Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
I have some updates to share about Pheenix – domain backordering company and I fear there will be some people who will stop using their service because starting 19th September 2015, they are going to make public auctions similar to DropCatch which in my opinion isn’t good idea because why one should waste time in finding and placing backorder when others are doing the job. You can simply jump into the auction at the last minute and take over if the domain is coming under your budget. Anyhow, below is the entire email I received from the CEO of Pheenix:
“We’ve been hard at work and have made further updates to our system.
- We now support Alipay deposits!
This has been in the works for a while and we are glad that we can offer this great feature now for our customers.
- We’ve made our auctions easier and simpler.
Effective Today Sep 7, auctions now start at the backorder price. When the auction is over, you only pay the auction ‘high bid’ amount.
Before auctions started at 0 and then people would bid. If the ‘high bid’ ended at $5 then the total price would be $5 + $18.95 = $23.95.
Moving forward, the auctions will start at $18.95. Once the auction ends, you only pay for the ‘high bid’ from the auction.
We are in a transition period so some auctions which started prior to Sep 7 still have the old architecture, however, after Sep 10 all auctions should follow this guideline.
- Public Auctions coming September 19th.
All domains that have multiple backorders on it will now be available for Public Bidding for any backorders being released on or after 2015-09-19.
As a precondition, if someone did not have a backorder on the domain name prior to it going to auction, their minimum bid is at least $59 in order to participate in the auction.
Thanks for being a great customer and we’ll have more exciting news coming very soon.
Tan Tran
CEO Pheenix, Inc.”
Do you think these changes will have any impact in future for the regular users of Pheenix?
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In the end the dollar is mightier than tradition, its a shame but they see a business case that delivers more returns even if this means losing customers.
Thanks for sharing your views and that’s appreciated. I hope Pheenix changes this in near future but that’s quite unlikely. If everyone (SN, NJ and others) does the same public auctions, it will create more competition and those companies are going to make more money than now.
I will no longer be using Pheenix as a result of the public auctions. They just lost me.
Honestly speaking, I still use DropCatch and will be using Pheenix as well but won’t be putting any efforts in placing backorder for quality names because that will be done for me by others 😀 All in all, I just didn’t like this move by Pheenix. DC did the same thing when they had the target of people using their platform. They didn’t care about them later and to make us fool they introduced so called “Discount Club Backorders” which is nonsense. Who will get the ‘quality’ domain at cheaper rate so using Discount Club Backorders is worthy while backordering… Read more »
They can’t even begin to compete with Snap – I see them losing a lot
of money and effort trying.
I agree with you. SN is far better in grabbing domains. Right now I see SN and DC going neck to neck.
The truth is that I barely use Pheenix for many other reasons. Now, possibly, I will stop completely…
Thanks for sharing your honest view. I hope Pheenix reverts this change as people like you and many others would completely stop using their platform 🙂
To be fair to Pheenix, it does sound as if they’re making a conscious effort to improve the system found at other dropcatch platforms. As I read it, Pheenix favors the people making initial backorders and penalizes latecomers who circle public auctions like vultures. The first group would backorder at $18.95, whereas the second group would be obliged to begin bidding at $59. That should mitigate the negative effects of public auctions a little. People won’t be entirely happy with this; but it does show some concern for customers, and it’s also a bit innovative – a safeguard (if you like)… Read more »
Thanks for sharing your point of view Joseph and it’s appreciated 🙂 I think that’s total nonsense from Pheenix and trying to make people fool by having two types of backorders like $18.95 and $59. A good domain which will always have backorder will definitely go higher than $59 as final price so giving $18.95 as initial bid or even bringing down to $1 as starting bid won’t be worthy because in the end, final price of that domain would have crossed $500. Here I am talking about a decent dropping domain which normally hits that mark so keeping starting… Read more »
@AbdulBasit Makrani,
What you describe will often happen. You’re right. Still, the price difference will benefit early birds sometimes. I wanted to play the devil’s advocate.
😀 😀 @ I wanted to play the devil’s advocate.
Yeah, when I saw this email it immediatley made me think of Dropcatch.
It’s not the best idea in the world. Would much prefer private auctions of course.
What I have noticed though is Pheenix seems to be catching “better” quality names. Maybe this is because they added more registrars? I read this somewhere I believe…
Thanks Abdul!
-Omar
If I am not wrong, I have seen Pheenix has been rarely catching any *good* domains. Even after adding more registrars, I personally haven’t seen any significant improvement in catching good domains.