WHC | Re-auction (18.Viewing)

theinvestor said:

The fact anyone is allowed to have a payment plan is nonsense. We all should have the same competitive advantage. If someone bids 9K but plans on paying over 2 years. Maybe someone else would have paid 15k if they could have done the same. If a domain is not paid for in my opinion in a reasonable time frame (less than a month) it needs to be re-auctioned right away. CIRA washes their hand of this entire process and then these registrars think they can do whatever they want.

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None of this is happening. No payment plans. No shenanigans. There was 0$ made on any of these domains. The delay was what it took us to put in place a system that we believed was fair and could work well long term. Feedback appreciated, conspiracy theories not so much.

@efalcon That’s fine but the question remains why are we starting this auction at a price none of the bidders are clearly willing to pay? The initial bidder didn’t pay. The second bidder clearly does not want the domain either at the price of their last bid. So what reasoning would the auction price need to begin at that price?

What’s to stop you from starting all TBR auctions at 9K? I just don’t see the difference. Maybe you do and can clarify that.

While everyone's chasing the top tier domains a lot of the bargains are falling through the cracks. Wise players know how to pick up great domains under five hundred bucks. I don't think I've ever paid more for one.

The re-auction reserve price today represents the runner-up bid when the domain was first auctioned. This was the pricing option we landed on for this system, after some deliberation. The assumption being that if this was a price a bidder was willing to pay before it would also be a price a bidder would be willing to pay today.

Of course no system is perfect. One would argue that if there weren’t a high bidder driving up auction prices, the runner-up wouldn’t be paying as much. But conversely if the auction price weren’t as high perhaps other bidders would bid up the domain even higher. These are very much edge cases and our #1 priority is to avoid re-auctions in the first place. Having said that, we hear you and appreciate the feedback and are definitely open to exploring a low bid starting point for re-auctions as well to let the market decide.

To your other point, nothing technically stops us from setting a starting bid price that’s 1000x higher. We don’t (and never will) because we actually care about building a system that’s fair, accessible and trustworthy. Our team and I work hard to gain trust and don’t ever take it for granted. So when our ethics are put into question, it stings.

theinvestor said:

@efalcon That’s fine but the question remains why are we starting this auction at a price none of the bidders are clearly willing to pay? The initial bidder didn’t pay. The second bidder clearly does not want the domain either at the price of their last bid. So what reasoning would the auction price need to begin at that price?

What’s to stop you from starting all TBR auctions at 9K? I just don’t see the difference. Maybe you do and can clarify that.

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