Conference will include auction managed by Fusu.
DomainConvergence, a new domain conference coming to Canada October 6-8, will include a live and online domain name auction managed by Fusu.
So what’s the twist? People selling domains in the auction will have to pay 1% of the reserve price up front. The goal is to encourage low reserves.
I’m a big fan of this market-based approach to ensuring high quality domains are submitted at reasonable reserves. It works best at tried-and-true auctions (such as Moniker’s TRAFFIC auctions), but it’s good to see someone pushing the envelope.
Fusu will charge a 15% fee to the seller and will have an exclusivity period for 30 days. Domain name owners can submit their domains via email to [email protected] until October 4th, 2008 and submissions should include their reserve price as well as their postal address and phone number.
Frank Michlick, a familiar face in the domain circle and writer for Domain Name News, is spearheading DomainConvergence. The event will take place in Niagara Falls, Canada. The closest airport when traveling from the U.S. is Buffalo. People traveling through Canada can fly into Hamilton Airport or Toronto Pearson Airport.
[Domain Name Wire readers can get a $100 discount to the event. Enter discount code “domainnamewire” when registering.]
Steve M says
I like this “pay a listing fee” approach as well; and wish Frank and his team great success.
That said, unless they want to get “stuck” with low value, low desirability names, were it me, I’d cap the listing fee (charged only for those domains actually accepted into the auction) at $250-500 or so.
I’d also apply any such listing fee/s to the 15% commission on all successful sales.
With a brand new, unproven conference like this, “based” in Canada (as opposed to the US), lacking auction history, and so soon after industry leader Traffic, it’s unlikely owners of 50K+ value names will pay $500+ per domain to have them included.