A press release from Sedo says that they have lowered the minimum commission for .co.uk sales to 50 Euros, which is about 35 British Pound or just under $70 USD.

From the press release:

This comes at a time when the .CO.UK Secondary Domain Name market sees a growth of more than 150% in the last year alone. Sedo’s Director of UK Operations, Nora Cotter comments that “many of our customers, particularly those on Acorn Domains Forum have requested such a reduction, to further drive growth and development in the UK domain name aftermarket. We hope that our price cut will pave the way for increased development of the UK market and will especially help to foster a greater volume of sales in the under-€500 category. Our statistics for 2006 show that the role of organized domain sales platforms like Sedo are gaining in importance and ultimately driving a greater value than private sales as we provide a variety of services that can help domain owners optimize their investments. We hope this commission reduction will be another aid to development in the UK aftermarket and will help both buyers and sellers alike.”

Not content to just slash service prices, Sedo is also aiming to improve performance in their domain transfers. In a small number of transfers each year, the buyer of a domain name delays sending their Sedo transfer agent their IPS Tag. In those instances, Sedo can now temporarily move the domain to their own Tag so they can pay out those sellers, who have completed all of their responsibilities, more quickly. Nora Cotter points out that “this might not sound like much, but it’s something that the Sedo customers and UK forum members have been requesting for some time. We hope it will make it more possible for us to make timely payment to a seller in the occasional case where the ownership formalities have been completed but the buyer is delaying the process.

I’ve found Sedo a good place to sell the occasional domain, even though the completion of the sale and the payout can sometimes last a long time due to the escrow period.

Personally I would prefer it if their commission would differentiate where the buyer came from. If a user types in the domain name directly and then proceeds to submit an offer, the marketplace itself is still facilitating the sale/escrow, but has little to do with getting the actual client. So the facilitator would only deserve their full commission if the buyer finds the domain in the marketplace listings.