There’s another auction house on the block, and it’s beginning to feel like there’s a little competition in the space. After the recent startup of Bido, which specializes in selling a domain a day online, we have Aftermarket.com from DomainTools, recently acquired by TrafficZ. Add to these Sedo, NameJet, Pool.com, and SnapNames/Moniker, and we may have a real marketplace.

This is all good for the domain name industry and new top-level domains in particular, many of which will feature an auction model as part of their offering. More auctions, with more results reported, will make the market more transparent and pricing more predictable and stable. This is turn should bring more people into the market, encouraging comparison shopping, bringing down auction fees and raising (hopefully) domain prices. I’ll be doing a series on the auction houses a little later with lots more information about each of them.

Aftermarket.com is focused on live auctions, and so is directly competitive with SnapNames/Moniker, and is practically speaking for domainers only. But as the new TLDs roll out with an auction model attached, you can bet they will expand their service offering. They’ll be bringing the hammer down for the first time in September in Brooklyn during the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference ($1995 entry fee).

The Aftermarket.com site is spare to the point of being skeletal, except for the hyperactive 3-layer DomainTools toolbar. There’s an illegible screenshot, some marketing speak, and an invitation to send in your domains for the Brooklyn auction.

[via DomainNameNews]

Tags: aftermarket.com, moniker, snapnames, namejet, pool.com, bido, sedo, domaintools, trafficz, t.r.a.f.f.i.c., auction, domain auctions, top-level domains, tlds

Posted by Antony in: Domains