Bido Reviewed

June 30, 2008 · Print This Article

I recently wrote a review of all the domain auctions. Since that review, there have been two new players who entered this lucrative market. The first is MyID, which is now running a series of Canadian domain auctions. I’ve discussed their auctions many times on my blog already. The second is Bido, run by a number of prominent domainers, such as Sahar, which had been announced at the time of my review, but has just gone live less than two weeks ago.

The main innovation of Bido is what they call “the power of one.” There is one auction per day for one domain name, at one o’clock (EST), and the bidding starts at one dollar (no reserve). The one hour auction works well for me, as the reality is that in most domain auctions, the real action takes place in the last hour. In most auctions I have been in, I don’t place a bid until the last hour anyhow, nor do most domainers, so Bido seems to be effectively paring things down to the essentials.

The 1:00 EST is a really good time to hold the auction. That’s 10:00 a.m. on the west coast, so the auction is not being held too early anywhere in the Americas. That’s 6:00 p.m. in the UK and 7:00 p.m. in most of Europe, which is not too late. It’s always hard to schedule an auction that’s at a good time in Australia and New Zealand, and this auction is pretty late for them. But most domainers are night owls from what I’ve seen, so many of our friends from down under may well still be awake when the Bido auction runs.

The one domain per day works well. I can actually remember over half of the domains auctioned since Bido started, which is pretty amazing considering how many domain names I look at each day.

The one dollar opening bid with no reserve works well. You know that if you have the highest bid, you’ll win. I’m sure lots of domainers are tired of going to all the trouble of researching a domain, winning the auction, then not getting the name.

Service from Bido is excellent. Twice I’ve had to contact Bido about something, and both times I received a prompt, friendly and helpful response. Quite a pleasant contrast from some of the more established auction venues.

I think the design of the website is very sleek and impressive, with lots of gadgets. I really like that. The design is very modern and forward looking, like you have to be if you’re a domainer.

One thing Bido might want to consider improving is the navigation. It is less than intuitive to me. In fact, the two times I wrote for support were because I could not find what I was looking for on their website.

The results of the auctions held at Bido so far are:

DiscountImages.com – $911
GolfIowa.com – $460
RYY.com – $7,124
GoldAuction.com – $1,284
SpywareHelp.com – $1,564
DomainTalk.com – $2,415
VacantRoom.com – $179
CerealBox.com – $2,695
Panelist.com – $1,866
HouseTips.com – $432
MarriageRights.com – $540
CanadianCoins.com – $1,167

There has been some discussion in the forums about the quality of the names auctioned. Certainly, these aren’t the same caliber of domains that are auctioned at a live auction at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. However, in my opinion, that’s not a big deal. It would be a mistake of Bido to be targetting that niche. I think that the domains offered are very good and are appropriately targetted for their auction platform. Most domainers aren’t regularly doing 6 or 7 figure deals.

Another interesting feature of Bido is that they have a panel of independent experts who give opinions on the domains being auctioned. I’m one of these experts. I can say that there is no pressure to write anything in particular about the domain, and in fact I have seen many negative reviews. I’ve written reviews so far about Panelist.com, HouseTips.com and MarriageRights.com

I’ve also participated in one of the auctions yesterday. I won the domain CanadianCoins.com, which as Richard said is a fabulous domain.

All in all, Bido is a refreshing change from the traditional domain auction houses. I think that it is carving itself out a good niche, and that it will do well in the future.

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