Flippa Domains and the Quest for a (Near) Perfect Marketplace

[FlippaDomains]

// Flippa Domains -- FAQs and Feature Requests //

Rules: stay on topic. If you have a valid feature request, it will be added to the original checklist. "Likes" and "Thanks" will help rank things higher. Anything critical that fails to deliver a suggestion for improvement and/or anything off topic or that doesn't stimulate the discussion will be deleted.

Let me be very clear that below are suggestions we've heard or are hearing about currently, and some we are already working on behind the scenes. I mostly want to hear from those I haven't spoken to yet.

///

Upgrades

• What if we slashed their prices?
  
• What if we got rid of them outright?
• What if a seller had to apply to receive an upgrade?
• etc

Bidder Aliases

• Will this expose shill bidders?

Auction Saturation

• What if we limited the number of auctions?

etc

 

[Jen-Sin]

Auction Saturation - Improve search filters

Right now, no reserve auctions with no bids are impossible to find. Auctions where next bid will hit reserve are also hidden. Filters to display these will increase auction activity and move more domains.

Also add search filters like length of domains (don't just restrict to 5 and below), no of numbers, no of hyphens, no numbers, no hyphens, no characters, no vowels, character pattern (like CVCV, NNNNN etc). There're more attributes I can list, but an improved search filter will negate the issue of auction saturation.

To ride the recent frenzy of liquid domains, even a filter for quad premium LLLL or Chinese premium LLLL, Triple Letter LLLL etc will set Flippa apart from other marketplaces and attract huge number of such investors.

As a seller, I find setting categories a chore. But as a buyer, categories narrow down the list considerably. And better buyer experience will only help sales.

 

[Acroplex]

Upgrades - Award upgrades to sellers in a tier system: the more sales they complete, the more bonuses they earn.

Bidder aliases - A must! Other mechanisms that can identify related accounts created solely to pump auctions. Not all mechanisms need to be public, but aliases are better than "Bidder1" etc.

Auction saturation - Oversupply isn't the problem as much as commitment to combat potential fraud per above. You can also limit the lifespan of an auction's free relisting, to e.g. 3 months as opposed to perpetually.

 

[drsheraz]

In my experience of selling domains on Flippa, there is dearth of visitors to auction page without upgrades.
No reserve auction receive more visitors than reserve auction.
My suggestion is to

1. Increase the starting auction price from $1 to $25 or even $50. It will increase NO reserve auction numbers and seller will at least recover the domain buying and listing cost.
2. Decrease the upgrade price to less than $100.
3. Decrease the auction duration from 30 days to 14 days.

 

[Jen-Sin]

Upgrades - Award upgrades to sellers who do end-user outreach and bring them to the marketplace. This will increase the pool of enduser buyers which is beneficial to all sellers and the marketplace.

 

[Jen-Sin]

Auction Saturation - to qualify for free relists, the relist must have a lower reserve

 

[venturefile.com]

Get rid of free relisting or put them on a time limit as Acro said.. My eyes are starting to bleed from all the same crap that is relisted every few days or weeks and probably won't ever sell..

 

[JudgeMind]

i think Flippa is in a bit of a catch 22, their model is good for cashflow for them but does not always help the sellers. Could flippa just do away with the standard auction all together? I mean the $9 regular auction, it does not sell domains anyway, all of us know now that without buying an upgrade it is unlikely anyone would even find your auction. I think that the domain catalog should stay and the regular auction should ($9) should be removed, lets face it, your getting the same exposure with a catalog listing as you are with a $9 regular auction. You can still self promote your catalog listings on social media etc. This would help to reduce a lot of the saturation in the marketplace and would make things fair for those buying $249+ upgrades.

I just wanted to add that i am an advocate for Flippa, without flippa it is unlikely i would have been able to move as many names as i have in the past year. I also want to point out that flippa is constantly asking for our opinion on what would work for us as domainers. how many other marketplace reps do you see on here doing that. @FlippaDomains, great job dealing with all of the sharks in the shallow waters on NamePros, keep up the good work, we appreciate you listening to our recommendations.

 

[James Rodman]

3 things.

1) Bidder aliases should be implemented and if a bidder bids on a sellers domain for a certain # of times (lets say 100) then those 2 accounts should have something that says "possible friends" or something like that. This woul eliminate friends bidding on each others names as well as shill bidding.
2) What is a super seller? i see accounts with $2,000 in sales and they are super seller and i see some with $50,000 in sales and they are not. Super seller should be clearly defined with milestones you have to pass to achieve it. Afterwards you can apply to become a super seller after reaching these milestones.

3) Only 1 re-list should be allowed

 

[main]

My dissatisfaction with Flippa is as a buyer. Verify bidders and do away with sellers having the ability to decide whether or not to accept bids. Get rid of free relists. So many of the auctions are not true auctions. You have sellers with high reserves who just constantly relist. It might as well just be offer - counter offer. It wastes a lot of buyers' time.

Make Flippa a better place for buyers. There will end up being more buyers which will in turn end up being better for the sellers.

 

[FlippaDomains]

Just want to thank you all for incredible feedback thus far.

Proud to say that we're already on top of lots of this. I'll be responding further to each post this coming week.

 

[Templr]

Buy Now.

Add Make Offer. I had an ebay business account from 1999 before BN/MO was introduced, but since it was, sales increased especially via Make offer.


Domain Extension Search.

General search for all domain extensions in the search bar to resolve all possible names available. And/or expand the clickable search for more extentions.


Description.

Add image/video to descriptions.


Cheers.

 

[Messiah]

1. First of all get rid of giving free upgrades to anybody unless its your birthday...
2. If you give free upgrades to only 'super sellers', they are going to dominate the marketplace and the regular user will still pay full upgrade fee. IMO, Everyone should be equal...You can give "Super Seller" batch which I don't care...
3. Limit the free listing.... Something like 3 or 5 times...I see people relist the domains for every 24 hours...Once the listings are limited, the seller needs to buy standard auction listing($9) again.
4. If their is someone who has purchased an upgrade without prior knowledge about domaining and if he doesn't get any ROI and in fact is in loss, please give them at least half of their upgrade fees to get relaxed and invest in better domains.
5. Slash the upgrade fee if you don't agree on any of the above 4 points...

Thanks,
Messiah

 

[JudgeMind]

@FlippaDomains
i would only award the option to purchase premium upgrades to sellers who have reached "SUPER SELLER" status, this would take care of the over saturation issue that is happening now on the homepage and the domain marketplace page. Super seller status should be reached after a seller successfully completes X number of sales while receiving positive feedback for each sale. The homepage upgrade and other upgrades would still be available for regular sellers to purchase helping them to gain exposure to their listing.

To keep things fair and not biased towards brokered listings i think that the "editors choice" should be removed. The domains which are being brokered by domain holdings should be listed in a seperate section than regular and upgraded listings, this dilutes exposure to regular listings when they are mixed together in the same page.

I think it would be beneficial to sellers who have multiple domains listed or have a domain catalog if a widget appeared under "THE SELLER" box showcasing a few of the other listings/auctions from that seller.

On another note, i think it would be good if sellers could communicate more with buyers who made offers through a domain catalog listing. I have had the following scenario happen a few times now:

Offer received from buyer
offer countered
buyer rejects counter offer
no more contact with buyer

This is not just an issue on flippa but also on sedo and godaddy, i would like to see a "re-open" or "continue" negotiation option with the potential buyer. Many of us are the same, we want the most we can for a domain and always counter high with an incoming offer, this is to see where the potential buyer is with their budget and to ensure we arent leaving too much money on the table. However, many of us would likely sell the domain for the price the buyer offered if we discovered they werent going to come up in their price.
These are just a few of my opinions.

 

[Jen-Sin]

Auction Saturation - Display Minimum Reserve Range

Watch the following @DomainSherpa interview on the benefits of a minimum reserve range. Hear Monte Cahn explains from 13 min 30s:

http://www.domainsherpa.com/rotd-namescon-2015-auction/

 

[Weber]

Right now, I'm concerned more about the performance of site functions and support rather than tracking what domain someone else is attempting to buy. What I'm bidding on is not anyone's business outside of Flippa and a seller. Policing shill bids is something that needs to be handled internally, not by nosey, outside casual observers.

Search results, from my recent experience are a mess. Unexpected results, like those that are irrelevant or no search results at all for auctions that I know are currently active and have a match to the searched keyword.

Active auction listings are also randomly mixed with catalog domains in search results, often with dozens of catalog domains listed before active auctions. Even premium upgraded auctions can be preceded by many catalog names and/or hard to find in search results. This is very confusing and unfair. I think a separation between active auction listings and catalog listings should be plainly visible.

Most of all, keyword searches in auctions should give accurate results for "any and all" active auctions that have a title which contains a match to that keyword. Duh!

 

[aditya11117]

@FlippaDomains

1) Switch flippa to back to the previous Homepage where domains and websites listing are featured EQUALLY with the Listing Title is Must.
2) Have Fixed Listing Price.
3) Reduce the price of upgrades. Upgrade feature is not an issue. But price is high. Listing price +Some upgrade + Success fees +Domain price one doesn't manage to make profit instead loss occur most of the time.

 

[JudgeMind]

Get rid of free relisting or put them on a time limit as Acro said.. My eyes are starting to bleed from all the same crap that is relisted every few days or weeks and probably won't ever sell..

i agree, it adds to saturation in the marketplace and if the domain didnt sell the first time it is unlikely it will sell if you relist for free 5 more times after the initial auction.

 

[venturefile.com]

do away with sellers having the ability to decide whether or not to accept bids.

I have to say that I disagree with this one.. For the domains that I expected that would fetch higher amounts I have vetted each new bidder before accepting their bid. I send them a few questions, start a conversation to see if they are legit or not.. And I have to say that I have rejected a ton of bidders already based on their responses or the lack of response..

 

[JudgeMind]

Buy Now.

Add Make Offer. I had an ebay business account from 1999 before BN/MO was introduced, but since it was, sales increased especially via Make offer.


Domain Extension Search.

General search for all domain extensions in the search bar to resolve all possible names available. And/or expand the clickable search for more extentions.


Description.

Add image/video to descriptions.


Cheers.

I really like the make offer option

 

[NameOmnia]

My suggestions :

1. Get rid of the 9$ listing fee : 9$ spent to be buried among ALL the others and get 0 exposure are 9$ wasted
2. Implementing bid alias for sure. People have the right to see who is bidding on what. Highlight employees, brokers and everyone who is part of Flippa in whatsoever way
3. Upsells : fewer, cheaper and more effective.
4. Free domain listing and run some special auction where names are selected ( like sedo does )
5. Better communication between buyer/sellers and Flippa; just like sedo does. They handle everything and both buyers and sellers have all the info they need via their assigned employee.
6. Definitely improve verification. The number of non paying buyers, fraudulent sellers, scam websites for sale ( just google it.. ) is too high. People buy on a marketplace and they have to be able to trust that the marketplace is behind what it's sold. They have to see the marketplace as a guarantee.
7. Adjust the free relisting process. Too many and too often. There are people who relist their names for 1-2 day auctions and keep relisting them continuously.

 

[cncventure]

I notice that Flippa promotes an ebook about buying and selling websites.

Maybe you guys could create an ebook about the value of premium domain names for the users that sign up after they make an offer via one of the domain sales pages.

Many businesses owners, the obvious buyers for premium domain names, don't understand the value of premium domain names and often need to be educated on how they can use premium domains to grow their businesses anyway.

If you need a list of key benefits of buying premium, would be happy to contribute to the ebook, but there is no doubt loads of benefits lists on NamePros itself.

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

Another thing I think would be nice is this :

When creating an auction, and I am asked for the auction description, instead of putting everything on one box and expecting me to format and everything , why not do this :-

Q1 what is the CPC of the domain? ( in h2 format for all questions)
So in this box I write the cpc of the domain

Q2 What is the broad search of the domain terms?
I write here the answer to this question

Q 3 What is the exact search terms (monthly) of this domain?
Answer goes here

Q4: What are the possible uses of this domain ?
Answer goes here

Q5: What are the comparable sales of this domain?

Q6 Add any other extra information that is related to this auction.

By doing it this way, it will give the buyer quick answers instead of having to get the answer from a big text that has all that information in one place

 

[Raindrops]

Transparency. Not necessarily in who the bidders are because arguments can be made both ways - but in other fashions. As an example, and this is just one:

User Hatfield Ventures has a listing for Bundled auctions com - https://flippa.com/5580986-125-premium-domains-aged-valuable-high-cpc-rare-bundle

He lists his name as Josh and Hatfield Ventures, and a brief internet search turns up Hatfield Ventures and Josh and their activity in the domain market. The thing is, most of the domains in that listing are registered to Jason King and do not resolve to Josh and Hatfield Ventures at all. Somehow Hatfield Ventures (Josh) is selling domains in a bundle for Jason King. Is Hatfield a broker? Flippa insider?

As well, Hatfield ventures has an impressive sales history with Flippa, doing over 98k on 5 transactions there - yet has no feedback positive or negative, and no history under their user name of the previous transactions. Hatfield's history is not prone to vetting by anyone because Flippa doesn't have it, but that is not the case for all users who buy/sell domains there. So, things get suspicious from lack of transparency.

In order for Hatfield to sell someone else's domains as a broker he should have "Broker" labeled on his profile. His sales history is such that with his prior listings having been private, nobody knows who/what he is about. Likewise, it could be assumed by some that Jason King may have a history with Flippa and for whatever reason (ban, shill, whatever) he can still do business with people who may not wish to do business with him simply by using Hatfield Ventures as the Straw Man. Again, Transparency.

Furthermore, using the example, people have to wonder - is Hatfield/Josh actually paying for their premium listing, was it a gimme from Flippa for Hatfields huge revenues on 5 prior transactions, or..........? Personally, I don't care what Flippa gives away and to whom they give it, that's their business- but it brings me to my second piece of feedback......

Reasonably equitable:

Using the same example above, if you go to Flippa right now and simply click on "auctions" under domains, the second listing is for the one mentioned above. It is at $300 as of this post with 2 bids and 29 days remaining. But why? Looking further down the list you can find premium auctions of better quality, lesser time frame, more bids, lesser/more money - but this one is number 2. That doesn't seem equitable at all, and this same "flaw" for lack of more direct terms is a huge stop sign for using Flippa. It isn't equitable when one user may be brokering domains for someone else, and getting carte blanche treatments doing so, but they don't have their history there for us to see like most others do. As well, why should someone pay top money to promote their domain if Flippa can't run an equitable process?

Two of the top 5 listings when just clicking on "Auctions" is for user Pioneering Ventures - that indicates the user Pioneering Ventures is someone to somebody. The way Flippa employees - and be honest, Kevin - your own friends in domaining keep changing names over there at Flippa it's just too secretive, and not even remotely reasonably equitable.

Change your default auction tab to one metric only and stick with it so people know what they're getting. You know you can't make it ' views, or bids, or amount' because those metrics can be.....influenced? Make it by ending time by default.

When lacking transparency and equity, given the website's' history, changes to costs/layout/features...etc, will be moot to most domainers here at Namepros. Flippa's bread and butter is raking revenue from new users on a pipe dream willing to lay out big money on a low value domain with dreams of riches. Eventually that market will dwindle, and if Flippa hasn't bridged the gap with Domainers as a whole, Flippa will dwindle along with it.

Good luck.

Quick Edit: Just as an FYI since I used the listings as an example above, I did learn who "Jason" the owner of some of the domains in "Joshs" listings is -

Jason is this person - https://flippa.com/users/698100/listings

 

[FlippaDomains]

@cncventure This entire thread will be revised and reopened in the coming weeks. Lining up some good and positive changes currently. Thanks for everyone's input thus far.