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sales First Year Domaining Results

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SBS66

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I thought I would share my results for 2016, which is the year I actually applied myself to domaining. It may help other newbies like myself or just bore the old timers with yet another annual newbie post.:xf.smile:

This is the first year that I actually applied myself to domaining, even though I had registered the name for esquire domain back in 2013. What made the difference for me, I think, is actually scouring the forum for “actionable” content. By this I mean posts that people would share with things that we can do, as opposed to just opinions about what will work, what will not work, etc., what is spam, blah, blah. That cliché about having a plan and working the plan has always worked for me.

So, in 2016, I sold 21 domains for gross sales of $7895, and domain net profit of $7335.11, which is what I had left over after escrow fees/PPal fess/domain cost. The business itself left a total profit of $4000.97, after taking into account the monthly cost of, for example, membership in this forum, phone number, hosting, GD Domain Club membership, marketing experiments, course purchases (Infosec’s course/conference, DNAcademy), EFTY marketplace, etc. My original goal in April 2016 was to make $5,000 in all of 2016; I didn’t know how that was going to happen but that is what my goal was. So, for me, 2016 has been a domaining success.

Of the 21 domains sold, 2 (SiteKart.com and LearnAppBuilding) were experiments on Flippa and here. The net profit combined was $30.00. Lesson: forget Flippa and NPs is a great place to buy.

The remaining 19 consisted of 14 legal domains and 5 other domains.

I am not ready to venture into buying domains that will cost more than $75 as I don’t think I have the acumen to value properly yet; about $95% of the purchases have been for under $9, and 4% under $20.

Inbound vs. Outbound: 1 domain has been sold via inbound, the rest have all been outbounds. I have gotten other inbound offers but they have been for $10-100, and for names that I suspect are worth more (not law related names), so they have not resulted in sales. For those names, I am trying to be patient and committed to holding them for at least 5 years, we shall see…

I wish everyone on the forum a healthful, happy and successful 2017. Thanks to everyone who posts their sales, what works/doesn’t work for them.
 
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I guess that was a good 1st year any new domaineer will be happy with.

Kudos and bigger success in 2017
 
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Good going SB! That's a better year than the vast majority of domainers will have had I bet. Good on you for sharing your numbers. It would be interesting to see who is up and who is down etc. One of my major floors is that I don't know if I'm up or down as I don't keep any records of outgoings etc as I'm just a hobbyist but I intend to change that in 2017.
 
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Good going SB! That's a better year than the vast majority of domainers will have had I bet. Good on you for sharing your numbers. It would be interesting to see who is up and who is down etc. One of my major floors is that I don't know if I'm up or down as I don't keep any records of outgoings etc as I'm just a hobbyist but I intend to change that in 2017.

Thank you! I think I'm bit obsessive about tracking...I may have inherited from my Dad who used to be an accountant, lol!

But I like to tweak things a lot; and for that I have to know what is working or sort of working...hence the tracking.
 
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I thought I would share my results for 2016, which is the year I actually applied myself to domaining. It may help other newbies like myself or just bore the old timers with yet another annual newbie post.:xf.smile:

This is the first year that I actually applied myself to domaining, even though I had registered the name for esquire domain back in 2013. What made the difference for me, I think, is actually scouring the forum for “actionable” content. By this I mean posts that people would share with things that we can do, as opposed to just opinions about what will work, what will not work, etc., what is spam, blah, blah. That cliché about having a plan and working the plan has always worked for me.

So, in 2016, I sold 21 domains for gross sales of $7895, and domain net profit of $7335.11, which is what I had left over after escrow fees/PPal fess/domain cost. The business itself left a total profit of $4000.97, after taking into account the monthly cost of, for example, membership in this forum, phone number, hosting, GD Domain Club membership, marketing experiments, course purchases (Infosec’s course/conference, DNAcademy), EFTY marketplace, etc. My original goal in April 2016 was to make $5,000 in all of 2016; I didn’t know how that was going to happen but that is what my goal was. So, for me, 2016 has been a domaining success.

Of the 21 domains sold, 2 (SiteKart.com and LearnAppBuilding) were experiments on Flippa and here. The net profit combined was $30.00. Lesson: forget Flippa and NPs is a great place to buy.

The remaining 19 consisted of 14 legal domains and 5 other domains.

I am not ready to venture into buying domains that will cost more than $75 as I don’t think I have the acumen to value properly yet; about $95% of the purchases have been for under $9, and 4% under $20.

Inbound vs. Outbound: 1 domain has been sold via inbound, the rest have all been outbounds. I have gotten other inbound offers but they have been for $10-100, and for names that I suspect are worth more (not law related names), so they have not resulted in sales. For those names, I am trying to be patient and committed to holding them for at least 5 years, we shall see…

I wish everyone on the forum a healthful, happy and successful 2017. Thanks to everyone who posts their sales, what works/doesn’t work for them.

Good results for a first year!
I'm sure you can look forward to 2017 being even better, now that you're in the saddle.

Your mention of outbound selling made me wonder, do you refer to "outbound" as advertising your sales platform and listings through paid channels and then consolidate those as outbound leads, or, do you contact endusers through whois and whatnot?

The former seems sustainable even with thousands of names in your portfolio, but I always question the latter unless you fancy hiring a team of outbound marketeers to direct contact for you.
 
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Your mention of outbound selling made me wonder, do you refer to "outbound" as advertising your sales platform and listings through paid channels and then consolidate those as outbound leads, or, do you contact endusers through whois and whatnot?

The former seems sustainable even with thousands of names in your portfolio, but I always question the latter unless you fancy hiring a team of outbound marketeers to direct contact for you.

I mean outbound emails. I do them all myself for now. I am just starting so it doesn't seem to me that this will scale well unless I discover/develop a way to do that. But, for me, thinking about mass outbound marketing at this point is premature--it's a lot like wanting to be a marathon running when I've just started jogging.

Thank you.
 
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Well done @SBS66

Nice work for the first year indeed.... also excellent ROI.

All the best for the year ahead mate, maybe 2017 be everything you could have possibly hoped for and MORE!!!
 
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Well done @SBS66

Nice work for the first year indeed.... also excellent ROI.

All the best for the year ahead mate, maybe 2017 be everything you could have possibly hoped for and MORE!!!

Thank you!
 
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Very, very well mate, well done, the domain community need posts like this.
 
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Keep it up!!

Great first year.

I wish you continued success in 2017.

An inspiration to all of us here at NP!!
 
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Nice work! Can you give me some tips on legal domaining?

Thanks
 
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Nice post, good story and impressive numbers!
 
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Hi,

Good to know. I have also completed my first year in domaining and have made a profit of around $25,000 so far.

And good luck to everyone else.
 
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Id be very proud of any profit in my first year. Well done
 
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Congrats! Great work.

You told us about your 2 small sales, care to expand on the bigger ones?

:)
 
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Nice work! Can you give me some tips on legal domaining?

Thanks

Feel free to pm me with any questions you may have--if I have the answers or even a clue, I will surely share them.. But, to be fair, all I've done is follow Infosec3' program, and read what he and Federer post since they are very active.
 
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Hi,

Good to know. I have also completed my first year in domaining and have made a profit of around $25,000 so far.

And good luck to everyone else.

Congratulations! I like your numbers.
 
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Congrats! Great work.

You told us about your 2 small sales, care to expand on the bigger ones?

:)

Sure. On the legal domains, I sold a KeywordKeywordAttorney.com for $2100 (posted that in Sept on the sales thread). I consider that an outlier although I am working on a similar sale. On the low end, the other outlier was a $100 sale. Of the remaining legal name sales, the average legal domain sales price was $278.08. So, there's really only been one "big" one for me, which I hope is the first of many.
 
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Congrats @SBS66 . I think I am your first buyer sitekart.com .

I am more or less had sales like you except my profit are less as I brought some 2000 domains in the same period
 
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I am not ready to venture into buying domains that will cost more than $75 as I don’t think I have the acumen to value properly yet; about $95% of the purchases have been for under $9, and 4% under $20.

That's a smart play. Take your time, and congrats on your first year success.
 
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So, in 2016, I sold 21 domains for gross sales of $7895, and domain net profit of $7335.11, which is what I had left over after escrow fees/PPal fess/domain cost.

Wow! Congrats on your first year. Those numbers are amazing.
Generating that kind of ROI on domains you bought for under $10 is simply remarkable.

Good luck in 2017.
 
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Congrats.. Thats truly is a great beginning..
 
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Congratulations, nicely executed and accounted for - I love numbers so I appreciate your details.

. . . the year I actually applied myself to domaining.

I appreciate this statement, gonna borrow it for myself now : grin :
 
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Congrats @SBS66 . I think I am your first buyer sitekart.com .

I am more or less had sales like you except my profit are less as I brought some 2000 domains in the same period

Yes, you are! 2000...I don't think I could handle that many but I hope you sell them all.
 
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Congratulations, nicely executed and accounted for - I love numbers so I appreciate your details.



I appreciate this statement, gonna borrow it for myself now : grin :

Thank you. The numbers can always give us a reality check as to our improvement. As for borrowing...go for it...effort is something that will never be exhausted, lol.
 
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