Latonas.com, first daily auction starts closing in just about an hour at 10am EST,and already there is around $40K in bids.
The auction’s closings are staggered almost over 4 hours.
Today’s auction features 120 domains and here are our picks:
ePayments.com a really nice domain is already at over $15K while its brother, e-Payments.com is almost $3K making it a nice combo for $18K.
BasicAccounting.com is a nice pick up and its under $1K.
Gymnasiums.com is a nice one word domain at around $2,500.
There are several interesting ‘i” domains, my favorite being iPrograms.com, which is just under $500, and iClothes.com which is at $3K.
I also like iAdults.com which is just over $100 and iCloset.com which is under $100 and iRoads.com seems like a great name for a Map App, and its cheap.
With the new iPad and its book reading App, iBooks, its hard not to like iFiction.com especially for the price.
Nebraska.net looks like a nice buy as its currently less than $3K, as does NorthDakota.net which is currently under $2K.
Practicing.com a nice one word .Com which when I wrote this post had a $500 high bid but this morning is up to $25,000.
Guess I wasn’t the only one to think its a bargain.
PrisonJobs.com is currently under where is sold at just this January at TRAFFIC.
Purebreds.com is another nice one word .com which is currently under $2,500.
That’s enough for you guys.
I have my eyes on a few others.
But here is the bigger story.
This auction is good.
I mean there are good domains, with low reserves and deals to be had.
If Latonas can keep up this level of quality in his daily auction, this is going to be a huge winner.
Quality brings sales and sales brings quality domains.
Successful auctions create more successful auctions and Latonas if off to a great start.
For sellers this appears to be a quick way to get your domain sold.
I’m told that it will typically take only take a couple of days for a domain to go to a daily auction from the time its submitted, assuming it is an acceptable domain with a reasonable reserve. Commission are set at the higher of 15% or $200. Sellers set the reserves.
The auctions are going to run daily Monday-Friday.
Now for the site itself, I like the way its set up.
The look and feel of the site.
The navigation of the site.
Clean.
Easy.
Simple.
I like that each domain has its Alexa ranking, Google searches, cost per click and age of the domain in its heading.
I like the countdown clock for each domain in minutes and seconds. As I guy who often just misses the deadline of auctions which only shows the number of minutes left, I appreciate the real time countdown to the second.
We wish Latonas.com the best of luck with its daily auction.
I hope the sales of Practicing.com and ePayments.com go through. $40k for those 2 names is a huge success for RL. Those prices would never be realized under the newsletter format. They probably would’ve been sold for $1,500 apiece.
Quote –
“If Latonas can keep up this level of quality in his daily auction, this is going to be a huge winner.”
Unless the prices start moving upward quickly, it is going to be a huge success for buyers and a massacre for sellers. At the present price level, it would be cheaper to sell domains to NameMedia who only pays pennies on the dollar.
I speculate Rick paid more for these domains than they are presently bid.
I doubt Rick follows the strategy of
“Sell for less than you paid for it.”
Rick, I hope your new selling format takes off.
It is a great idea. Hopefully, more than the typical lowballers will participate.
Domain
I think if you can liquidate $100K in inventory in one day its pretty impressive.
I don’t think he is losing his ass on practicing.com for $25K or the set of epayments names for over $20K.
Win some, lose some. I’ll probably break even on the lot judged as a whole. The goal here was to launch a product so all is well.
It’s a great venue for the domainer, and an achievement for domaining.
For what it’s worth, the terms are right here:
http://latonas.com/mainportal.prt?action=termsofservice
and a $200.00 minimum fee is not mentioned, it’s only 15% total. Confirmation, Rick, please?
Thanx!
I think the new format is great. Nice job Rick and crew.
Wishing you the best Rick, from all of us here at Bido. If you make it work we all win, if you lose – we all lose. This is true about your auction house, as well as ours.
Good luck!
Sahar
We couldn’t agree more Sahar.
The publicity itself would be worth more than the inventory sold in the first lot, so its all positive.
Some interesting names as well. Can sellers submit names RL or is this only going to be open to a select few? Congrats on getting the auctions going.
I really do hope for two things 1. Quality of inventory 2. End user participation. Sure its not easy to achieve but anything worth doing is worth doing well. 🙂
The power Rick has for his Auction is his 15K email addresses. Very powerful. The challenge (as is always the case) is in the sellers setting the prices. The $200 commission will eliminate the bulk of buyers who don’t even want to spend $28, much less $200+proceeds for even very nice names. It will not discourage, however, high-reserves from sellers on names that wouldn’t sell at $10. Noone is going to have the guts to put $1 reserves like Rick did, of course he doesn’t have to pay the commission. 🙂 My guess is that Latona’s staff will weed out most of the garbage and we end up with 25 names per auction of which only a few sell. I am all for it but not expecting a revolution. This auction was nice though. Thanks Rick!
Latonas new daily auction seems a great venue for the domainer, and an achievement for domaining. As written now, the terms specify 15% commission, no minimum $200.00 – confirmation, Rick?
Louise, thank you for the comments. The $1 domain thing was just a launch trick for publicity. Going forward the names will be more than $200 because $200 will in fact be the minimum fee.
Chip, it might not even be 25 names. Finding the sellers with good names at good reserves is ALWAYS the challenge.
$130K is the total
http://www.domainnamenews.com/domain-auction/latonascom-daily-auction-rings/7544
congrats
Cool idea, best of luck Rick. Mike will it be just .com/net/.org ?
Everything
I have no idea, not my auction ask Rick
Prediction:
While the auction is off to a nice start it will not be able to keep the momentum long term as it will not have the inventory needed for an auction site to demand daily visitors. Rick will constantly be facing either the lack of QUALITY names or eyeballs. He will eventually be emailing out the list of names daily or weekly to be auctioned….so it will be a “newsletter” promoting the names at auction.
At this point, I would go long Bido ( I hate it BTW) and short Latona’s but wish rick lots of success and hope I am wrong.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to make it 15% all across the board? You have Latonas auction, the Extended auction, then the daily newsletter auctions? Then, instead of 10%, you charge 15%; that’s it. Wouldn’t that be simpler, less complicated?
Great Idea and Great Auction Site…
I was on the new Latona auction system for quite a while … I like the layout and thought it worked pretty smoothly…particularly for a first day launch ! I love the watchlist function.
I won a few there today:
RacingDerby.com
NetDownloads.com
NetLA.com
iMayor.com (I already owned InternetMayor.com)
Great platform,
Congratulations Rick, nice job!!!!
John(NetJohn) and I picked up some good names today at great prices. ( I would of got some more but John asked not bid against him…lol)
Lots of success to you and the Latonas team…..see you in Canada..
Steve
Hey Steve, (DD)
How’s it hang’in in Queens ?
Yep … see ya in Vancouver…. Eh ?
Using DNN data, it appears a few domains generated the majority of the revenue.
Top 7 out of 115 domains (6% of listed domains)
Practicing.com.. $25,000
ePayments.com.. $16,500
Purebreds.com.. $8,888
Nebraska.net.. $8,005
NorthDakota.net.. $7,010
Gymnasiums.com.. $5,722
PrisonJobs.com.. $3,750
Total of above $ 74,875.
Average price $ 10,696.
Top 7 generated 57% of the revenue.
Total auction $ 132,045.
The remaining 108 domains generated
$ 57,170.
Average price $ 529.
It was stated on DNW that Gymnasiums.com sold for approx. $ 7,500. 3 yrs ago.
Rick would have been better off including these domains in the Traffic/Milan auction this month. He could have received double what he received yesterday.
Moreover, if he had received his normal commission on these transactions it might had been more profitable.
15% commission, min. $ 200.
If the daily auction depends on domainers it will die a quick death.
Domain
Not sure what your point is.
Rick said in the comments above he was going to break about even on the auction.
That’s not horrible.
These daily auctions are all about liquidation.
Turning domains into cash quickly.
Try doing that with a house.
You would be lucky go get $.30 on the dollar.