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sales Mike Mann Announces Another $20,000 in Domain Sales

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Domain investor and founder of DomainMarket.com, Mike Mann, has announced three more sales, totalling $20,000. All three domain names are two-word .COMs that Mike acquired years ago for a relatively low fee.

Each domain name sale was announced via Mike's Twitter account on Tuesday afternoon. The first sale was that of HeyBabe.com. Here's what Mike published:
@mikemanndotcom said:
Hey babe, sold a cool domain, HeyBabe.com, $5000. Purchased 2/21/05 $347 (Rachel's birthday)

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As of writing, HeyBabe.com is still owned by Mike's company, since the WHOIS details haven't switched to their new owner. From my initial research, there's no obvious buyer for this name. As has been documented regularly on DotWeekly's Domain Movers series, big brands do still buy domain names for commercials and ad series, so perhaps this is another such example of that.

Still, after eleven years of ownership, Mike has made a 1,340% return on investment before calculating renewal fees.

Mike's second sale was announced just three hours later:
@mikemanndotcom said:
Do you kidz care? Sold KidzCare.com $10,000. Purchased 6/27/11 $129

How many other investors would be able to sell this name for $10,000? I would imagine that there are relatively few who would be capable of achieving this feat. There are several "kidz" related domain sales on NameBio, but this is the largest by quite a way. The previous highest sale was KidzMania.com, which sold on Sedo in 2011 for $5,000.

As with HeyBabe.com, this domain is still listed as being owned by Mike Mann, as the WHOIS details haven't been changed to reflect the new ownership.

There is a child care organisation based in Edinburgh, Scotland, which owns the "KidzCare" name in many other domain extensions, so perhaps they have opted to buy the superior .COM. There is a trademark listed for KidzCare Pediatrics in North Carolina, too.

The third sale is SkinWin.com, which Mike bought in 2010 for $7.50:
@mikemanndotcom said:
Did the Skins win? (no, tied). But I did in selling SkinWin.com for $5,000. Purchased 5/18/10 $7.50

No clues yet as to who the new owner is. There is a website called skinwin.club which looks to be a Russian gaming website. It's a popular site in Russia that has a 47,041 Russian Alexa ranking.

The phrase Skin Win could also be used as a brandable domain name within the beauty industry. There are many accounts on Twitter that seem to be using #skinwin.

Congratulations to Mike (@Mike Mann) on all three of his latest sales.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
There is no secret to the costs, total number of domains, most of which are .com times the standard renewal amount.

I assume he has some sort of bulk discount that's probably quite significant. With this amount of domains... this could be a major factor in the profitability.
 
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I assume he has some sort of bulk discount that's probably quite significant. With this amount of domains... this could be a major factor in the profitability.

In the interview we conducted last year with him he told us he pays standard renewals
 
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Hint #1: he likes call to action domains
Hint #2: he buys .com, not oddball TLDs.
 
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You know all his domqins are not going to have the same renewal dates, he has what he consistently paid on daily and monthly year in year around. He must have considered those names that will be kept for a short and long term to cover his remewal bills.If it is not profitable for him, he should have collapsed. It is a matter of strategic planning.
 
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In the interview we conducted last year with him he told us he pays standard renewals

Thanks, James. That's good to know. I read the article you referred to now. There's no doubt that these sales are impressive as individual sales, but like other commentators said... with a portfolio of 250,000 domains, you're bound to get some extraordinary sales even if you price some domains very high. It's mainly a matter of statistics rather than choosing the right domain (hence the analogy to lottery tickets- lots of cheap registrations, 99.9% don't hit but some naturally do).

Only in this case these registrations and other small purchases have renewal costs times 250,000 so the profit can't be assessed without knowing the overall balance of cost vs. profit. And even then it's not very relevant to the decisions domainers here have to make. I'm sure Mike isn't losing money (and I certainly appreciate what he has achieved in his career), but I'm not sure there is much to learn from these sales in comparison to portfolios where domains are cherry picked. These sales are exciting to read about because these domains seem like they're the sort that can sell here at NP for $5 in an auction. Every domainer wants his hand reg domain to sell for $10K. But unless that domainer has deep pockets (which naturally they don't), statistically his or her chance of selling a handreg for $10K is like buying a handful of lottery tickets. Theoretically it can happen, but in reality... better keep your day job.

That's why I'm not sure promoting these sales so much is great, especially to new domainers who probably focus on the sale, don't consider the rest of the equation and then run to buy some hand regged lottery tickets thinking that if they just choose the right "numbers" fortune will come. What they really need is order to sell KidzCare.com for $10K is to have tens of thousands of other lottery tickets that need to be renewed each and every year.
 
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p.s. Since the price of renewal is around standard, another question regarding profitability would be: how many domains were bought in the aftermarket? KidzCare, for example, unlike SkinWin, wasn't a handreg and cost $129 and not reg fee. How many other domains in the 250,000 domain portfolio are from the aftermarket? The aftermarket cost of thousands or tens of thousands of domains needs to be taken into account as well.
 
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I'm not shocked by these sales. Acquiring your company name on .Com is the cost of creating a legitimate business, and if they're a serious business, they realize these prices are peanuts compared to their other expenses.

Plus, not all of his domains are priced this high. He has plenty of names listed for under $500 too, I'm sure he gets a lot of $xxx and low $xxxx sales that he's not reporting which are keyword/generics priced accordingly to those industries.

Names like SkinWin and KidzCare are brands and Mike understands branding, budgets, and imagination.
 
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There is no secret to the costs, total number of domains, most of which are .com times the standard renewal amount.

Yeah, those are holding costs. However you also have to factor in acquisition costs.

Mike Mann is an active bidder on venues like NameJet. If you are only selling a low volume each year you have to factor in the cost of the ones that have not sold as well.

Cherry picked sales do not tell the entire story.

Brad
 
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I assume he has some sort of bulk discount that's probably quite significant. With this amount of domains... this could be a major factor in the profitability.

I doubt it. Wholesale cost of .COM is $7.85/year right now from Verisign plus $0.18 ICANN fee.
There is no margin for registrars to bulk discount below that as they are unlikely to take a massive loss.

Brad
 
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I doubt it. Wholesale cost of .COM is $7.85/year right now from Verisign plus $0.18 ICANN fee.
There is no margin for registrars to bulk discount below that as they are unlikely to take a massive loss.

Brad

Thanks. Yeah, James pointed out that Mike said in an interview that he's paying around $8. Though if I'm not mistaken Uniregistry, Epik and probably a few other registrars offer some bulk discounts.
 
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you have to wonder if publishing all these sales aren't just a publicity stunt.

You have to wonder?

Thanks. Yeah, James pointed out that Mike said in an interview that he's paying around $8. Though if I'm not mistaken Uniregistry, Epik and probably a few other registrars offer some bulk discounts.

Do they really sell below cost ?

Hint #1: he likes call to action domains
Hint #2: he buys .com, not oddball TLDs.

Hints to what exactly?
Hint #3 He likes TM domain names too.
Hint #4 He owns some crap
Hint #5 He owns good names
Hint #6 At least he's not Adam Dicker
 
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Am i the only one who just thinks this is too good to be true, i mean the names are bang average, skinwins doesn't even make the slightest sense!
 
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The business model really is simple
"throw it against the wall and see what sticks"
If you can afford to keep throwing stuff. Its would be interesting to see who ends up using his domains.

For some companies $5K or $10K is not that big a deal if they NEED the domain. For any domain used in an ad campaign that would be a simple line item. Launching a new business online, $5K is not that big a deal. A know a group that paid $2,800 for a domain they never used, they went with any domain.

Thats the key thing they decide they need it the domain. A phone call or an email from a domainer is not going to convince them they NEED the domain in most cases.
 
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