The domainer community forum NamePros.com is holding a live domain name auction on Thursday, October 28, 2008 at 6PM EDT.
There are several names listed in the auction queue that are available for prebidding.
A few LLLL.com (L.etter - L.etter - L.etter - L.etter .com domain names) are up for auction, including the CVCV (Consonant - Vowel - Consonant - Vowel letter combination) domain name CORU.com. The prebidding on that name is at $260
Some interesting aspects of this auction help it to stand out among the “auction house” or “domainer conference” type sales that have been seen over the past few months:
- Anybody can add their name to the Live Auction queue
- Although there won’t be time to auction all names, the prebidding process helps to bump the quality names to the top by showing that there is buyer interest
- Seller’s Choice option for sellers. Defined as:
“by electing this option, your auction will start without a specified reserve. Then after your name is auctioned, you will have the choice between accepting the high bid or canceling it by paying the high bidder a buyout fee equal to 20% of the winning bid price (capped at a maximum of $8.00 or 400 NP$)”
- Listing fee for the auction is paid for in NP$ which is the local “currency” of the online forum. Each listing is 200 NP$ (which equals about $2.00 USD)
Of course, by having a more “open” listing policy, the quality of the names is a bit more loose than auctions that are pre-vetted, but I’m glad to see the variety allowed in the industry to let more “questionable” names compete and let the buyers decide.
Like my great grandma used to say “One mans regfee is another man’s gold.” (she was quite the forward thinker, that lady. Nobody thought she was senile way back then when she kept saying regfee :)