Our largest sale during this timeframe was on the 13^th of May, with the domain in question being financeeasy.com.au, which sold for a final sum of $2249.45. As indicated by Google Trends, the search terms “finance easy” have recorded a consistent level of search traffic amongst an Australian audience over the last ten years, with little changes due to seasonality – in turn, suggesting a consistent follow-through of web site visits. It remains to be seen what purpose the owner will use the domain for, however, with the finance related trend from the end of April continuing, there is no shortage of demand for finance domains around the End of Financial Year.

The second notable sale from this period was recorded back on the 2^nd of May, and as you guessed it, finance was in the headlines once again! This time, the domain was guaranteedloans.com.au, selling for $1765.45. Supported by a strong level of search interest by the Australian demographic, where a notable uptrend has been in place ever since the end of the Global Financial Crisis, the domain is likely to receive ongoing web traffic on the back of Australia’s sound economy. With one of our more active clients picking this domain up, we’re confident they’ll be able to make good use of it as the uptrend in search traffic continues.

Earlier this month, we were also fortunate to be involved with the exchange of a property related domain – overseeing the exchange of buymyhome.com.au for $1041.65 on the 3^rd of May. The end owner, BuyMyHome Pty Ltd, has been using the domain buymyplace.com.au to conduct their business as an online platform for home owners to sell their own properties and save on commission fees. In securing a domain name that now exactly matches their company name, the owner is positioned to benefit from better marketing recognition and brand awareness via any print and radio campaigns they may undertake. It will also limit any potential confusion that may have previously inhibited web traffic given the similar, albeit potentially mistakable, company name.

Making up the fourth of the premium domain names sold via Netfleet during the last fortnight, the domain afw.com.au was auctioned on the 11^th of May for a total value of $1003.15. As a highly sought after three letter domain name, which affords owners and investors an array of target audiences via its functioning as an acronym, as well as a short, memorable title that will retain web traffic, we’re still surprised this one sold at such a bargain price. The new owner is Netlocal Consulting Pty Ltd, and while details are limited on the business itself, they’ll be pleased to know they’re now holding onto a domain with high liquidity value.

That’s it for this occasion, stay tuned for the latest updates in our next post.

Recently Netfleet identified a bug in the system which was displaying a small pool of names for auction 24hrs early.

Ausregistry publishes its official drop list in UTC time, often with several days worth of data. Netfleet takes this list several times an hour and slices it up into daily auction lists. These lists are converted to AEST with auctions ending at 1pm or during day light saving AEDT with auctions ending at 2pm.

As a result names published from Ausregistry as dropping between 3am UTC on day X and 3am UTC on day Y will be published as the active auction list for day Y.

During the change for AEST to AEDT several variables need to be updated to reflect the change and appropriately shift the auction. It appears one of these variables had been missed during the change over or accidentally reverted during an update (we are still reviewing change control to identify which is the case but have applied checks to ensure this issue does not resurface in the future).

As a result of this incorrect variable names marked to be dropping between 3am UTC and 4am UTC where being incorrectly shown on the list. In many cases this was not an issue as the names where of little interest, However due to internal ranking of names some more prominent names where displayed incorrectly, with the result of auction on the incorrect day being a failure as a result of the name not dropping.

Netfleet is continuing to monitor this bug but believes the root cause has been identified and the bug resolved.

We apologies to any affected clients and thank those who brought this to our attention and assisted with resolution.

Any further questions can be directed to support@netfleet.com.au

http://www.tricider.com/brainstorming/37CqptjvsJJ

Please head over to this link and list any Ideas you have, vote on existing posted ideas or add an argument for or against a posted idea, We want to hear what our customers want and why so tell us now.

The tricider link will be active for 30days we will then review the feedback.

A telemarketer in his first week with Netfleet inadvertently accessed limited data on existing bids in our daily expired domain auction. It appears that he used that information as a benchmark to influence a bid from a third party on a single domain.

As the auction system is a blind auction, this inferred knowledge gave an unfair advantage to the third party. This disadvantaged the existing high bidder.  We have issued a formal apology to the existing high bidder and are currently in ongoing discussions.

We would like to stress that this is an isolated incident but nevertheless something we take very seriously.  Auction data has been reviewed for the week since this particular staff member commenced and aside from this case no other anomalous bidding can be seen. An existing bid has never been used to influence a new bid from a prospective buyer before or since.

Apart from not being in the interests of the existing high bidder, it is clearly not in the interests of Netfleet as it means Netfleet nets less money for catching the domain and has a much greater accounts burden.

We have put in place a simple measure to prevent this from ever happening again, by removing all access to the auction database, as should have always been the case.

We sincerely regret the disadvantage that this caused our existing customer.  We would also like to apologise to all Netfleet customers if this has caused any doubt in the integrity of the auction platform and would like to reassure all our valued customers that it was indeed a one-off incident.

As a result of this incident we acknowledge that many customers have re raised concerns of the integrity of the platform. Netfleet has taken the following immediate actions, in a hope that our customers immediate concerns will be removed

– The entity known as Publishing Australia has now been suspended from bidding on our auction platform.

– Netfleet telesales activities in their current form will cease and will be refocused

Additionally we are investigating options to both implement an independent auction scrutineer with the aim of reviewing future auction data should any auction come into question as well as the possibility to have an independent audit of randomly selected data from past auctions to ensure the integrity of the platform.

As a further action in the next few days Netfleet will open a forum for constructive suggestions from our clients with regard to improvements you would like to see in the whole of the Netfleet platform. We will send another communication soon with instructions on how to participate. This forum will be open for several weeks on conclusion we intend to extend an invitation to those clients to participate in a focus group regarding the suggestions put forward.

Once again Netfleet sincerely apologies to any clients affected by this incident we wish to assure our customers this is a single incident that has never before occurred and steps have been taken to insure it will not occur again.

On a more positive note, Initial scoping has been conducted on several new features we should see commence development soon. Including the re-inclusion of client domains in auctions, the ability to adjust bids, the addition of a buyer/seller communication system to help expedite sales, and a simplification of our customer portal.

There’s been a lot happening lately in the .au domain name industry, with proposed policy changes causing heated debate, industry shifts and also internally new focus!

Both offers are available for all domain name auction sales from Sunday 1st September to Monday 30th September (inclusive).

$10 First Bidders discount

It’s back! Get in first and bid on any Domain Name at auction and you will receive a $10.00 first bidders discount.

That means that every single name purchased in the auction is $0 reserve and $0 minimum bid.

Approx. 1000 domain names expire in Australia every single day – with approx 7000 domain names available in the Netfleet auction every week and 30,000 available in the Netfleet auction every month – there are incredible opportunities literally waiting to be snapped up!

19.95 Buyers Premium 

The Buyers Premium including 2 years registration of your domain name has been SLASHED.

For the month of September, you won’t pay $49.95 for your buyers premium – you will pay a measly $19.95!

It’s as easy as 1,2,3

The sale is on every domain name auction purchase for the month of September, no tricky promo codes to remember, no messy details to enter. Simply;
  1. Log in to your Netfleet account
  2. Bid in the auction on any name of your choice – if you are the first bidder, you will receive the first bidder’s discount of $10.00 – automatically!
  3. If you are the winning bidder, check your email to see if the name has been successfully caught on your behalf and enjoy the discounted $19.95 Buyers Premium on your final invoice.

Netfleet has consistently offered the very lowest prices on their Change of Registrant (COR) service. Benefits of the Netfleet COR compared to other registrars are;

1. Completely paperless
2. Takes only minutes to initiate and complete
3. Step by Step guided email instructions

Our Change of Registrant process includes 2 years of domain name registration and will increase to $49.95 (including GST) in early October. The pricing is now in line with Netfleet’s 2 yr domain registration charge.

Renewals

Netfleet renewals, while still amongst the very lowest in the industry, will increase to $22.95 (including GST) in early October.

Netfleet’s renewal process is;

1. Paperless
2. Initiated at the click of a button
3. Can be automated if requested through your account console

Please note, “Domains for Sale” was previously known as Domain Catalogue on the Netfleet website. We have changed the name to better appeal to new buyers, end users and those buyers and sellers not conversant in the Domaining language. It also better describes what the platform actually does!

1. Transfer

We advise that you transfer * your names to Netfleet or at the very least point your nameservers to Netfleet to take advantage of our “For Sale” page. (* Transferring your name to Netfleet will ensure you receive Australia’s lowest renewal rate, avoid Auction listing costs and can manage your domain portfolio in one place)

2. List

List your domain name in Domains for Sale. Whether you intend to sell in the Buy Now or the Auction format, we recommend you list all domains for sale in this area first. The “Domains for Sale” platform is more popular with both buyers and sellers and listing here when you intend to sell via the Auction will ensure that your listing remains even  if your domain name is passed in at Auction.

3. Add a BUY NOW price

Over 90% of our inactive domain name sales do not have a BUY NOW price listed. This shows the potential buyers the value at which you have listed your domain and indicates to them a better place to start.

A BUY NOW gives the buyers a ball park figure to work with. A buyer for a premium domain is far more likely to open the offer process at a good price if the BUY NOW is set. When there is no indicative price given, the buyers are often at a loss and will undoubtedly open with a $100.00 offer.

4. Market your name

Whilst Netfleet is Australia’s No.1 Domain Name trading platform, it does not offer domain name marketing services. Think as you would if you were a real estate agent selling a house;

a.  Create a list of potential leads; people or companies who may be interested in your domain name and call them.
b.  Call or email your list of potential leads
c.  Direct all marketing and correspondence to your sale page on Netfleet – we have honed years of technical and                 domainer experience to produce the most sophisticated and trusted selling platform in Australia – use our strength!

5. Always Counter Offer

Always, always, always counter offer.

Communication is the key to every sale and if a buyer doesn’t hear from you after placing an offer he/she will most probably assume that you’ve never received their offer.

Although you have the option to ignore their offer, it doesn’t serve either yourself or the buyer. It breaks down any potential communication, aggravates the buyer, stalls the sale and gives the buyer no indication of your target sale price.

It is especially important to counter offer if you’ve not added a BUY NOW price.

You must be in the game to win the game so in respect to genuine buyers who may be interested in your domain, show good seller etiquette and always counter offer.

6. Remember the date

You have exactly 7 days from the time of the buyers offer to accept or counter offer (or, of course to ignore however this is not advised as per the above).

When there is only 1 day left in the 7 day accept/counter offer period, you will receive an email from Netfleet – this is a reminder to ACT NOW before the sale potentially goes cold.

7. Keep your details up to date

a. Your registry email details

Netfleet require all domain sales to first go through a verification process. This is to verify that the seller who is listing the domain name is the legal registrant of the domain name.

The verification email will be automatically sent to the email address registered with the domain name (please note, this is not necessarily the same email address as your Netfleet account login. It is the address you listed with the name at registration).

To amend your registration details at any stage, login to your registrar account (this may be with Netfleet or another auDA accredited registrar)

b. Your Netfleet email details

All offer / counter offer / reminder emails will be sent to the email address associated with your Netfleet account (also known as your login). To ensure you don’t miss any communication from Netfleet, ensure that this is an email that is monitored at least daily and has listed @netfleet.com.au as a trusted sender.

To amend your Netfleet email at any stage, login to your Netfleet account and change your details in YOUR ACCOUNT.

c. Your bank account details

When a sale and the associated Change of Registrant is successfully completed, Netfleet will deposit the sale funds (less Netfleet commission) into the bank account listed at Netfleet.

To amend your bank account details at Netfleet at any stage, login to your Netfleet account and change your details in YOUR ACCOUNT.

***

Selling with Netfleet is safe, easy, seamless and stressfree – we have automated the whole process and we take the worry and work out of the sale.

We look forward to seeing your domain names listed at Netfleet and to assisting you throughout the sales process.

The new look for Netfleet offer history

The reset has already been activated so there is no need for you to change anything within your portfolio of domain names for sale.

All of the historical data is still listed beside the domain name under “archive” so that both the seller and buyers can see the history.

How this will assist your sales

Let’s face it, if a domain name has had no activity in the offer / counter offer process for 6+ months, the buyer is either no longer interested in the counter offer or their original offer was indeed their highest amount.

Before we introduced this site-wide reset, future buyers could not offer anything below the current highest offer. Now, after a period of 6 months inactivity, either the same buyer or new buyers can recommence the offer process.

You may, of course, continue to counter offer as before and hope that either your old buyer has had a change of mind or that there is a new buyer in the market OR you can reduce your counter offers to meet the market demand as proven by the earlier stages of offer / counter-offer.

How often is the process updated?

Netfleet run this process daily so depending on the size of your portfolio, you may see resets on a daily basis.

New Notification process

In line with this new initiative, we will also be sending a notification to the last “offerer” or “counter offerer” depending on where the process stalled.

If the buyer or the seller (again, depending on the status of the process), is still interested the email will serve to remind them of the purchase process that they simply may have forgotten to complete.

Netfleet will be introducing many new initiatives to improve the performance and the outcomes of the “Domains for Sale” platform.

Is there anything in particular that you personally would like to see in the process? Please let me know.

The Catalogue takes longer in theory, to produce a sale but you only need one interested party to produce a high sale price. Buyers make an offer and you then have 7 days to;

1. counter-offer

2. accept their offer or

3. ignore their offer

The Auction is faster as it has a sense of urgency but you need two interested parties in order to produce a high sale price. Under the proxy bidding , buyers only pay $1 more than the next highest bidder. This HOW-TO guide is how to best utilise the two options together to produce a good overall result.

Step 1. Add all your domains into the Catalogue, this should be the starting point for all sales. It gets them indexed by Search Engines and you can start getting offers.

Step 1.1 Add buy now/target prices to your Catalogue listings, this gives buyers a bit of an indication as to what you feel is the domains worth and it helps you to get a number into the buyers mind before they start talking to their advisers. There is no perfect formula for determining a domains value but imagine yourself as a buyer – you will try to guess how many sales a specific domain will bring you, then how much you will make off a sale and subtract the effort you need to add to make it work over a period of time.

Now you have a basic value for the domain.

If the buy now price for a domain is higher than the buyers “value” for a domain they will just shake their head and walk away so you need to be reasonable with the prices or you will be in for a long long wait. You do not have to have a price for every single domain on
day one, so work on this slowly if you have a large portfolio of domains.

Step 1.2 Add a “for sale” banner and link from the domain back to your listing on Netfleet. This one is so often overlooked but it is really crucial to getting eyes onto your listing.

If you are not using the site for monetisation/mini-site then set the name servers to dns1.netfleet.com.au and dns2.netfleet.com.au to “park” the domain with us, we will then add a “for sale” page and a link to get buyers to make offers.

Step 1.3 Check that your credit account details are all up to date so that funds will be deposited into your correct account as soon as the sale is processed.

Step 2. Wait for an offer. This can take months so be patient but as soon as you do get an offer make sure you counter-offer! It is important to get the ball rolling and to show the buyer that you are a serious seller. Lets assume for the sake of this argument that you set your “buy now” (BN) to about double what you will sell for.

~ If you get a low ball offer (less than 25% of your BN) counter-offer very quickly with your full buy now price (shows you are irritated).

~If you get a warm offer (25-50% of your BN) counter-offer quickly with 85% of BN (shows you are willing to negotiate).

~If you get a hot offer (> 60% of BN) then wait a few days before counter offering about 75% (seems like you are seriously considering the offer before responding).

~ If you get an offer of >80% of BN, then you should consider accepting the offer since they are probably not wanting to negotiate and they really think your BN is just too high.

If you get a sale immediately via your Buy Now price then be sure to check the whois details after the Change of Registrant is completed, if the whois shows a retail buyer (often the company name matches the domain name) then you did a good job with your pricing, but if the details look like another domain investor bought the domain then you should consider reviewing your Buy Now prices since they might be too low.

Step 3. If you get a few offers on a domain name but no one accepts your counter offers then you should look into who else would be interested in that domain. Do some research and marketing. Start with a search engine, see if there are multiple parties likely to be interested in the phrase the domain relates to. Good signs are lots of adverts around the term and multiple companies in the generic results.

This is a good time to consider an Auction. We suggest using a 7 – 10 day long auction, set to end on a Tues, Wed or Thursday. Once an auction is “LOADED” you start calling a few companies advertising on search engines using the term, or even ranking generically and let them know what there is a public auction ending on x day with this domain name and they will only pay $1 more than the next highest bidder so if that term is worth anything to them, then they need to act now.

Get them to give you their email address if they are interested so you can send them the link to click on, and you can answer any questions they may have.

* Netfleet will email all the people who have already made offers and even members who have browsed the listing in the past to let them know it is going into auction.

* Netfleet will also email people who have setup alerts for terms in your domains, so you are assured of quite a few “eyes” on your listing if it has been in the Catalogue for any length of time.

As far as Buy Now prices go, we suggest you start with 90% of the BN you used in the Catalogue. When it comes to setting a reserve we’d suggest using about 50% of the BN, this should be the bare minimum you would be okay walking away with. There are no second offers or chances to contact the highest under bidder so make sure if the auctions misses your BN by a few $s you will be relieved and not disappointed.

If you transfer the domain to Netfleet you will not need to pay a fee to set a reserve. Note: if you are setting a reserve; unless the
reserve is met, the domain will not appear in the very popular “Reserve Met and selling today” page on Netfleet so you need to make sure that you market the listing yourself and you direct buyers to https://www.netfleet.com.au/your-domain.com.au (replacing your-domain.com.au with your domain).

Step 4, is to just rinse and repeat step 3. As and when you think a domain is going to be popular (you might have had a few offers via email or a form on the site) then you set up a short term auction on the Netfleet site and again; it is well worth your while to do some marketing on that domain.