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For
the first
time
one of the world's three biggest auction
houses - Heritage
Auctions (HA) - will be
running a live
domain auction this week, putting
domain names on equal footing with
traditional collectible asset classes like
art, jewelry and coins. The big
event, that HA has been promoting
nationally in mainstream publications,
happens Thursday evening (November
21, 2013) starting at 7pm U.S. Eastern
time (6pm Central and 4pm Pacific)
when auctions will start closing (online
bidding has been open throughout this
month). The
reserve
prices (Excel file) for those
names that have reserves has now been
released. With domains like
MutualFunds.com, Animation.com, NL.com,
QR.com, Bicycle.com, DVDs.com,
Sociology.com, CurrencyExchange.com and
others having been submitted for the
auction, Aron Meystedt, the Founder
& Director of HA's new Domain Name
& Intellectual Property Division
and a veteran domain investor himself, is
delighted with the response HA's entry
into the domain aftermarket has
received. "We are excited about the participation of domain name
owners," Meystedt told us. "We tried to pick names that were either perfect |
Aron
Meystedt, Founder & Director,
Domain Name & Intellectual
Property Division
Heritage Auctions (HA.com)
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for investment or business use. Many of the names cross both criteria as well.
After this first auction, we anticipate the quality of submissions will
continue to be great. A few people have
pointed out that some of these names have been publicly for sale before. However,
this time around the audience is
different. I think that is the key. We are reaching out to an entirely different base of buyers." |
"Additionally, we have a plan on how to “ramp up” domain sales – and this auction is a good first effort at determining which type of domains have the
best response from buyers,"
Meystedt said. "We’re also testing out which PR and marketing efforts yield the
best results. A successful first auction will help all of us – it will continue to
pique the interest of our affluent client
base, and it will only bring additional people, money and interest into our domain
industry."
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Auction
image from Bigstock |
Heritage
Auctions knows that "Rome wasn't
built in a day" so Meystedt said they
are committed to a long term effort to
build up the domain market. That has included
sending an educational piece to
HA's clientele of affluent investors and
potential buyers.
"That
piece is the key," Meystedt noted.
"Everyone knows what a domain name
is, but I’d guess a majority of the
recipients have no idea there
is a thriving domain name aftermarket that
exists. We are educating these
people on historical sales and the
state of the domain industry.
I do understand that this effort may take
time, and in the event that this first
auction isn’t a smashing success, we
plan to keep moving |
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forward
and continue to
educate investors and high net worth
individuals on the benefits of domain name
ownership." |
Meystedt
added, "In addition to investors, we’re
making sure the executives at major companies
learn about our domain initiative. Heritage
Auctions has a lot of key contacts with many
corporations, and we’ll be leveraging our
network to put the right names in front of
decision makers." Domain owners have always
felt the key to unlocking the full value
of domains was to connect them with the right
end users. If HA's auctions are successful,
that door may be fully opened for the first
time.
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