OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
The fashion .NYC premium domain auctions ended today at Snapnames and 23 of the 24 domains sold. Fashion.nyc and Shop.nyc were the top sellers.
(UPDATE: Fashion.nyc and a few other domains were not paid for.)
The 21 domains sold for a total of $90,938. The average price of the sold domains was $3,954 while the median price was just $525. 11 of the 23 domains were sold at the minimum $500 price.
The results were mixed as these 2 domains got the majority of the bids while most of the others didn’t get a lot of action.
Auctions.nyc and the City of New York had their 2nd auction of premium .NYC domains. This time 24 fashion related domain names like Fashion.nyc, Shop.nyc and Makeup.nyc were auctioned at Snapnames.com. (to coincide with the most famous fashion week events in the world)
The first auction of premium .NYC domains featured 20 domain names associated with real estate and was on Namejet. RealEstate.nyc was the top selling domain name getting a $21,300 winning bid. Apartments.nyc also got a 5-figure bid with $16,155. 19 out of 20 domains were sold for a total of $70,650.
Premium .nyc domains are released to auction in batches of similarly themed names. .NYC has more auctions lined up, each with a different theme.
Here the results of the fashion related .nyc domain name auctions that ended today:
| Domain | Price |
| Apparel.nyc | $500 |
| Boutique.nyc | $700 |
| Bras.nyc | $500 |
| Clothes.nyc | $500 |
| Couture.nyc | $550 |
| Deals.nyc | $4,100 |
| Designer.nyc | $1,300 |
| Jewelry.nyc | $1,700 |
| Lingerie.nyc | $500 |
| Makeup.nyc | $550 |
| Photographer.nyc | $2,200 |
| Rings.nyc | $500 |
| Runway.nyc | $500 |
| Salon.nyc | $500 |
| Shirts.nyc | $500 |
| Shoes.nyc | $500 |
| Shop.nyc | $33,500 |
| Stylist.nyc | $525 |
| Suits.nyc | $500 |
| Swimsuit.nyc | $0 |
Only businesses, organizations and individuals with a physical address in the five boroughs were eligible to bid and register these premium .nyc domain names.
Opening bids were set at $500.
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That’s a weird comment after 2 domains just sold for $37,000 and $33,500? At least pause and think who might have bid on them? Why did they go that high? Is there a market for these names…? I’m not saying I think they are worth that much, but at least two people did, and the fact that they went that high is a signal of potential value within the .NYC TLD.
Plus this is an auction for .NYC domains 2.5 years after the launch… This isn’t a day one of launch with anticipation and a build up of excitement which makes the signal even harder to dismiss so quickly.
I did think about it and I can sum it up in one word: collusion
Do you actually think a registry with tons of money on the line is going to watch their top domains sell for pennies without having a “hand” in the outcome. It’s happened plenty of times before and if it’s not already a widely accepted practice in the gtld space, then it soon will be.
Time will show you that most all these domains that were sold will go undeveloped or used at all.
When these registries can no longer sustain losses, investors lose!
“but at least two people did, and the fact that they went that high is a signal of potential value within the .NYC TLD.”
hahahahhahahahahah
@ada The problem with sarcasm is that people read it and think that’s all you’ve got?
Well the sad part is that I can count the aftermarket sales for .nyc on one hand.
Will these auctions help .nyc domains? I truly don’t know.
Reuben, I cannot buy the idea of collusion here. One of the reasons is that whois privacy is not allowed on .NYC and all the original Oct 2014 auction high bids seem legit too (see down below).
The results from the real estate auctions a few months ago also seem legit when you look at the whois (RealEstate.nyc 21300, Apartments.nyc 16155, Rentals.nyc 5700, Condos.nyc 4600, Lease.nyc 4100…)
Oct 2014 some results.
marijuana.nyc $60,920,
townhouse.nyc $21,000
kravmaga.nyc $19,000
cosmeticdentistry.nyc $16,600
acupuncture.nyc $15,500
dentalimplants.nyc $15,000
physicaltherapy.nyc $14,000
orthodontist.nyc $13,000
selling.nyc $11,500
carservice.nyc $11,500
bitcoin.nyc $11,001
Also we are dealing with the City of New York (I doubt that they are colluding because they’ve done minimal promotion so far – some would argue that .NYC should be more of a priority for them) and the other party is Neustar. For Neustar to collude that would take some serious organization and so far they couldn’t even organize a tweet on the day of the auction and they didn’t communicate the correct auction end time.
Let’s see the names that appear in the whois…
Matt,
High bids does not equal legit. You can put any name in a Whois, you could even use your own front/privacy service.
You tell me if you know anyone that is open to making donations and I will be happy to give them my bank account details. Most people don’t like the idea of throwing money away, but buying domains that no one knows about with no traffic and a bleak outlook is like buying a new VW and driving it offing a cliff.
The domains you showed are mostly parked or dont even resolve. A few are junk websites with no traffic and little hope for the future.
I wasn’t saying that the earlier auctions were legit because of high bids, I’m saying that I believe they were legit because I know some of the people showing in the whois. I’ve spoken with them about their purchases.
I pointed at the auctions that ended at a high price because when contemplating collusion it’s only going to happy with the high bid auctions and with the previous auction rounds I don’t see any evidence to support it.
Ruben, what you saying is factually wrong. I participated and won some names in both auctions. I know top bidders in both auctions personally. What you are claiming to be is not only completely untrue but delivery of unfounded on anything confidence is mind boggling. I will give you areal reason why it sold for this much. People wanted and were willing to pay for those names.
Just because you know some bidders does not mean anything. It only takes one bad apple and one other naive sucker with a whole lotta ‘Hope” to change the outcome.
Believe me, it seems you would be surprised to hear of this happening in the domain industry, but there is no better example of collusion than in domaining because any domain could have “any perceived value” aside from Politics, of course.
Flippa is full of collusion. Whoever purchased Fashion.nyc could have spent the same amount of money to buy Fashion.co with a Global brand instead of “limiting” their market as Rick Schwartz says. And in the Fashion world, you would be stupid to limit your market.
“NYC is a great monument to the power of money and greed… a race for rent.” Frank Lloyd Wright
If you don’t think collusion is alive & well today, you need to get your head out of the sand!
@Reuben I can believe collusion exists in the world. But here you’ve jumped to that conclusion despite any evidence. Even evidence to the contrary doesn’t sway you.
This is where the whole anti-gTLD opinion breaks down… when there’s unfounded opposition even in the face of developments on the TLD and sales be it in auctions or direct.
Personally, I see .NYC as very different to other gTLDs. It’s local, it’s prestigious, it’s a brand and a city and there are opportunities for businesses and individuals to buy great names in auction or a fresh reg.
I feel there’s a very clear reason to own a .NYC rather than a .club/.xyz/.co/.biz/.bike or whatever… although .bike for a bike store sounds good to me. I just wouldn’t invest in .bike’s… because it’s too niche… Which prevents domainers and enables business owners to get a name they might like.
Anyways all my opinions and when pressed on them I could justify them or rethink them when presented with new information. I think we all should be open minded because when we’re closed minded or stubborn and ignore evidence or fight it without new evidence, then it seems like there’s another motive – maybe to protect a .com portfolio that’s looking a little shakey?
Take it from the King – Here is what he tweeted today:
How many domain INVESTORS wasted 3 years and many dollars? How many took their eye off the .Com ball and now payng the price? #Domains #sad
.Bike is a terrible gtld – Bike stores don’t sell “Bike”, they sell Bikes. This is why ecommerce companies with EMD’s use the plural rather than the singular. .Bike is an Epic Fail!
.NYC is Prestgious? It’s limiting and No, .NYC has no status, no traffic, and very little development. NYC.com is prestigous.
Above all, I am an opportunist, but I don’t see the opportunity with gtlds. I would rather take my money to the casino than invest in a gtld, at least I wouldn’t have to wait to achieve the same outcome.
Sure you can say people are wasting their money but not every sale is fake and centainly not these .nyc auctions. I know someone from this thread that bought 5+ domains from these auctions.
@Reuben,
“Take it from the King”. Rick Schwartz has been retired for years. Even though I agree with him to a large extent, it’s also true that he isn’t paying attention to the domain market nowadays in as much detail as those of us who work in the field full time or who are active every day.
Skepticism regarding the nTLDs is warranted to a certain extent. But this isn’t a black-and-white, all-or-nothing situation. My last nTLD domain was a flip from $45 to $4000. You’d be better off using the evidence of your own eyes and ears rather than blindly following what someone else says.
By the time you’re seeing 4 and 5-figure sales right in front of you and nevertheless denying them as fake, perhaps it’s time to ask whether you might be drawing the wrong conclusions.
@Joseph
RS wants you to think he is retired, but in actuality he is more active than ever.
Bought more domains last 12 months than anytime in a decade. Underwater domain investors FORCED to sell cheap. #Domains #domainsforsale
Sure, build a portfolio of ntlds with the hope of selling one or two eventually, but with the high regs, there is no market for investors especially premium names that the regs sell themselves.
And there is certainly little to no market for end users.
@Ye Gods,
A day never goes by without some domainer lecturing me about how
(A) I’m an idiot for not seeing that .COM is dead and nTLDs are the web’s future;
or
(B) I’m an idiot for not seeing that .COM is king and nTLDs are a total scam.
@Reuben,
I’m not going to waste my breath going over this again and again. We aren’t re-litigating whether the nTLD program belongs in Heaven or Hell. We’re responding to your baseless claim that the .NYC auctions were a sham.
I see some great deals for domainers who were able to participate in this auction. Regrettably, not being a New Yorker, I couldn’t.
@Reuben,
Collusion seems unlikely. Not that registries are above that sort of thing. Some of them do buy up their own domains, as Uniregistry did in the primary market via North Sound Names. Shill bidding from domain sellers has been a problem in this industry ever since Adam & Eve. And in some cases it looks like some nTLD registries have arranged flagship deals with early adopters.
But the auction results look natural to me. If the registry were trying to buoy their auction results, then we would probably have seen uniform high bidding across the board. And the bids would have come in EARLY ON, in order to create the impression of massive market demand.
Instead, we saw few early bids. Late bidding suggests real buyers who are motivated to wait and “snipe” the auctions because they want the lowest prices possible. Bidders who are in cahoots with the registry would want and do exactly the opposite.
Prices are all over the place. And that looks real too. We all know there’s a huge difference in auction results based on how many bidders show up. If it’s just 1 guy, then the domain sells at the minimum: $500. If there’s a bidding war, then you might see domainers compete to pay considerably more. And if 1 or more end users show up, then you can add a zero to the price tag. That’s what I’m seeing in these results. A mixture of (1) single-bidder auctions, (2) competition amongst domainers, and perhaps (3) end users and/or serious investors punching up prices into the 5 figures in 2 and only 2 cases.
Looks real to me. Fakery would usually result in higher prices and homogeneous early bidding.
I agree. The results look real. And you might see some familiar names in whois. (both end users and domainers)
Update: 2 more domains were reported as sold by Snapnames: Bras.nyc and Sneakers.nyc at $500 each.
So 23 out of the 24 domains were sold.
I have updated the post to reflect this.
Just checked whois for fashion.nyc and the registrant is neustar!?
That’s funny because everyone was telling me there was no collusion, and yet Neustar is the registrant without even hiding it. Not only that, but they have the domain listed for sale BIN for even ONLY $30K so not only did the “buyer” have no intention of using the name in the several months it has been owned, but they are selling it for a $7K LOSS in just several months of owning it.
This is clearly Collusion!
BIN on Afternic:
https://checkout.afternic.com/BDAddToCartFromProdId.do?&prodId=2781114&traffic_id=3805