Was going to write my general overview of Netfleet today (having done one on Domain Shield and Drop), but I’ll leave that until Friday.
There is an issue regarding Netfleet’s drop catching platform that urgently needs to be fixed – and that’s what I’m writing about today.
This is not an exposé – nor am I suggesting in any way that Netfleet have purposely done anything wrong.
I have made Jonathan from NF aware of the problem, and have sent his screenshots etc. He has promised to look into the issue and get it fixed.
So What Is The Glitch?
Since at least Friday 27th November, Netfleet’s daily auction list has been incorrect. They have listed some domains for auction which were not in fact due to drop until the following day.
So what happened was that buyers would place their “sealed bids” on the particular domains they wanted, and if a particular domain wasn’t actually “dropping” until the following day, the result at 2.10pm (AEDT) would show the bid amount – with the comment “Lost”. **
The domain would then rightfully appear the next day – however the problem with that is that every other “punter” now knew what the previous high bid was (even though it was supposed to be sealed).
And we all know what happens. Armed with the knowledge of previous bids, there is only one way the price is going to go. Upwards.
The buyer from the previous day is unfairly penalised due to Netfleet’s error with the list (and the publishing of the sealed bid) – and Netfleet profits from potentially raised prices the following day.
** Even though some duplicate domains are still being shown, the “sealed bids” have not been shown for a number of days now. But it did happen for over a week.
One Particular Example
On the 1st and 2nd December, one buyer in particular was really affected. He had acquired a premium 2 letter domain for a substantial sum on Tuesday 1st December – only to find there was a glitch, and he’d have to bid again the next day. He did so, but in order to secure it (for reasons mentioned above), he had to pay nearly 70% more.
If I was him, I’d be asking that they honour the intitial price. It’s the only right and proper thing to do in my opinion. I’m hopeful that now Netfleet is appraised of the situation, they will indeed make good.
Other buyers may feel the same (if they were affected similarly).
Have a look at the two screenshots below to see what I mean.
December 1st
December 2
So What Now?
Netfleet is Australia’s premier domain sales platform – and they are currently the number one “dropcatcher” of domains. They’ve had some other issues in the past with their platform, and they have fixed those.
But when something like this happens – and continues for so long, then confidence goes down.
Some good domains are still being shown over two days.
So please Netfleet – fix the problem. This is meant to be constructive criticism. We have to be able to have confidence in your system. Even if you have to look at your list every day to manually fix any problems, then do so.
This must be easy to rectify!
Timezones, I hate Timezones…
We have a bug in the platform relating to the drop times of domains that has appeared since daylight savings time begun. (the drop list is in UTC and we publish in AEST/AEDT)
We are currently working on a resolution should be fixed pretty soon.
Thanks to the customers that provided me the data to replicate and diagnose this bug, and apologies to anyone who missed a domain bidding on the wrong day.
I did notice that. Happened with Scoot.com.au yesterday and today too. If I was directly affected I would definitely be insisting Netfleet honours the original price too.
I know – I had an experiment with Scoot.com.au to prove a point. 😉
And I had another experiment as well – to show them that the same problem is going on again today.
So whilst they actually caught this for me yesterday, it’s on the auction list again today. 😉
Another cop out by Netfleet. As Ned suggests, manually change your list if your systems are wacko. You are causing havoc, loss and uncertainty. The relevant domains are all above the fold because they are popular. You probably don’t mind though because it gives you extra $$$$$.
Common problem that as popped up before. Easily solved by ending the auction one hour before the drop zone.
@Ryan – sorry, but I disagree. The simple premise is that Netfleet should get its feed right – and if that’s not happening, then they have an obligation to manually fix it.
Jonathan was Director of Technology at MelbIT before moving over to Netfleet. As per his podcast, he is a geek / a technical person. If anyone should be all over this, he should!
This is what the say on their home page of their auction page. “SELLING TODAY – auction ends today”. Plain and simple.
They don’t say “bid it on today because it’s a popular domain – and then at 2.10pm we’ll show everyone what was bid on it; then we’ll cancel those bids; and you can all have another go tomorrow – forearmed with what was bid the previous day”.
@Ned I have seen this problem pop up a few times over the years. I’m not disagreeing with you, simply stating that an easy fix would be to bring the auction times forward by one hour or more.
A 12.30pm auction time would be less of an interruption to the days of many (non-FT domainers), but unfortunately not every bidder would trust Netfleet with their maximum bid for a whole hour (or more) prior to the drop zone, given your recent allegations about past conduct.
@Ryan – daylight saving started on 4th October. It is now the 10th December. Over 2 months.
These problems did not occur until fairly recently – by my screenshots it actually started on 27th November. PizzaDelivery.com.au was a popular domain – it appeared on this day – was “won” by someone other than me- and then it appeared again the next day. Armed with the knowledge of the previous day, I bid a higher amount and won the domain.
If I was the “successful bidder” the day before, then I’d be rightfully pissed!
Many more examples.
Anyway, the purpose here is to try and motivate NF to get the problem fixed today!
Ah @Ned I didn’t realise/appreciate that. Yeah well-done spotting and exposing this problem. Very curious “glitch” tbh. You should survey the whole droplist and see whether it is only high-value names that are being auctioned twice or whether the “glitch” is applying to very low value names as well. If the former is true, we would have strong reason to believe Netfleet is up to no good.
Sounds like a lack of resources. The problem is known, surely not that big of a task to fix it?
@Richard – I wouldn’t have thought it a big task. Particularly if it’s only been happening for a couple of weeks.
As Jonathan explained to me a couple of days ago, they have some sort of script that actually pushes popular domains (measured by a mixture of DA; exacts and bids) towards the top of the list. So this exacerbates the problem – and which is why they need to get it fixed pronto.
Looks like we have it fixed guys (I will be monitoring over the next few days to confirm). A full bug report will be published on the netfleet site latter this week, I’ll link it on this thread for your convenience.
This problem is a little more complex then it seems at the surface and only pushed a few domains into the wrong list not entire days.
Look forward to reading the full bug report @Jonathan, hoping the effects of the bug were felt by a variety of names in the drop-list and not just high-value ones.
As mentioned better break down of the issue here –
http://www.netfleet.com.au/blog/netfleet/bug-report/
Unfortunately bugs happen, that’s two in a week for us (had a problem with our mail server and reporting, there’s another post on our site about it if anyone’s interested).
If anyone ever notices something thats not right please let me know ASAP so we can track it and fix it.
Just wanted to say thanks again to the few guys that pointed this on out to me, and also mention that in an interest of transparency we will be posting bug fixes, feature enhancements and another changes on the Netfleet site as they happen.
That’s excellent Jonathan.
Glad you’ve treated the matter with the seriousness it deserves, and got on top of it. 🙂
The problem is not yet fixed. There are still names on today’s auction that already finished yesterday’s auction. For example uber.net.au.
@Alex uber.net.au is supposed to be in todays auction if you look at the official drop list names appearing after 3am UTC on the current day should be in tomorrows list (hope that makes sense)
So looking at the list for today specifically publishermelbourne.com.au is scheduled to drop at 3:05:33 UTC which means it should be in tomorrows auction. if you search it in todays auction you will see its not listed.
@Jonathan – I think what Alex is saying is that uber.net.au was on yesterday’s auction.
This is the real problem – you are highlighting domains the days before they are due , and some people are bidding on them in good faith. You also publish “successful” bids on some of the domains.
It really is like an advance notice RSS feed! Very unfair on bidders.
What’s more they are at the top of the list. Here is a screenshot of yesterday’s listed domains. Note how many appear today!
Spot on Ned, that’s exactly what I meant…. and as you mention, there are MANY others.
@Jonathan – the problem is not fixed as you suggested it was.
Same old drama today – tomorrow’s popular domains were pushed to the top of today’s list – see below.
One small mercy is that at least a lot of the the bids were not displayed – only one seemed to be cricketbat.com.au
Surely you can fix this?