Spending $13K on a domain

[BeachLife]

What are your thoughts on someone spending $13K on a five-letter domain but not developing it even after seven months?

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

Samething as:

"I know a person who was married for several months but did not have sex"

I don't really care. It's none of my business.

Epic

 

[Intersect Marketing]

Come to think of it, I also sold the name deprogram.com to a woman that thought she wanted to start a self-help, self-improvement business. She originally offered me $500 for it and I ended up selling it to her for $5200. That's a lot to spend on a whim without a complete business plan in place first. 3 years later she has still done nothing with it. It simply redirects to another URL showing a pic of some weird guy wearing a jacket in someone's kitchen. She is not a domain investor or speculator, she just never ended up doing anything with it. It happens all the time.

 

[Kate]

Often people buy a domain when they have a project in mind, might even spend their savings in the excitement, then they lose motivation, or they have more pressing stuff to handle (like their regular day job...). The daily grind takes over and the project is put on the backburner. I know because I am guilty of that too.

 

[MapleDots]

What are your thoughts on someone spending $13K on a five-letter domain but not developing it even after seven months?

I buy in that price range and don't develop them. I hold to resell.

Maybe you did not sell to an end user.

 

[Kate Buckley]

As I've seen this pop up several times on this forum, I'm going to comment one time and one time only:

As reported in DNJournal.com, I brokered the sale of Inspection.com for $335K one year ago. It was an all cash sale, ably transacted via our friends at Escrow.com, and all parties walked away happy. The buyer asked me to keep their strategic plans for the asset confidential. As @johnn pointed out via the amusing and spot on metaphor: "I know a person who was married for several months but did not have sex," it's precisely no one's business what the buyer does with the IP, or when.

As for the "pom pom" waving, I report all sales that are not under NDA. Reported sales are good for our industry, so I do my bit. All ships rise in a rising tide.

My best to you all,
Kate

I still wonder about some true reported pom pom waving sales or if they fell through, $300K purchases like Inspection , being parked no 301, nothing. Look at archive and it was at the supposed customers only a short time- like only a few days pointed to the reported customers site. Then after that? Gone.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180201131032/http://www.inspection.com/


Total silence on that one, nobody ever explained that, nor obligated to obviously but in my book something is amiss.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ar...s-accurate-or-even-true.1113246/#post-7016675

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ka...n-com-for-335-000.1066709/page-3#post-6920806

Here the broker actually liked a subsequent excuse post, yet never responded. haha.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/ka...n-com-for-335-000.1066709/page-3#post-6921767

 

[offthehandle]

As I've seen this pop up several times on this forum, I'm going to comment one time and one time only:

As reported in DNJournal.com, I brokered the sale of Inspection.com for $335K one year ago. It was an all cash sale, ably transacted via our friends at Escrow.com, and all parties walked away happy. The buyer asked me to keep their strategic plans for the asset confidential. As @johnn pointed out via the amusing and spot on metaphor: "I know a person who was married for several months but did not have sex," it's precisely no one's business what the buyer does with the IP, or when.

As for the "pom pom" waving, I report all sales that are not under NDA. Reported sales are good for our industry, so I do my bit. All ships rise in a rising tide.

My best to you all,
Kate

Actually, it was me that has questioned it several times, and you know it. No disrespect to you or your business, it's just one of many sales published on my radar and unfortunately I picked this as an example.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ar...s-accurate-or-even-true.1113246/#post-7016675

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ka...n-com-for-335-000.1066709/page-3#post-6920806

Thanks for coming on this forum and clarifying "one time only" and sorry to interrupt your busy business schedule. Unlike the famous brand Cpap who do 301's redirect their names you also reported (Congratulations on those sales), I still find it strange that someone pays $300K for a name that is specific to their business and directly involves their business, 301's it briefly and they own lot's of alternative domains to all sorts of types and geo versions of inspection.

They sort of appear to be rebranding taking another look at their website updated in December and spinning off something with the company imo. I see the buyer rebranded with a LLLL and the list of other domains registered do not resolve there. I also see whoxy has removed completely the past records that existed before for some strange reason, (Lol, they were there before). Fabulous out of Australia I believe was the previous registrant if I recall.

This sale appears to make sense that they are parking it for moving money around offshore or rebranding and have a new worldwide expansion that they even now state as of December on their homepage, so excellent for them- maybe they will become public someday, more power to them.

Sure, it's nobodies business. But once something is published it becomes public knowledge and subject to scrutiny. So you might ask why scrutiny? :

I constantly see stupid domainer to domainer sales reported in DNJ, which are getting quite annoying to see because they are not end user sales. The Pom Pom waving for those sales are not worthy of print, unless of course you believe in the "Greater fool theory" where domains get passed around. So you can imagine when someone reports an actual end user sale, it's certainly noteworthy- the rest is TMZ like noise to me, sure lot's of other people are impressed about big numbers even though they are not to end users, but not me.

So blame me for being the outspoken pundit. I happen to do a lot of questioning here, and my reputation is self evident for that. It actually upsets quite a few people that only want to see positive news, and blindly ignore the reality of how illiquid most valuable domain names really are to be sold to real corporate end users. A million of them remain parked for 20 years. But my only objective is calling things out that seem amiss, not accusing just asking. I simply don't care about anything domainer-domainer sales. Period. Only end user sales market integrity.

So, hopefully soon your customer will actually use the domain name and we don't see another sale in 2 years published where a domain broker sells it to another investor.

Keep up the good work.

 

[MapleDots]

Actually, it was me that has questioned it several times, and you know it. No disrespect to you or your business, it's just one of many sales published on my radar and unfortunately I picked this as an example.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ar...s-accurate-or-even-true.1113246/#post-7016675

https://www.namepros.com/threads/ka...n-com-for-335-000.1066709/page-3#post-6920806

Thanks for coming on this forum and clarifying "one time only" and sorry to interrupt your busy business schedule. Unlike the famous brand Cpap who do 301's redirect their names you also reported (Congratulations on those sales), I still find it strange that someone pays $300K for a name that is specific to their business and directly involves their business, 301's it briefly and they own lot's of alternative domains to all sorts of types and geo versions of inspection.

They sort of appear to be rebranding taking another look at their website updated in December and spinning off something with the company imo. I see the buyer rebranded with a LLLL and the list of other domains registered do not resolve there. I also see whoxy has removed completely the past records that existed before for some strange reason, (Lol, they were there before). Fabulous out of Australia I believe was the previous registrant if I recall.

This sale appears to make sense that they are parking it for moving money around offshore or rebranding and have a new worldwide expansion that they even now state as of December on their homepage, so excellent for them- maybe they will become public someday, more power to them.

Sure, it's nobodies business. But once something is published it becomes public knowledge and subject to scrutiny. So you might ask why scrutiny? :

I constantly see stupid domainer to domainer sales reported in DNJ, which are getting quite annoying to see because they are not end user sales. The Pom Pom waving for those sales are not worthy of print, unless of course you believe in the "Greater fool theory" where domains get passed around. So you can imagine when someone reports an actual end user sale, it's certainly noteworthy- the rest is TMZ like noise to me, sure lot's of other people are impressed about big numbers even though they are not to end users, but not me.

So blame me for being the outspoken pundit. I happen to do a lot of questioning here, and my reputation is self evident for that. It actually upsets quite a few people that only want to see positive news, and blindly ignore the reality of how illiquid most valuable domain names really are to be sold to real corporate end users. A million of them remain parked for 20 years. But my only objective is calling things out that seem amiss, not accusing just asking. I simply don't care about anything domainer-domainer sales. Period. Only end user sales market integrity.

So, hopefully soon your customer will actually use the domain name and we don't see another sale in 2 years published where a domain broker sells it to another investor.

Keep up the good work.

Hell of a post there but I'm not sure I agree wholly with the fact that domainer sales are not sales. If a domainer buys a domain for whatever amount then that is a real sale if in fact the the money actually changed hands. Especially if the domain fetches a good price. One might want to mention that it was a wholesale deal as opposed to a retail sale but it would be a sale nonetheless.

I am still trying to score one or two above average domains and when I finally get them into my portfolio then I won't mind having it reported as a sale by the previous owner of the domain. What difference would it be to him that I am in the domaining business? As long as he gets his asking price then it should be classified as a sale.

Now as far as your post goes.... you make some excellent points because there are a lot of "so called" sales where it's just domainers saying they sold the domains to each other so it looks good. They were never actual sales to begin with and one can never truly follow the money trail.

PS. I know of a couple of high end .ca sales that are so bogus it's not even funny. I saw the misdeeds of two companies reporting sales where I knew it was as fishy as a three dollar bill.

 

[offthehandle]

Hell of a post there but I'm not sure I agree wholly with the fact that domainer sales are not sales.

Thanks MD for posting and having an opinion, and a discussion. Wholesale business is what certain people do, and some rely on it especially if they don't know english or want to market. It's one of numerous segments of this "Industry", loosely speaking an industry. Those get reported sure- but what do they truly represent? They might interest many people, just like the Namebio conversation of reporting $100-500 names, great for those interested. Personally, wholesaling means nothing to me really since no end user is going to adopt it and develop it and that is what the internet is, right now it's a huge empty galaxy with millions of "lots" of undeveloped real estate.

Years ago, in my surplus business I used to sell wholesale but focused on end users- I hated wholesale, but sometimes for liquidity was necessary, or the stuff I got had in inventory that I got tired of taking up space, tired of no sales, or no inquiries for it, I even sold it all on eBay before I retired. Same behavior why names are dropped. Never would I consider discussing such deals selling to other dealers. Machinery dealers never do that, they never brag about offting a machine to another dealer. Nor do test equipment dealers. Irrelevant wholesale information.

Dotweekly is the website that I mentioned several threads on here before- he reports on end user sales, a ton of work to monitor this- I admire that a lot. He reports on corporate sales and who they went to. So do other blogs and here on the Namepros's blog. Those sorts of sales are big news- like "Ring"- look how fast that became a household name- awesome.

All I feel are important are these large sales of 5-7 figures represent great work to end users, if they are in fact end users. But if you buy that $100k domain as investment, and you want to publish it- that's up to you, it's a free world and I respect you have the money to do so, but it isn't selling to an end user, and my point is it isn't really news worthy to know you now are the proud owner of an "Empty lot"- that's obviously a personal opinion and it's mine- and I am not a group thinker.

Publishing the wholesale buy does 2 things: One it's price discovery- that it's available for sale, and two- It's a stroke of the ego for wholesale buyer and seller, but it's going to sit until it is sold. And hope that one day you sell it for $1MM. when that happens and it's an end user- great news, fantastic news. That shows the true market.

But what really is the objective of domain names? It's to represent a business of some sort. Parked pages cover the vast majority of one word .com's, as you know. Laughable really that businesses won't buy them, sellers won't lower the prices or whatever the issue is and rather the internet get filled with them, the end user company VC startup starts with a GETDomain.com as their $10 name or if smaller business don't even bother and open a facebook page or linked in.

Because somebody has money to "invest" in LLL's then parks them as commodities, (There is the newsletter as you know on that) and trades among themselves- fine- a market like commodities- like pork bellies or soy beans. Fine, an interesting read but does not show end user purchasing.

it's just domainers saying they sold the domains to each other so it looks good.

"Price discovery" as I recall by a certain person, which in certain "markets" is acceptable. Lol. It's like paying for advertising (to pay the commission) and get the price and name out in the open. But it's a game. I don't support such behavior or like games and quite vocal about it.

They were never actual sales to begin with and one can never truly follow the money trail.

The auctions are interesting aspect of this, with pay per click blogs, with unknown buyers names, with bidding up to the reserve, etc. And with DNJ terms on the website, again as discussed before on this forum have this "disclaimer' that they trust certain people. Do you think the County recorder for tax purposes simply trusts the Realtor? Never.

This is classic post from the guy who I really respect, regarding the huge 2017 scandal, and I think you missed it:

 

[lock]

You will make that 13k opening bid and next week it will be listed 130k min bid.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

I sold 360Sand.com for $x,xxx and FleetBeacon.com for $x,xxx too. bother were never utilized.

Don't matter to me so long as the checks cleared and the money was green. But I do get your curiousity. I've checked so I know they didn't do nothing.

360Sand.com is some Sand production company called JoeTex FleetBeacon.com sold to company called FleetComplete.com.

 

[maya-zir]

1. Still have no time for project
2. Bought for personal collection
3. Needed to white money
4.
5.
etc etc etc

 

[Ostrados]

If you think $13k is a waste then check this:

Dudu.com sold for $1,000,000 in 2012 at Sedo

Try to visit the domain the url does not resolve and it is not even parked or redirected!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

As several have commented there are completely valid reasons why many digital assets go unused for a long time or may not get used at all. On NPs we all value quality domain names so much that we find this hard to believe, but it happens. A lot.

I took at look some months ago at the top 20 sales of all time (at least according to NameBio list) (all were .com) to see what they were doing. At least one status has since changed, but at the time I checked:
These are very elite names that all sold for at least $3.6 million and some as much as $14 million.

1. As of the date I did the study, one is listed for sale, three were used for redirection, one had a 'coming soon' lander, one is a legacy page for a company that went out of business (it is now back in limited use - that is the one change from my original post), two others are not in use, and 12 of the names have developed content.
2. It would appear that none are directly used for websites that make the main most popular lists. For example none were on the Moz Top 500 sites (Facebook is on the list, but not as FB).
3. Four of the top five sales went to adult websites. These are designated by a !! warning in the table and should only be accessed by those 18 and over.
4. All but two of the active websites go to English language sites.
5. To protect users from possible harm, Google Chrome flags websites that do not use SSL certificates. Only 11 of the sites had SSL certificates operational at the time I checked (note added: some others may have had them, but did not automatically send the users to a secure form of the website when it was entered without the http - this may have changed in some cases months later)

I found it somewhat surprising that people pay millions and then they sit unused later, but it happens. Anyway my full post is here.

I have not released it yet, but I did a study picking an arbitrary day on NameBio from about a year ago and checking the status of each of the top 40 sales from that day now 12 months later. Most of them were for sale again or not in use at all. This is disconcerting to me that even domains that sell seem to have so little actual use, it seems.

Bob

 

[ben pedri]

I sold a domain to a business for $12,400 over 6 years ago and it is still not developed yet. I'm sure someone somewhere has paid 6 figures plus for a name and never did anything with it... and has no intention of ever selling it either.

Whats the domain name,bet you wont say .I think your waiting for them to forget to renew and you will pay a fraction in an auction to get your baby back. WHATS THE NAME ,DO IT DO IT TELL US OR GO HOME

 

[Intersect Marketing]

Whats the domain name,bet you wont say .I think your waiting for them to forget to renew and you will pay a fraction in an auction to get your baby back. WHATS THE NAME ,DO IT DO IT TELL US OR GO HOME

Huhh? I already made another post in this thread with a name and what I got for it.

Why wouldn't I share info on a name over here as well?

No NDA, so I don't have a problem with sharing.

It was actually my highest profit margin name ever... so thank you for forcing me to brag about it.

I only paid $8 for it.

It was FlyJets.org, sold to a young woman in NY that already owned FlyJets.com. It was for the charitable side of her new start up where they were going to sell emply space on private jets.

She wrote and asked me how much I needed for the name and I told her to make me an offer. I expected her to come back with something like $500 and I'd settle for close to that... it was a garbage name after all.

She got back to me the next day with an opening offer of $8,888.88. This immediately told me that she had no clue about domain name values or negotiating for that matter.

We went back and fouth about how I would transfer the name to her and other details.

When it came time for her to pay through escrow, I told her that I never agreed to her opening bid of $8,888.88.

She told me to give her a price.

I came back the next day with the $12,400 figure, expecting her to barter down from there, meeting me in the middle or something.

Nope, she just paid it without a word.

Come to find out later, she is worth $30M+... old NY money.

I probably could have gotten $50,000 for it.

A name I bought when I first started out domaining, way back when all I bought was junk.

Yes, I still consider this $12,400 name to be junk.

It would have only ever meant something to this 1 woman in the whole world at that exact moment in time.

She gave up on the FlyJets project shortly therafter to go anchor a NY financial TV show.

It was a matter of all the planets coming into alignment to make this happen.

When I sold the name, I was already buying way better names at the time and already had that name unchecked so it wouldn't renew... with just a couple of months left before it would drop.

Just 1 of thousands of names I had at the time that were not going to be renewed.

Yes, at one point I had over 3,000 names and 99% of them were junk.

I'm down to just 350 high quality names now (okay, there is still some junk in there I can't let go of yet )

Sometimes you can make a lot from garbage, but it is so rare that it is not worth holding onto everything forever.

I just got really, really, really, really really... lucky with FlyJets.org!

 

[jimmy5]

Most people are domain investors who buy a domain, then wait untill it has a higher value ,then sell it at a profit.

 

[barman]

I think the best answer to the original question has already been said - it's nonya damn business.

The reasons people and companies don't end up doing anything with their names is countless. Maybe they're working on something that will take much longer than 7 months. Maybe the person that bought the name left the company? Maybe a shinier object came along and priorities change? Maybe the person died?

Who cares? People buy exotic cars, put them in a garage, and don't put a single mile on them.

truth be told though, it is a fascinating topic...