For Sale Pool Sealed Auction Strategies?

[FusionX]

Another minor observation here for the SEALED BID PHASE:

You are not allowed to modify your bid in the first phase. You can only increase it, but can't revise it to a lower level. I feel that Pool should allow people to modify bids in the first phase. Bid modifications should not be allowed in open auctions, but since the first phase is essentially blind and one person's bids don't affect those from others. So one should be allowed to modify the bid (both ways) till the last second of the option. That's the essence of any fair auction procedure. But then ... obviously we agree that this whole procedure adopted by Pool is unfair ...

Another reason why I think that Pool sucks.

FusionX

 

[mole]

Pool's auction system should be renamed:-

Phase 1 : Play With Yourself Round
Phase 2 : Masturbating Challenge

 

[FusionX]

Pool's auction system should be renamed:-

Phase 1 : Play With Yourself Round
Phase 2 : Masturbating Challenge

lol :-D :-D :-D :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

[clemzonguy]

I had tried upping my bid at ENOM to give them more incentive. I'm sure they do give priority to names where there are more bidders to maximize price.

I did make it into the challenger phase with the highest bid. I wanted to put in something lower but I really want this name. I don't think anyone else was going for it or was willing to pay higher so I probably am stupid for doing this. So it looks like the game is working for Pool in the case where people really want something as they doubled their money on a name that would have went for $16.95-$50 at ENOM had they caught it.

So in summary.....It's blackmail and that is illegal. We are blackmailed into ordering the names at Pool because of the fact they own a large percentage of the market and in order to freely compete with others who also may order I am blackmailed into ordering and paying a premium out of fear and not free competition.

I plan on dealing with them in upcoming weeks. Even if they do reverse this policy the damage has already been done. :bandit:

 

[cambler]

We have made no mystery of the fact that we devote more resources to names with more bidders or higher bids. There is a finite amount of resources, and we allocate them to higher-value names. Some other drop-catchers deny that they do this, and I'm not going to question their honesty. But we're honest about it. Does that guarantee that we'll get a particular name? Of course not. Even a manual registration somewhere has a statistical chance of getting the name, no matter how small.

With that said, Pool is no longer such a clear market-leader in the value of the names caught, and I think most of you are seeing that.

Finally, I have to disagree. What Pool is doing is not blackmail, nor is it illegal. Like or dislike their auction setup, I fail to see anything illegal about it. Nobody forces you to bid. In today's market, I think you'll find that there's just as good a chance as not that another drop-catcher will get the name.

 

[Steen]

As much as I hate to, I think now I will stop even ordering domains from Pool. I like to have the possibility of bidding if I need to, but I don't think I will bother anymore. However their daily list is very helpful and free :-D

 

[FusionX]

Yeah, the only good thing about Pool is the free daily list. Anyway, I am relying more and more on DropShark (thanks to cambler's initiative), but Pool's list is also helpful for a quick glance.

FusionX

 

[clemzonguy]

In today's market, I think you'll find that there's just as good a chance as not that another drop-catcher will get the name.

I love the simplicity of the current system and the fact that I do not have to spend a large amount of time devoted to snapping names ahead of time or chasing names only to loose them to buydomains private connections. The one negative thing about the current system is Pool. Cambler if I were you I'd be on the phone with these other registrar partners right now. If we all get together a petition we can literally strip away their business and put them out of the market. I know that about 99.9% of the people on this forum would rather do business with your company anyday.

Why not allow us to help one another? Just give us the transparency we are looking for as well as reasonable expectations and not masturbatory bidding.

d

What Pool is doing is not blackmail, nor is it illegal.

Of course it's blackmail. They are threatening to give the domain to another party if we are unable to blindly bid instead of letting the market determine a value first. The entire dropping domain system needs to be revised even if it's not WLS. I'd say enjoy it while it lasts. Change is on the horizon.

 

[DomainTurn.com]

You all have a choice where to snap and bid. pool.com could not stay in business
if no one bought on pool.com. The only chance they would have is end user's and if
they could find them you would to. The expectation of a catcher is to profit from the domain name. Not to give a fair play ground to wholesaler's who can turn the domain name in to a gold mine. Why shouldn't pool.com be able to drive up the prices since there is only one car.com or loan.com etc. If they have the ability to get the domain name, They should be able to profit from it. Just go there and buy a name. They provide a nice service to the domain name industry. Any business will change in time or they will be forgotten. I guess with pool's Introduction of this new system some magic advertising has accured."Word of mouth." You guy fell into there trap. Pool.com has become a common word around here so the publicity
itself had become usful to pool

 

[clemzonguy]

The fact of the matter is that I am an end-user and many other people are here as well. While I buy and sell domains it's more like a stock portfolio and do not make my living reselling domains. I buy in areas that interest me and which I plan to develop. The main thing that is holding back newer extensions are people who just park the domains and do not develop. But that's another topic....

With regards to Pool they did what Dropwizard, Enom, and others didn't have the guts to do originally as far as agressively pursuing new registrars. It took almost a year for ClubDrop to really become effective or to add any additional registrars. Snapnames could have done the same thing but they were too busy with WLS which I am susprised still hasn't been approved in light of this whole situation. But that is in no means a cure-all.

Sure we have a choice not to order names at Pool but someone else will order and they will get the name, possibly cheaper. Whether it's for $60 or for $600 we still are blackmailed into using their crooked system.

 

[hiOsilver]

Sure we have a choice not to order names at Pool but someone else will order and they will get the name, possibly cheaper. Whether it's for $60 or for $600 we still are blackmailed into using their crooked system.

The way I feel about it is, let someone else get it at Pool for a low price. If the prices Pool receives are lower than what they had been getting, then this obnoxious, greedy system that they implemented will have backfired. Then, and only then, will Pool put back into place a system where we, their customers, can learn from the auctions, can have a better assurance that the system is not cheating us. As it is now, their bidding system is as transparent as asphalt.

A year ago, I found myself bidding against BD, often just head-to-head, on many names at Pool. BD always won. It was simple, I decided that the max I would bid for a particular domain might be $150. So, BD got it for $160. However, BD's max bid might be $3,000. I kept a record of these.

So, I would surmise, that the brilliant minds at Pool realized from that type of result, that they were "leaving too much profit on the table". So, instead of letting BD get a name for $10 above what I was willing to pay, they can now get BD to bid $2500 initially (or maybe only $1500, who knows?) and make a huge increase in Pool's profits. This may work. Maybe BD (and a few other gorillas) wants to make Pool rich? On the other hand, BD used to be able to send me a message: "you cannot outbid BD". Now, there will be no message. I wonder how long before BD decides to see how low they can bid at Pool. In the meantime, Pool will lose a lot of bidders. Certainly, they have lost me and I have emailed them so. I was never a big bidder, but the $150 here and the $200 there surely added up.

So, those of you who think that Pool is cool, more power to you. Share as much of your profits and opportunity cost as you can with Pool. There are enough domains to go around. I can swim elsewhere.

This is not blackmail (which is a crime, at least in the US). However, it is incredibly stupid and greedy, in my opinion.

 

[clemzonguy]

They are out of Canada and can do whatever they want as long as ICANN allows them to. Al Gore needs to get involved lol. Actually I simply will coordinate which names I will be going for and making it known among my colleagues. If people are willing to spend more than me great at least we can establish that before the auction. More power to the people. We will prevail.

I won my domain today for $2XX. On a name that mind you had hardly any bids at enom and at namewinner only about $30-$60. I was the high bidder at $1XX in the sealed bid phase and thought I overpayed but then the "other person" outbid me. The bid ended in a 2 so this was no novice bidder. In fact the numbering system Pool used for the incrementation seems rather bizarre because it's supposed to be increments of 10. Most people will bail out at $200-$250, very rarely will I bid that high unless I want it bad enough.

Another alternative is laying back on bidding and simply approaching the person after the auction and sharing with them any potential profits which would have went to pool had you decided to bid against them. But I seriously doubt people will go for this. Only one occasion was I able to come to obtain a club drop name. The person got it through round robin. Everyone else I dealt with did not want to sale or wanted 3-10X the auction price which in some cases might be a little emotionally charged.

 

[SONICdomains]

The new auction systems suck for us, but make complete financial sense for the backordering companies. A first come first serve system for backordering makes no sense revenue wise. It produces very little revenue and does not allow the person willing to pay the most to buy the name.

Oh well.... they must have hired an economist or read some auction theory...

 

[MarkMan]

hehe,

In time everything goes to the dogs

 

[DomainBuyerBroker]

1. Sealed bid model is for greedy bastards who cannot make it in the critical-mass free-market world. No one would have ever heard the word Ebay if they ever tried that stunt.

2. "Yeah, the only good thing about Pool is the free daily list."

Now you've given the greedy bastards at Pool the idea that they can (and probably will) start charging for the service unless you actually backorder/buy one name a month or something like that.

Also, I bought $800 worth of .pw domains from Pool under their "Domains For Sale" section.

To my surprise, .pw names are not actually domain names that are for sale but some email reseller scheme even though Pool offers them for sale. They gave me store credit.

Nice job Pool. You should be very proud.

Obviously you have a lot of happy, loyal customers...NOT

 

[mole]

1Obviously you have a lot of happy, loyal customers...NOT

Well, I am a a happy, loyal customer actually. The current system actually works to my advantage when you are only going for about 1-2 names a month (you need to save up for your proxy firepower to unleash at the very last minute), although I did do a sealed bid on a name for over $500 a couple of weeks ago, only to have no one in sight on auction close. I am not complaining, as long as I get what I want :-D

 

[Mr Webname]

Transparency rules - Pool's sealed bid auction is not transparent and has caused many domainers, like me, to back off using them.

 

[SONICdomains]

1. Sealed bid model is for greedy bastards who cannot make it in the critical-mass free-market world. No one would have ever heard the word Ebay if they ever tried that stunt.

Nice job Pool. You should be very proud.

Obviously you have a lot of happy, loyal customers...NOT

Stupid ... no ....greedy ... yes, but that's capitalism.. bastards... not sure, have to ask their mothers :-O . If the sealed bid system yields a larger profit for Pool they will use it, as any sane company would. It might be taking a bite out of your profit, but it's logical for them to do so.

All this critical mass business is just BS, sealed bids are used all the time. I agree it hurts us, but there isn't much we can do about it and it's a simple fact of life that sellers always want competition between bidders to increase revenues. :-(

And FYI, eBay IS a sealed bid auction. :wink:

eBay utilizes a sealed bid second price auction aka a Vickrey auction. It's modified in that bidders are able to see the second highest bid + 1 increment, but it's still sealed because the high bidder's max proxy bid (the only bid that matters) is sealed.

Cheers,