question Why are hundreds of thousands of Quality Domain's not sold?

ThatNameGuy · Jan 19, 2020

I've been at the domain game now about two years, and while that's given me time to accumulate about a thousand quality domains (told by NP brothers and sisters), the sell through rate is absolutely deplorable.

A lot of domainers like to compare the domain industry to the real estate industry, but there's no comparison imho. Why do you think the real estate industry, the insurance industry, the automobile industry, the financial services industry spend Billions (not millions) of dollars every year to sell their products/services?

It's pretty obvious that even quality domains don't sell themselves, thus if you're going to make it in this business you better learn how to market/sell your own domains or find someone who can.

The days of only "inbound" marketing doesn't work for most domainers, and it never will. Not having an "outbound" strategy is a lot like not having an offensive strategy in team sports. Can you imagine relying on your defense to score all your goals/points?

The point of this thread......there has to be a better way? and just like I know I have a portfolio consisting of quality domains, I know there's a better way to sell domains. I started a thread a few day ago based on the following Podcast; https://domainnamewire.com/2020/01/13/saw-com-dnw-podcast-268/ but few NP members noticed it

However, one key and influential member Rob Monster of Epik noticed it immediately. The thread had everything to do with "outbound" strategy recognized by the founders of Saw.com when they referred to "Smiling and Dialing" and "Dialing for Dollars" as keys for their success.

I've reached out to help the founders of Saw.com, but apparently they don't need my help, or somehow they feel threatened by me

...that's their choice. NP members, help me help them by sharing your thoughts

It's time we went on OFFENSE!

ThatNameGuy · Jan 24, 2020

DpakH said:
I think registering a domain name is one of the alternative for comps.
Thanks
DpakH

What do you mean by that?

DpakH · Jan 24, 2020

Companies might give second thought about quality names.I think all quality names are of higher values.Comps might hand Register names for cheaper prize.
Just my opinion
Thanks
DpakH

novasyd · Jan 24, 2020

because hundreds-of-thousands does not need them.

oldtimer · Jan 24, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
I know you don't hide behind any curtain and either do I....join me in correcting the WRONG that plagues this industry. Thanks

Thanks for the invitation, but you know that as I said in my Environmental thread recently that I might need to take it easy due to some of my health conditions and I might not be able to be as determined and active warrior as you are.

Through being a Human Rights and Environmental activist and intellectual for many years I have learned that pretty much everyone is guilty in one form or another so to be fair requires that we don't attack only one side. As I always say the only way out of this mess in the domain Industry and the World at large is for all sides to reform their ways and to try to find common grounds over the principles and values that are are based on logic and compassion.

Good luck with your project, but try to be fair to all sides and remember that change has to come in a way that doesn't ruin the lives of honest and hard working people who are just trying to provide for their families in the domain Industry or the World at large.

IMO

ThatNameGuy · Jan 24, 2020

DpakH said:
Companies might give second thought about quality names.I think all quality names are of higher values.Comps might hand Register names for cheaper prize.
Just my opinion
Thanks
DpakH

I think I understand where you're coming from now. "Quality Names" are really in the eyes of the beholder...I've been successfully naming businesses for 50 years, and this industry has gone off the rails with regards to what a quality name for a business is. I just hand reg'd the domain; FauxBrands.com and trust me when I say it's 10X better than FB.com. What the hell does FB.com stand for? God only knows

ThatNameGuy · Jan 24, 2020

novasyd said:
because hundreds-of-thousands does not need them.

You don't need what you don't know exists

bmugford · Jan 24, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
I just hand reg'd the domain; FauxBrands.com and trust me when I say it's 10X better than FB.com. What the hell does FB.com stand for? God only knows

fb.com 8,500,000 USD 2010-01-01

10x = $85,000,000

Congrats on your $85M domain. That has to be some record for ROI.

Brad

ThatNameGuy · Jan 24, 2020

bmugford said:
fb.com 8,500,000 USD 2010-01-01

10x = $85,000,000

Congrats on your $85M domain. That has to be some record for ROI.

Brad

Thanks Brad....you just PROVED my point

novasyd · Jan 24, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
You don't need what you don't know exists

Well, if your cursor is blinking on a search a domain name field, you already know what you need. But there a still left hundreds-of-thousands domains that you do not need and there are hundreds-of-thousands businesses that not need your name.

ThatNameGuy · Jan 24, 2020

bmugford said:
fb.com 8,500,000 USD 2010-01-01

10x = $85,000,000

Congrats on your $85M domain. That has to be some record for ROI.

Brad

What's really funny is FB.com redirects to guess what?.......facebook.com. 8.5M for a redirect is incredible. Maybe FaceBook is interested in FauxBrands.com, and might pay me more than the $8.49 I paid for it. What do you think?

Joe N · Jan 24, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
Ironically one of my critics and NP member Joe Nichols from Canada said he didn't believe me....but little does Joe know how determined I am to expose this seriously screwed up industry.

Looking forward to being proven wrong!

Joe N · Jan 24, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
What's really funny is FB.com redirects to guess what?.......facebook.com. 8.5M for a redirect is incredible.

Silly Facebook. No wonder they failed.

Oh wait...

ThatNameGuy · Jan 24, 2020

Joe Nichols said:
Silly Facebook. No wonder they failed.

Oh wait...

Hoarder or Scalper or Both

Bob Hawkes · Jan 24, 2020

oldtimer said:
to try to find common grounds over the principles and values that are are based on logic and compassion.

@oldtimer I always admire your posts on NamePros - they are logical, balanced, fair and contributory. I particularly like this quote as an ideal that we should all seek. Thank you.

The way I view it is that it is not that anyone does not want to see domain names in use. I would remind everyone that the positive way to contribute is to suggest ways that things can improve. I would ask everyone to take the example that @oldtimer has set here and elsewhere to heart.

What ideas do people have to improve the sell-through rate of domain names?

Thanks again, and best wishes.

Bob

Edit: so what is some common ground?

I think the vast majority of domainers want to see their names sold promptly. Those who have achieved better sell-through rates than the industry average, while keeping sustainable prices, have information important to the rest of us.
I think we can agree that a better match between names domainers hold and those end-users want will help. This is challenging and we improve incrementally. Listening to various voices helps.
I think that we can agree that while things have improved, there still is room for more efficient marketplaces better reaching end-users. What are the priorities?
I think we can agree that a better understanding by the public and business leaders of domain names would help. How do we achieve that?

Bob Hawkes · Jan 24, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
a commission of 40% similar to what a salesperson is paid from a realtors commission.

Interesting ideas, but is it different in US? Here realtors get paid 6% or 5% on the first part, and then a reduced amount above a certain level.

It is not that I think that commissions should be comparable to real estate, as the products are very different. Most real estate have people approaching you to buy, and at least the number of potential identifiable purchasers for a certain piece of property is probably larger. On the other hand, real estate agents might argue that they have more costs (maintaining an office, signs, advertising, etc.).

Anyway, I agree with the premise you express here, and elsewhere, that in general higher commissions probably would lead to greater effort from the broker. I think (possibly wrong) that typical commission values are 20% in high-value domain names, so your 40% is above that, to induce further effort and to make up for fact that most brokers do not handle domain names with worth estimates less than 5 figures, typically. I hope that it works out.

Bob

ThatNameGuy · Jan 24, 2020

Bob Hawkes said:
Interesting ideas, but is it different in US? Here realtors get paid 6% or 5% on the first part, and then a reduced amount above a certain level.

It is not that I think that commissions should be comparable to real estate, as the products are very different. Most real estate have people approaching you to buy, and at least the number of potential identifiable purchasers for a certain piece of property is probably larger. On the other hand, real estate agents might argue that they have more costs (maintaining an office, signs, advertising, etc.).

Anyway, I agree with the premise you express here, and elsewhere, that in general higher commissions probably would lead to greater effort from the broker. I think (possibly wrong) that typical commission values are 20% in high-value domain names, so your 40% is above that, to induce further effort and to make up for fact that most brokers do not handle domain names with worth estimates less than 5 figures, typically. I hope that it works out.

Bob

Bob...typically a broker commission is 6-7% and the sales person gets 40% of that. If it's a 100K house the broker gets $6,000 and the salesman gets 40% of that or $2,400. Sometimes they split it.
3K and 3K.

Bob Hawkes · Jan 24, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
Bob...typically a broker commission is 6-7% and the sales person gets 40% of that. If it's a 100K house the broker gets $6,000 and the salesman gets 40% of that or $2,400. Sometimes they split it.
3K and 3K.

Ahhhh now i understand what you meant by it. Thanks for clarification.

Yes here it works like this. On the first $200,000 there is 6% commission, so $12,000 commission. The selling agency gets 50% and the buying agency 50% so $6000 each on a $200,000 home. How much of that goes to the actual agent, not sure.

I think the model of some percentage to the listing domain investor and the selling domain agent make sense in a different sort of structure, if we had something equivalent to MLS for domain names (I realize a few marketplaces promote that they do, but that is a little different).

Thanks again,

Bob

oldtimer · Jan 24, 2020

@Bob Hawkes , thanks for all the compliments.

In your analysis of the sell through rate I believe it's important to also realize that this percentage is directly affected by how much people are asking for their domains, for example if everyone is willing to take half of what they are asking for their ultra premium domains then the overall sell through rate for that category might go through the roof, but if everyone is counting on the fact that they can sell their domains for more in the future then they might go on a hold and see mode which might give a false sign that the domains can not be sold or that there is stagnation in the market.

As far as a fair commission rate goes, I believe that if the domain itself is bringing the buyer because of its inherent value and popularity then a commission of 5 to 9 percent sounds fair just for facilitating the deal, but if a domain has to be advertised and marketed extensively to either find the right buyer or to extract more for its value then a commission of 15 to 20 percent might be required.

IMO

dncafe · Jan 24, 2020

As someone who has watched domains for the last 17+ years, there has been a big downturn in the last 4 or 5 years in my opinion.

I believe a big part of that is from the market being saturated by all the new extensions.

If you were going to launch a tech startup in 2010, you would pay good money to have YourBusiness.com

Now many companies might go to GoDaddy and search for their name/service and find it sold at a premium price of $9,999 via Afternic, and then are prompted with cheap alternatives like YourBusiness.co etc. and decide to launch on that instead.

The whole domain market is so spread out, it devalues the high end .COM's

garptrader · Jan 25, 2020

I believe the proliferation of new extensions has adversely affected industry sales ratios. This is partially due to registrars suggested dozens of reg fee alternatives when the .Com is priced at a premium. However, I also believe that historically many low $xxx sales were to investors who now decided to invest in new extensions rather than aftermarket domains. Compared to a 2010 baseline I saw a continual decline in the number of sales through 2018 even though portfolio quality should have improved. However, there was a sharp reversal in 2019. Coincidence?

oldtimer · Jan 25, 2020

Even though the introduction of New gTLDs and gravitation to ccTLDs initially put a damper on .com prices, but I believe that .com prices have been on the rebounded lately and are currently on the rise. I still believe that many .com owners are holding on to their premium domains and waiting for the prices to get even higher and this is producing a false sense of stagnation in the market for the ultra premium domains.

If anything the New gTLDs and ccTLDs have become more of a competition for the middle tier .coms but even then as more and more businesses and people get online I believe that there will be enough room for all good extensions to grow, new and old.

IMO

namemarket · Jan 25, 2020

dncafe said:
As someone who has watched domains for the last 17+ years, there has been a big downturn in the last 4 or 5 years in my opinion. I believe a big part of that is from the market being saturated by all the new extensions. If you were going to launch a tech startup in 2010, you would pay good money to have YourBusiness.com Now many companies might go to GoDaddy and search for their name/service and find it sold at a premium price of $9,999 via Afternic, and then are prompted with cheap alternatives like YourBusiness.co etc. and decide to launch on that instead. The whole domain market is so spread out, it devalues the high end .COM's

I noticed that too almost like the market fell off a cliff starting 4-5 years ago. I even wrote support at my sales venue asking if they had computer issues because my new inquiries literally declined 90%, which was real sudden with no obvious reason at the time.

Today I know the real reasons and why the big inquiry drop, not the least of which is the registrars heavily promoting other names and new extensions when my domain is being searched. Most everyone is doing that, not just registrars but places like DAN.com too.

As an example, as a test today I search for one of my names listed on DAN using a different browser, first logged out of my account and giving no opportunity for DAN to use cookies and thus did not know it was me. The DAN search below is very troubling:

search for example.com (an example only - I don't own example.com but wish I did)

example.com
exampleb.com
meexample.com
aiexample.com
myexample.com
roexampler.com
saexampled.com
caexample.com
tabexample.com
weexample.com

That's only the first page. There are 4 more pages 10 each. Total of 50 names for sale on DAN containing the word example. They are all make offer or BINs much lower priced vs my domain. When end-user sees all of that he could easily decide to save money (especially if a low on funds startup) and buy alternative.

By DAN or anyone else doing that it sadly shows they care far more about selling other names vs my name. Since the inquiry was looking for the exact match only he should not be given similar names for sale or in the case of registrars 100s also available for new registration. It is any wonder the resale market collapsed!

hookbox · Jan 25, 2020

namemarket said:
I noticed that too almost like the market fell off a cliff starting 4-5 years ago. I even wrote support at my sales venue asking if they had computer issues because my new inquiries literally declined 90%, which was real sudden with no obvious reason at the time.

Today I know the real reasons and why the big inquiry drop, not the least of which is the registrars heavily promoting other names and new extensions when my domain is being searched. Most everyone is doing that, not just registrars but places like DAN.com too.

As an example, as a test today I search for one of my names listed on DAN using a different browser, first logged out of my account and giving no opportunity for DAN to use cookies and thus did not know it was me. The DAN search below is very troubling:

search for example.com (an example only - I don't own example.com but wish I did)

example.com
exampleb.com
meexample.com
aiexample.com
myexample.com
roexampler.com
saexampled.com
caexample.com
tabexample.com
weexample.com

That's only the first page. There are 4 more pages 10 each. Total of 50 names for sale on DAN containing the word example. They are all make offer or BINs much lower priced vs my domain. When end-user sees all of that he could easily decide to save money (especially if a low on funds startup) and buy alternative.

By DAN or anyone else doing that it sadly shows they care far more about selling other names vs my name. Since the inquiry was looking for the exact match only he should not be given similar names for sale or in the case of registrars 100s also available for new registration. It is any wonder the resale market collapsed!

DAN sucks you in with the low 9% commission and then use your lead to sell their names. Companies like that should be boycotted. Dirtbags!!

simran.net · Jan 25, 2020

It depends on people mindset.

I have registered a dropped domain and there were 27 other extensions registered by a doctor and pointed to his .net

While offering name for sale, he said the .com price is only $20. Until he get the .com he will hold all the extensions ( cost $450 per year). But he can pay only $100 maximum for my name.

After I offered a low price of $400 just one month of his 22 extn renewal due and finally he bought .com and left around 20 extn to expire.

So some people think why to pay resellers? If wait they will let it expire. or can find alternate names.

ThatNameGuy · Jan 25, 2020

hookbox said:
DAN sucks you in with the low 9% commission and then use your lead to sell their names. Companies like that should be boycotted. Dirtbags!!

As Verisign so aptly pointed out, all brokers in this business are "hoarders" and "scalpers", and as such you and I "aid and abet" the process. Most responders to this thread have been around the domain industry much longer than I have, but I've been involved in the game of life, that includes naming businesses much longer than they have.

Having read the last ten or so posts in this thread (by reputable NP members), it appears like I've been saying, the business model for domainers is BROKEN! Change, like in life is inevitable. I just hand registered the .com domain; LibsForLife.com because "change" really is inevitable. Mostly I want to point out there really are tens of thousands of domains still available to register, and unlike FauxBrands.com (registered for the last 20 years) that I recently registered, "Libs For Life" had been registered for just one year back in 2014. As with the example I gave of FB.com and now LFL.com (for LibsForLife), those two and three letter domains mean absolutely NOTHING, yet they sell for 100 and 1,000 times what the domains i hand registered sell for that actually say SOMETHING

Members who have been here on NP for more than five years view me as a threat to the "secondary market" of the domain industry....maybe so, but when a company like Verisign confirms what I realized all along, all I see is POTENTIAL Thus I'm sitting here at my computer "Smiling for No Good Reason

"

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