Future of drop catching?

[stellar73]

As a newbie I'm just curious to know what people's opinions are on the future of drop catching?

I ask this as am making an assumption that a large proportion of decent names which drop will do so because companies or individuals forget to renew them? What seems to have changed recently however is that domain name companies (certainly 123-reg and Godaddy) now have autorenewal via paypal as the default option for people buying new domains so 'forgetfulness' is going to be less of an issue for the average registrar in the near future.

From my own point of view I lost a brilliant blog name a couple of years ago due to simply forgetting about it whereas now this wouldn't happen....

On a related note I'm also interested to know roughly how many drop catching companies and individuals there are going after any one given (decent) name? For example something like fishingtackle.co.uk which i see recently dropped? I just ask this as it would be good to be able to gauge whether it's worth my while paying £30 upfront to use a service such as Caught.....obviously this would depend on the re-sell value of the domain and it's likely popularity but good to know if the competition is 10,20,30 or 100 people?

 

[mally]

At least a 100 people with there own scripts, and on top of that you would have the be the first person to reserve at caught, i.e if no body else had booked it before you

 

[stellar73]

At least a 100 people with there own scripts, and on top of that you would have the be the first person to reserve at caught, i.e if no body else had booked it before you

Thanks Mally, that's interesting to know....100 is a lot higher than I thought it would be which i guess makes it much more of a random lottery for the names that have obvious value. Still better odds than buying a lottery ticket though I suppose!

 

[GreyWing]

It will continue to move more towards acquiring names pre-drop. Hunting down domain owners, making offers, registrars taking control and selling before names drop (already being discussed at nom level).

Those are the most likely rather than catching improvements or changes in my opinion. It's already been going that way for the last 2-3 years.

 

[bensd]

Talking about buying names pre-drop - I spoke to the owner of fishingtackle.co.uk who was quite rude; explained that he would be renewing it and had already had an offer of £2k.

I guess he didn't manage to renew in time - whoops!

 

[stellar73]

Talking about buying names pre-drop - I spoke to the owner of fishingtackle.co.uk who was quite rude; explained that he would be renewing it and had already had an offer of £2k.
![/QUOTE

I guess he didn't manage to renew it on time, whoops!

It says 'registration request being processed' rather than 'renewal request' so I assume this means it's a new registrar..... Oh well serves him right for being rude to you

Greywing - thanks for your comments, it sounds logical to me too that that's what will happen, am certainly going to limit any money I spend on drop catching up front at least!

 

[Blossom]

What seems to have changed recently however is that domain name companies (certainly 123-reg and Godaddy) now have autorenewal via paypal as the default option for people buying new domains so 'forgetfulness' is going to be less of an issue for the average registrar in the near future.

Autorenewals are standard across the industry and have been for a long time, it's not a recent thing. For many web hosts the method of payment is largely irrelevant as the name will be renewed regardless of funds, they will chase it from you if you they can't get a payment instantly.

 

[Retired_member41]

Talking about buying names pre-drop - I spoke to the owner of fishingtackle.co.uk who was quite rude; explained that he would be renewing it and had already had an offer of £2k.

I guess he didn't manage to renew in time - whoops!

Lol fantastic.

My partner called a company a few months back and after the call the only way I can describe how he is now is, that it is now a vendetta lol

And that dropped also.

What was the great blog name you lost. Interesting to see who owns it.

Ok you may get the odd unsolicited call which can be annoying, but if it's a one off wanting to buy something or informing you that your about to lose it. Why be so rude?

 

[wb]

Talking about buying names pre-drop - I spoke to the owner of fishingtackle.co.uk who was quite rude; explained that he would be renewing it and had already had an offer of £2k.

I guess he didn't manage to renew in time - whoops!

Spoke to him as well and wasn't interested in selling.

He mentioned he had received a letter from someone too, although didn't hear about the £2k offer.

Some registrants are just silly.

 

[stellar73]

Autorenewals are standard across the industry and have been for a long time, it's not a recent thing. For many web hosts the method of payment is largely irrelevant as the name will be renewed regardless of funds, they will chase it from you if you they can't get a payment instantly.

That's strange as based on my own experience I didn't think it was standard (at least with 123 reg)

Prior to this spring (when I started buying domains with a view to selling and developing) I only ever had 2 domains registered, both with 123 reg. One I lost last year due to forgetting to renew it and the other came up for renewal early this year.... When I renewed it it prompted me to accept auto- renewal via paypal as a new means of payment (it had never done this before). I assumed from this that auto-renewal was a new(ish) thing, at least in the last year to 18 months.....i suppose it may just be a new thing for paypal though....

 

[wb]

As far as I know, registrars such as 123-Reg have requested to have card details on file for a long time now. There used to be an annoying pop-up box when you log in asking for them.

Expired card details + expired domains = drops.

 

[stellar73]

As far as I know, registrars such as 123-Reg have requested to have card details on file for a long time now. There used to be an annoying pop-up box when you log in asking for them.

Expired card details + expired domains = drops.

You could be right....given the frequency that I lose bankcards (usually while drunk) this would explain a lot!

 

[Blossom]

Expired card details + expired domains = drops.

Depends on the company, some will renew the domain if it's set to renew even if there's an expired card or no card.

It's a lose-lose situation from a customer service perspective. If you set domains to auto-renew by default, customers complain that they didn't mean to renew it and they never received the emails about it. If you leave domains to drop, customers complain that they lost their domain and they never received the emails about it.

 

[inbound]

Things could change to greater extent if Nominet go ahead with variable length domain registrations. Could have some interesting positive and negative effects.

 

[foz]

Talking about buying names pre-drop - I spoke to the owner of fishingtackle.co.uk who was quite rude; explained that he would be renewing it and had already had an offer of £2k.

I guess he didn't manage to renew in time - whoops!

His rudness and arrogance didn't pay off did it. I love karma

 

[Edwin]

I think the average quality of the drops will continue to decline, basically forever. Once one or other domain portfolio holder has caught a drop, it's not going to come back onto the market again. And given that the most "commercial" domains were generally registered a long time ago, with every year that the existing owner renews them, they're that much less likely to throw away the cumulative investment by dropping them.

That said, there will also always be SOME opportunities, as a result of disinterest (companies going bust and not caring about their assets, individuals giving up on renewing something that always seemed like "a bit of a punt" and so on), oversight (large, sprawling company with nobody in overall charge of minding all domain assets), tragedy (death or severe disablement, drastic change in financial circumstances, etc.) but the competition will get fiercer and fiercer as the scraps get fewer and less tasty.

This isn't a new trend, it's been the case for a long while now. I was just booking our next batch of drops covering the next 2-3 months, and it's the worst bunch of names I can remember (though there are still a handful of "standout" names, most of which I expect will be bought pre-drop through one channel or another, as discussed earlier in this thread)