The next TRAFFIC domain conference is set for September 23-26 in Brooklyn New York. On July 14th Rich Schwartz announced that  for the first time at any domain show there will be multiple live auctions by multiple auction houses.

5 auction providers to be exact. Those will include several "new" auction providers as well as the one that started with TRAFFIC which is Moniker.com/SnapNames.

As a domain seller, the 5 providers was thought to create "competition" which for a seller would hope for lower commission fees, more promissed promotions, easy submission process and anything else that would set one auction service apart from the other 4. The truth is, I simply do not see this!

The 5 auction providers expected at TRAFFIC New York are to be Aftermarket.com which is Thought Convergence and it’s newly aquired sister company DomainTools.com . RickLatona.com, Bido.com, Monkier.com/SnapNames.com and Sedo.com? So which one is fighting for your domains to sell?

Moniker.com/SnapNames.com

Sellers Fee: 15%

Exclusive Contract Lock: 120 Days from submission or 60 days from conclusion

Pretty easy online submission. If domain is not registered with Moniker, their will be $100 fee added onto selling price!

TOS https://www.snapnames.com/domainsales/terms.action

RickLatona.com

Quoting Rick Latona, he replied to me that he is "Not taking submission at this time" for the Live Auction.

Aftermarket.com/DomainTools.com

Sellers Fee: 15%

Exclusive Contract Lock: 90 days from submission or 30 days from conclusion

Pretty easy online submission. Accepting approximately 50 domains.

TOS http://img.domaintools.com/pdf/aftermarket_agreement.pdf

Bido.com

I put in a request at Bido for more information and no reply was sent by the time I wrote this. I searched Bido’s site and did not come across anything about the TRAFFIC auction. I am going to say that they are likely going the route of RickLatona.com as well and not accepting submissions.

Sedo.com ?

Their has been NO official word from Sedo if they are even an auction provider at TRAFFIC. I searched their site as well and came across nothing. I also sent them a message with no reply.

So by the numbers, which company looks to be the best to sell your domain names? To me, they look pretty equal as the sellers fee is 15% at the 2 companies accepting domains. Aftermarket.com has 30 days less of an exclusive and also doesn’t tack on the extra $100 for not having your domain at a specific registrar.

From my understanding, both Moniker.com/SnapNames.com and Aftermarket.com will hold Online Auctions as well as the in-house auction. I have never used the Moniker/Snap interface, but a downside is that the there is a download needed to use the program. I have used DomainTools.com old auction interface. Will they be using this same program? It is likely they will and it’s pretty simple and seems to work. No download to do for the buyer, which is a plus.

Who am I going to submit to? I am going with the new kid on the block! Aftermarket.com Aka DomainTools.com Aka TrafficZ.com. TrafficZ likes to spend Big Bucks at these domain shows. They sponsor a large portion of many events and from the pictures that I have seen, the people are Happy and Having Fun. Happy buyers and an easy bidding interface should lead to bids and hopfully a lot of them!

All in all, it was a pretty big let down that only 2 of the expected 5 auction companies will be accepting domains. I would assume if Sedo.com get’s into the game, they would accept domains and most likely would have about a 10% commission fee, but no word from them yet. I hope this was a little bit of help to you if you are trying to decide who you would like to submit your domains to like I was.