth of domains at the Internext conference in Las Vegas last month.
Moniker tried something fresh at the Internext auction by allowing people that didn’t attend the show to bid on domains. Absentee bidders paid a one time fee of $99. This increased the number of bidders which then increased bid prices. I personally wouldn’t be caught dead at Internext (an adult conference) but there were some non-adult domains I wanted to bid on. By paying the $99 fee I was able to bid and win $9,000 worth of domains. Moniker will allow absentee bids at the TRAFFIC conference for a $499 fee. Although it’s a hefty price, this could be worth it if you have your eyes on a few good domains. Full event registration is $1,995.
Moniker is still selecting domains for inclusion in the auction. Historically, regarding 30% of domains in the auction have sold, as stated by Moniker. The firm would like to see that number increase by selecting the best domains with the lowest reserve.
It seems like the selection of domains is always rushed, as was the absentee bidding for Internext. It must be difficult to select a handful of domains from thousands of submissions, but hopefully with experience (and perhaps a non-paper process) the selection process will become more streamlined.
