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discuss Incognito Domainer

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MapleDots

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Quite a while back I mentioned that I've put my domains to work and I have over 1000 domains forwarded to one of my online stores. So instead of parking income I'm harvesting the traffic and hopefully selling some items from my online store.

A few interesting things have happened during this time and it's not what you would expect. I'm selling more items than ever on the online store and I cannot say for sure if that is because of covid, or the increase in traffic, but that is another issue altogether.

What I really wanted to talk about with this post is kind of surprising...

Since I stopped forwarding my domains to a mapledots lander, and forward them masked (address remains in address bar) to my online store, the inquiries have shot up substantially. The clients basically email or call my business and ask for the person in charge.

The number one thing the email inquiry, or caller, says is "I notice you're not using the domain".

I say....
Ohhh, I forgot about that domain, I use it to drive traffic to my online store.

Client says...
Would you consider selling?

I say...
If the right offer came along but I'm really in no panic to sell.

Client says...
How much are you asking?

I say...
Never thought about it but it would have to be a genuine offer worth my while for me to consider selling.

Here is where it gets really interesting...

The dialogue is so civilized, there is nobody calling me a domain squatter, there is no name calling, nothing! It all seems sooo polite with me basically always repeating that it would have to be a significant offer worth my while for me to consider selling the domain.

Since I operate all of my businesses as a sole proprietorship I bill right through my online store and the end user has no idea that they ever did business with mapledots or a domainer.

I don't think I'll be going back to my previous way of selling domains anytime soon. I still use mapledots for my auction and marketplace activities, but for most inquiries I now use one of my regular business names.

Selling incognito is truly a refreshing way to sell domains. When the end user does not know they are dealing with a domainer the transaction is so much more pleasant.


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PLEASE DO NOT POST, OR DISCUSS, MY PERSONAL BUSINESS OR NAME IN THIS TOPIC.

Discuss the topic at hand without getting into the personal details of my business. - Thank You!
 
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@Brands.International it's always nice to hear from you but showrooming does not work for me. It might with your generic new tld's but someone looking for a red domain is not going to shop my site and say I'll take the green one instead and maybe the nice orange one. I can add fancy logos, which I did for years, and try to say how my domains are better than the next guys but none of that matters in domaining.

In your case if someone wants my.city there is no use showing him my.other because he already know what he wants. The only person that benefits from showrooming is the domainer. He can brag about his shiny website with lots of colorful domains but to the end user that is irrelevant. He wants the domain he came for and that is it. By not telling him I am a domainer I increase my odds of contact. I have been experimenting with this back and forth a couple of years now and my stats are clear, I get more interaction when the client thinks they are dealing with an ordinary joe..
There's a fallacy (edit: or contradiction?) here if you care to look at it.........I have put it in bold

if someone wants a domain badly enough it will not not matter if your a domainer, a website owner, have a sales lander, no lander, not resolving or a picture of a smiley cat saying how are you......

If they want it they will engage with you or hit the BIN button.......

Engagement might increase but then it boils down to a persons sales acumen and closing technique rather than how the domain is presented (or not)........
 
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1. No you need masking because masking is used to retain the domain address I'm selling in the address bar. It changes to my store domain when anything is clicked.

2. Sign up at your local costco, you can also do it online by visiting costco web and then clicking on services. You can sell internationally no issues.

3. I have Google Analytics on the store lander and again on the store itself. Once you analyse your data over several months you get a clear picture. I have custom apps in my store back end that make the google analytics simpler but that depends on the software you use to run the online store. My landing page is pure blogger and google analytics are baked in there as well.

4. I use blogger as my business website, I have zero branding and 100% uptime for no cost. I also wipe the blogger template and use a simple blank page to host mapledots. I had a pretty complex site there before I stripped it down. People don't know that you can use blogger for free hosting and you can do pretty much anything if you strip away the blogger template.

5. The easiest way to break out of frames is to add this into the header of your html, no special knowledge needed.
Code:
<base target='_top'/>
I actually just changed added this a few minutes ago because some people use noscript addons in their browser and this will work better than a java script in those circumstances.

6. I pay no attention to my whois, most of them are obscured anyways, I rely solely on clients taking the contact info off the webpage.
Thanks a lot for answering the many questions I asked. They're very helpful.

Just 1 aspect left I think:

Blogger - a quick check on wiki says that there's no support for eCommerce (I'm aware that this might be a too generalized statement), so I suppose you use apps to integrate the Costco system? Or does Costco provide the codes (HTML etc) to embed into the website?
 
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There's a fallacy (edit: or contradiction?) here if you care to look at it.........I have put it in bold

if someone wants a domain badly enough it will not not matter if your a domainer, a website owner, have a sales lander, no lander, not resolving or a picture of a smiley cat saying how are you......

If they want it they will engage with you or hit the BIN button.......

Engagement might increase but then it boils down to a persons sales acumen and closing technique rather than how the domain is presented (or not)........

Actually what I was trying to say is that if someone comes to the site for domainA.com, by showing him hundreds of other domains a domainer might actually be decreasing the odds of selling it.

Your point about the client purchasing it regardless of how is sold is not quite accurate. Many end users consider a number of domains before they make their final choice, one of the first things they look at is who owns it, and what is it used for. Then they go to their second choice and so on.

In my case a small business owns it and looks like it's not really utilized. That sets the tone and gets the end user to think there might be a chance in acquiring the domain. There is no intimidation from a domain squatter. I hate using that term but I am only using it because that is what the majority of the general public thinks of domain investors.
 
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Actually what I was trying to say is that if someone comes to the site for domainA.com, by showing him hundreds of other domains a domainer might actually be decreasing the odds of selling it.

Your point about the client purchasing it regardless of how is sold is not quite accurate. Many end users consider a number of domains before they make their choice, one of the first things they look at is who owns it and what is it used for. Then they go to their second choice and so on.

In my case a small business owns it and looks like it's not really utilized. That sets the tone and gets the end user to think there might be a chance in acquiring the domain. There is no intimidation from a domain squatter. I hate using that term but I am only using it because that is what the majority of the general public thinks of domain investors.

Regarding a dedicated website showcasing all your domains - it shows you are in business of solely selling a commodity (domains), they either want that particular domain and buy it or see it is out of budget and then browse your inventory as you would in any any other shopping/buyer experience......if you have a wide selection of domains within a certain niche then this will benefit/increase your sales conversion, if you have loads of random domains then this will not be the case.....so it ends up on relying on someone's individual portfolio (and the size of it)

A motivated buyer will be looking at one particular domain, when they realise that domain is out of budget or have a personal view on the "morality" of buying from a reseller they then move on to option "B" which in most cases will be going down a tier in quality......meaning you still end up with the superior domain name and the opportunities that come from that.......

Regarding utilisation, I already said this is a positive and in my mind is is one of the main benefits in doing what your doing......

It boils down to how badly that person wants that domain, how you wrap it up becomes immaterial after a certain point.......

What I would find interesting is if people with large portfolios could share the percentage of deals that fall through because the potential end user realises they are a domain investor/business owner
 
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I also redirect some of my domains to my site but I have never had a sale. I think I will redirect some more and see. This sounds very nice.
I also feel you might be getting a lot of queries from domaines.

What kind of store do you have
 
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I actually did the same then changed my mind as found couldn't find out stats. A way better idea is to have your menu or lander for your business on the 1000 names. This way they click from one domain to next which is a bonus and you still get to use the customer as you intend. You also could have domain for sale information using the traffic.
 
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I think if an enduser wants a name most of the times he doesn't care too much who is selling...

Incognito, Afternic, Sedo or something else doesn't make difference to him.

He just wants to name his business like this and If he has the budget he will buy.

IMHO
 
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Thanks for kicking off a really interesting discussion, @MapleDots . The idea that users might be more willing to purchase from someone who is not a domainer is definitely reasonable, and among other things suggest that we need to do work to change how the domain world is viewed. Imagine the same thing with real estate: most would be more willing to buy via a real estate agent than otherwise.
Bob
 
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Just read your post, and earlier today I posted an article on my blog about being 'The stealth Domain Investor.' I think you're not alone - there are abundant domain buyers and sellers who remain incognito.
 
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This is very unique and surprising tactic so thanks a lot for shating it.

My only concern is that you will may leaving a lot of money on the table, I visualize a domain sale as funnel in each step in it you will lose percentage of users before an end user reach final point to buy.

Like for exanple:

Landing page => for sale note => inquiry => negotiation => sale

The problem is that you removed the "for sale note" at this step most users will not proceed to the next step which is "inquiry", only small percentage of very keen end users will proceed.

Maybe it worked for you because of cvoid-19 situation? so I think the best thing to do is to try split A/B test, were you keep half of your domains here and half there.

If you already did A/B split test and confirm that it is working better for you, then it could be working for your specific portfolio, I never look at it but I guess it includes plenty of generic domains and one word domains? In other word this tactic may work for high quality domains, but may not work for a lower quality portfolios.
 
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I do this with a few domains, it does seem to help get inquiries but once I start talking price they go silent.
 
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I do this with a few domains, it does seem to help get inquiries but once I start talking price they go silent.
Did you quote the price first (like most domainers) or did you wait for the price quote offer from the end user (like MapeDots)?
 
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Did you quote the price first (like most domainers) or did you wait for the price quote offer from the end user (like MapeDots)?
They offered first I countered
 
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Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

You are right, some buyer will prefer to be in touch with the domain name ower directly instead of contacting the intermidiare or even the standard landing pages from the casual parking services.
 
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Price range
Not sure how much you quote (won't ask about it), but if it's too high then silence is usually a normal thing. But even if it's low endusers-who-don't-like-domainers might still see that as a red (domainer) flag.

How about changing tactics and keep making the end user make a better offer without stating a price or price range (like what MapleDots did)?
 
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