discuss 3+ yrs in domaining. No 4-figures

[abstractdomainer]

I have been a part of the domaining industry for quite some time now. And this is something strange when I look at many people making a terrific amount of sales and it has been 3 years and I haven't made a four-figure sale.

While there have been tonnes of low three-figure sales and that has been my focus, there have been exactly 0 sales in the four-figures as much as I recall. I need your help in diagnosis if you will. There could be three reasons for this, I believe:

1) I do not own the right names that sell for 4-figures - So, my strategy has always been to take up some names (like 20-30), which would sell for low to mid $$$ and close them, as much as possible.

2) I do not price the names right - I dip my feet deep into .CO as well, but major sales were in mid-3-figures only, with the platform taking a chunk of it and I remained with whatever was left, in bits-and-pieces.

3) I never renew my domains (not even 1) - A third thing that I believe is going wrong with me, is not renewing the domain for another year, looking at the trade-offs. I look at domaining in a short-term perspective maybe, which is why four-figures are not coming my way. I usually think of it this way:

-- You renew a domain for say $15 which may not sell for another year or the year after that, whereas in promos, you may end up getting 7 domains for the same cost. The chances of selling 1 out of these 7 is still high for me, since the risk is diversified. And hence, it makes sense to diversify the risk

-- Another thought process I have, when I see a domainer invest $2k for a single domain name, is that how can someone be so sure that it is a good investment??

I have two questions:

1) Help me diagnose the problem in my thought process and investment strategy so that I get in that four-figure league ( I make good money from domaining but never good sales)
2) Help me understand, what gives people confidence to renew a domain or acquire something for a $2k price?

 

[otismo]

look at the list of implosions

What do they sell for 1 cent? .xyz?

look at the list of implosions

 

[BBQ Names]

If you get inquiries that just validates the quality of the domain, though I have many domains that would sell for thousands reseller that rarely get inquiries, and many lower quality ones get several offers.

I would worry more about inquiries on a portfolio scale than a single domain. If you own many domains and are not getting many inquiries, you might be doing something wrong.

So true. I always assume I will renew a domain forever until it sells, unless something makes me change my mind on that particular name, or current cash flow forces my hand, ad I drop some. My highest dollar sales may have had few inquiries. Keep paying attention - so much of domaining is having a feel for what’s valuable. As much “art” as it is “science“.

For example, I have never made less than xxxxx profit a year for the last 4 years, but I'm not selling for high numbers, I'm selling lower than the market, but with a higher STR and lot's of sales. I know others who are acquiring lot's of domains from the aftermarket, for high amounts, but some of them are still in the red or are just breaking even year by year. Depending on your strategy, you could make hundreds of xxx sales and make more money than somebody making a few xxxx or even some xxxxx sales.

I should lean more towards Boker’s strategy. While every year is profitable for me in domains, I am often reluctant to sell for lower prices that might actually increase my year-end profit. Nothing wrong with three figure sales if it puts food on the table, and a roof over your head.

one of my strategies for renewing: try to use multiple way to check all your domains value: views, inquiries, others people opinion, your feeling, social media testing and so on and at the end of the year renew the best 20% of your portofolio,

Absolutely multiple where is the angles of validation is so key - also check for other permutations of the names registered or being used. ie: if you own buygrapejuice.com and multiple other companies have names like buysupergrapejuicetoday.net or buygreatgrapejuice.com, by all means keep renewing the name plus do some outbound marketing!

Let me give it a try after having developed an eye

And THAT is a key - developing your own personalized methods and strategies using all the information that you are currently amassing. Once you develop the confidence it will be much smoother sailing.

I would be careful with the advice to spend loads of money just because you can buy a better name on a marketplace until you have that experience and trained I so you don’t exceed whatever budget you can afford to apply towards your domain buying.

 

[BrandAptly.com]

On a side note, I drop plenty of dead weight each year as well.

Please let me see your dead weight .com domains before you let them expire.

 

[WatchDogue]

I never renew my domains (not even 1) - A third thing that I believe is going wrong with me, is not renewing the domain for another year, looking at the trade-offs. I look at domaining in a short-term perspective maybe, which is why four-figures are not coming my way. I usually think of it this way:

-- You renew a domain for say $15 which may not sell for another year or the year after that, whereas in promos, you may end up getting 7 domains for the same cost. The chances of selling 1 out of these 7 is still high for me, since the risk is diversified. And hence, it makes sense to diversify the risk

You have two possible problems as I analyze your post:

1 - You might be thinking too " short term " whereas many domain names for the most part are held for a longer term or at least a longer term than 1 year to get in the four+ figure range;

2 - You may have an investment ceiling or cash flow matter that requires you to " move on " too quickly from what might be (?) 4 figure worthy names to keep as you described the cash for new and more names.

Four figure sales often take time and have negotiations that move with the speed of a glacier and. who knows just how long a potential buyer looked at and considered a name prior to inquiring or opening a negotiation.

You might measure your success / failure in domains by your ROI - If you are achieving a nice, sustainable ROI within the year then stick with it as the core of your approach to domain sales, after all, profit is profit including turning several 5-10 dollar domain name purchases into several couple hundred dollar domain name sales or so within a year.

I've held onto and renewed names I believe in forever - even sold a name held for and renewed for 16+ years for a net four fig ( finally! ) profit.

IF you want potential returns higher than hundreds of dollars in all likelihood you may have to consider investing more dollars, AKA risking more dollars, in domains than you are currently doing

 

[VaibhavA]

I havent read the whole thread but from whatever I have read, yes @Bob Hawkes stated it right.

It is a gr8 thread and plenty of very useful information that every domainer must read.

The best part about you is being open to something most people would feel ashamed of.

Another good thing is that you are still into it and want to improve.

I could relate to a thing that you did and continue to do after 3 years, thats not renewing a domain. I did exactly the same in my 1st year in domaining. I sold 99% of my domains out of a couple of hundred in my first year of domaining. Whether it be for a dollar or even less on namepros.

This gave me confidence and experience regarding what people are looking for. This even gave me confidence and money to start holding domains and go for domains expiring on platforms like godaddy, namejet and dropcatch.

An aged domain thats dropping may loose its age, but its still aged.

Hope you learn from gr8 suggestions by fellow domainers, theres plenty of gr8 advice on this thread.

Dont worry about xxxx sales, they will follow.

 

[NewDayBrand]

sz

I have been a part of the domaining industry for quite some time now. And this is something strange when I look at many people making a terrific amount of sales and it has been 3 years and I haven't made a four-figure sale.

While there have been tonnes of low three-figure sales and that has been my focus, there have been exactly 0 sales in the four-figures as much as I recall. I need your help in diagnosis if you will. There could be three reasons for this, I believe:

1) I do not own the right names that sell for 4-figures - So, my strategy has always been to take up some names (like 20-30), which would sell for low to mid $$$ and close them, as much as possible.

2) I do not price the names right - I dip my feet deep into .CO as well, but major sales were in mid-3-figures only, with the platform taking a chunk of it and I remained with whatever was left, in bits-and-pieces.

3) I never renew my domains (not even 1) - A third thing that I believe is going wrong with me, is not renewing the domain for another year, looking at the trade-offs. I look at domaining in a short-term perspective maybe, which is why four-figures are not coming my way. I usually think of it this way:

-- You renew a domain for say $15 which may not sell for another year or the year after that, whereas in promos, you may end up getting 7 domains for the same cost. The chances of selling 1 out of these 7 is still high for me, since the risk is diversified. And hence, it makes sense to diversify the risk

-- Another thought process I have, when I see a domainer invest $2k for a single domain name, is that how can someone be so sure that it is a good investment??

I have two questions:

1) Help me diagnose the problem in my thought process and investment strategy so that I get in that four-figure league ( I make good money from domaining but never good sales)
2) Help me understand, what gives people confidence to renew a domain or acquire something for a $2k price?

Hi bro,

Here is my modest opinion.

1. You know money going in and out is a good thing.. if you will sell for example 10 names for $xxx in a short period of time and 1 name for $xxxx in a very long period, it may be better to sell the 10 names.

2. Maybe the answer to your question is that it's related to the prices proposed by other sellers on the platforms you sell on, for example SH prices are in general between $1299 minimum with a discount and $2399, the same quality of names or even less quality on BB are listed for much higher prices.
this may be the reason.

what are the platforms you were the most able to sell on this 3 years?

Regards

 

[rajdomains]

Hi @abstractdomainer

I just want to share my domaining experience with you and maybe you found that useful.

I am doing domaining since 2011 and my 2nd 5 figure sale held last year (after 8 years of domaining).

At various blogs, we saw an article that a guy sold his domain for $xxxx or more which was being purchased for low $xxx but readers never think about the guy who sold the domain for 4 figures might be having 1000s of the domain which he/she renews every year.

As you stated you never renew the domain but mate I don't know any business which can be done without investment. You have to do an investment and make a strong portfolio.

When I have started domaining in 2011 then I don't have any knowledge of domaining and I belong from a small town in India where many peoples even don't know about a domain. But I was crazy for being a self-dependent.

I started registering expired domains and started selling at eBay. I have sold 8000+ domains worth $100,000. (From 2011 to 2015). I assume 95% of them are being sold to domainers. From 2016 I planned to sell domains to end users and sales decreased.

Selling domains to end-user is very hard and if you think you will keep 10 domains and you can sell 10 domains to end-user then it is very difficult.

So what I suggest you to become the successful domainer is...

1. Decide to whom you want to sell a domain - End-user or a domainer (I recommend domainer at the moment as you don't want to renew them).
2. Never overbid on a domain when buying from the auction.
3. Set a reasonable price for both end-user as well as a domainer.
4. Buy the right domain which you think you can renew if unsold.
5. Patience (Very Important).

I hope you will find the above information quite useful and really this thread is very useful for many unexperienced/experienced domainers.

Everyone can learn something for everyone...

Happy Domaining
Stay Safe!!

 

[bmugford]

Hi @abstractdomainer
At various blogs, we saw an article that a guy sold his domain for $xxxx or more which was being purchased for low $xxx but readers never think about the guy who sold the domain for 4 figures might be having 1000s of the domain which he/she renews every year.

I agree. I have said the same thing over and over. You have to account for all the domains you don't sell in a year, not just the ones you do sell.

As you stated you never renew the domain but mate I don't know any business which can be done without investment. You have to do an investment and make a strong portfolio.

Yep. Some of this just comes down to unrealistic expectations. Is it reasonable to be able to expect 4 figure sales on $5-$10 domains that were available in 2020 with 140M+ other .Com registered, while never renewing a domain? Not really.

Brad

 

[topdom]

I think 4 fgures are for flippers. Regular domainers sell to flippers only most of the time and in low2-low3 figure range. For example I received several low 3fig offers, and none was good enough, but after waiting for a while , I decided to "accept all", and what do you expect buyers to do: thank for the favor? No they assume I'm desparate, and drop their offer. This can only be explained by one thing: They are not real endusers. How to locate actual endusers behind those offers: I don't know.
.............
Sometimes flipper activity can be healthy. For example someone does ooutbounding for my domain, and offers half of what actual enduser is willing to pay. And if sold (in both places)
then I would get 50 (or 40) percent of actual selling price, but maybe otherwise I wouldn't be able to sell. If instead of a flipper offer, this is an investor offer, then probably I would be offered much less, because there is a risk of not being able to sell.
....
On the other hand popular registrars like Godaddy, 1and1 can theoretically abuse their popularity and act like brokers/flippers in most cases when there is an inquiry, and this would hurt both number and volume of sales significantly, unless endusers are smart and negotiate directly with actual sellers.

 

[manpreet]

I have been a part of the domaining industry for quite some time now. And this is something strange when I look at many people making a terrific amount of sales and it has been 3 years and I haven't made a four-figure sale.

While there have been tonnes of low three-figure sales and that has been my focus, there have been exactly 0 sales in the four-figures as much as I recall. I need your help in diagnosis if you will. There could be three reasons for this, I believe:

1) I do not own the right names that sell for 4-figures - So, my strategy has always been to take up some names (like 20-30), which would sell for low to mid $$$ and close them, as much as possible.

2) I do not price the names right - I dip my feet deep into .CO as well, but major sales were in mid-3-figures only, with the platform taking a chunk of it and I remained with whatever was left, in bits-and-pieces.

3) I never renew my domains (not even 1) - A third thing that I believe is going wrong with me, is not renewing the domain for another year, looking at the trade-offs. I look at domaining in a short-term perspective maybe, which is why four-figures are not coming my way. I usually think of it this way:

-- You renew a domain for say $15 which may not sell for another year or the year after that, whereas in promos, you may end up getting 7 domains for the same cost. The chances of selling 1 out of these 7 is still high for me, since the risk is diversified. And hence, it makes sense to diversify the risk

-- Another thought process I have, when I see a domainer invest $2k for a single domain name, is that how can someone be so sure that it is a good investment??

I have two questions:

1) Help me diagnose the problem in my thought process and investment strategy so that I get in that four-figure league ( I make good money from domaining but never good sales)
2) Help me understand, what gives people confidence to renew a domain or acquire something for a $2k price?

I only find number 3 as a problem. Must renew or at least keep checking which of your dropped names got registered at once. Just my two cents.

 

[Knup Solutions]

It is likely a combination of all those things.

1.) You won't get any 4 figure sales unless you ask 4 figure prices.

2.) You won't get consistent 4 figure sales unless you have domains that appeal to end users.

3.) By not renewing any domain you are getting rid of the time value. Even great domains can take many years to find the right buyer.

Other things that could effect this are -

• Asking prices.
• Negotiation skills.
• The extension. It is always going to be easier to sell quality .COM.
  
• Is the domain listed on popular venues? Is it easy for the potential buyer to find?
• Does the domain have a large enough pool of potential buyers?

To me the fundamental business model is likely flawed. Just taking low quality, low price domains because they are available and not renewing any has limited upside.

There are not a lot of good domains available to hand register in 2020, especially in .COM with 140M+ registered.

I generally only buy domains I am willing to renew since time value is a major part in the equation. Still, then you need to cover the expenses of all the domains that don't sell in a given year as well.

With an average sell through rate of around 1-2% you need both quality and quantity to make steady passive sales in a higher price range.

I would re-invest some of your sales into higher quality domains on the aftermarket. Then you are likely to see better results.

Brad

Well said, Brad

 

[Keen]

Monitor the traffic on your Domains!
The domains that I pay good money for GET TRAFFIC!
Buy quality. Dump your garbage and know what qualifies as a good name.
If you get something that somebody else wants (not what You want), you will see your 4 ,5 and 6 figure sales.
Also, do not price your Domains so low.
There are too many domainers desperate for sales that price great names for a few thousand $$.
Do not do it!

If you need money so badly borrow from a friend/family or sell your body, etc.

 

[dombastic]

I just paid mid $X,XXX for a top quality single word .ORG last month

Why?

 

[Kazzia]

Some really good advice here. I would say add an "M" for starters. The .co is a pale comparison to the .com.

Sounds like you are hand-registering - can do but very difficult. Better to pay up on a much better name, and keep it for a few years if you believe in it. Make sure they have enough exposure - list on Afternic (even though they have sucked the last 6 months) and make sure they have a nice landing page - I am trying Uniregistry - those look decent. And price them right - aim a bit higher.

Finally, there is a money and luck factor. It is better to have deep pockets and be average in your buying and selling skills, than on a tight budget and excellent otherwise, IMO. Also, IMO at least half of the success is pure luck. Without an end-user that wants to pay up, your only buyers are way back down at wholesale level, which is your buying point. What confuses me is that I have excellent .com names that are taken and used in many extensions, and no interest over the years, and in contacting them, they are fine with their three word name, or their .online or some crap. Meanwhile, the names I bought years ago that are on my drop list sell as good as any. Sometimes, I can buy a name for $50 and days later someone does a BIN at $2500. Skill? Maybe a little - a good name can be recognized. But 99% of that is just pure luck.

P.S. IMO GD aftermarket prices are out of control these days. I have always been buying a couple names a week on average. This year, I have got maybe two this whole year. Most prices sell for full retail or more than retail. How can that be sustainable?

 

[AgentE13]

Don't expect someone to pay you 4 figures if you don't think your domain is worth renewal.

I think you should get more quality names instead of quantity.

You will get many more queries, and the renewal price will be much less.

Imagine having 10 good domains (10 X 15 = 150$ / year for renewal) instead of 500 hand regs or poor quality domains.

 

[Steve Andersen]

I started my domaining journey less than 1 year ago. I did like most and hand registered a bunch of junk.. Most that I’ll put to nameliquidate as they get close to expiry.

About 90% of my domains are now .com’s. The rest are, .io .co .org. net or .xyz. I have I think 2 .tops, 1 .best and 1 .live, but these are domain hacks.

When I first started I was looking for parking revenue and I learned really quickly not really worth it, at least not on domains I had.

So I started on brandable domains. These are generally low cost, can be picked up in domain auctions and close outs fairly cheap. I now have about 615 on BrandBucket and 55 on SH. Since my quest started I have had 3 end user sales $1575, $4155, & $10075. These are all before commissions. I could have had a couple more but turned down offers, and I had a buyer on another on Dan not follow through on another. These do sell, but they are slow. People that are extremely successful in theses spaces build very large portfolios, that over time pay off. But this is not a get rich quick approach. If your average acquisition cost is $20-$25. Per domain, a 1000 domain portfolio will set you back $20-$25K to get there. But once there it would not be unreasonable to sell 10-20 a year with a 1000 domain portfolio. Many guys side hustle small domain sales like your doing to fund building these branding portfolios. Once listed in a market place your domain pretty much has a liquid value of 1% if recommend listing price if you want to sell out to another domainer on the market place.

So with this type of sales you will have high commissions and renewal costs. Holding 1000 domains will cost around $8500 per year in renewals, If you net 2K after commissions on an average sale you could expect to make. $11,300 - $31,100 a year after renewals, commissions, and restocking sold domains. Scale up another 1000 domains and you can expect it to double accordingly. Again higher quality names will have higher sales prices.

Getting 1000 domains on a brandable market place is not easy. They typically only approve 10% of those submitted, over time as you get better with submissions you may get 25-40% approved. So what do you do with the ones that don’t make it. If you liked them enough to get in the first place hold them and put on aftermarket market places. My first sale was rejected by both BrandBucket and SquadHelp. So they will still sell, but you will do far better selling them if they are priced. The sweet spot for these are generally $2000-$3000.

But as my journey in domaining is progressing I find myself buying much more expensive names. I believe these have multiple benefits but will let others chime in. Closeouts are pretty much left overs that most domain investors did not want. You can find winners in there, but they were ones many other domaines passed on. So these are harder to unload and recoup your costs if you need to liquidate. Higher end Generic, Exact Match, or 4L. Have great rates of returns, and are much easier to liquidate if need be and recuperate 80% or more of your costs if not still make a profit. But if you own $20K in these with average cost of $500 your holding cost is only about $340 a year vs $8500 for a 1000 domain portfolio.

So for me I am slowly building my portfolio with better names non brandables but will also slowly build my brandables.

 

[Coindoji]

This all nice and dendy, the biggest obstacle and actually deal here is to determine the value of domains, you do it right, some do it wrong. I, for example, would not pay a reg fee on 95% of those domains, and you make a living off those .

So, it's all about spotting a good name or a name that at least have some potential. InsuranceGrades, FundingWhale, BotCoin.co(I would drop even .com)... I mean, congratulations on that skill, I'm just stupid not to spot values

 

[Mytz.com]

Thank you for sharing

 

[Israel Ebenezer]

Monitor the traffic on your Domains!
The domains that I pay good money for GET TRAFFIC!
Buy quality. Dump your garbage and know what qualifies as a good name.
If you get something that somebody else wants (not what You want), you will see your 4 ,5 and 6 figure sales.
Also, do not price your Domains so low.
There are too many domainers desperate for sales that price great names for a few thousand $$.
Do not do it!

If you need money so badly borrow from a friend/family or sell your body, etc.

 

[othellotech]

3) I never renew my domains (not even 1) - A third thing that I believe is going wrong with me, is not renewing the domain for another year, looking at the trade-offs. I look at domaining in a short-term perspective maybe, which is why four-figures are not coming my way. I usually think of it this way:

I can recall immediately some "interesting" sales where we'd had the domain for less than a year, and some db querying shows there have been 36 in total of 4+ figures.

One was a pair of names dropcatched (2 alternate spellings) which I felt were usable. Not initially for resale.

Contacted within days of parking it by someone who had been chasing one of them for years - in retrospect should have asked more than I did but 1k for the pair, was a quick 4000% profit

The one that still annoys me several years on was an auction win, and whilst waiting for the ability to transfer (due to "auction-lock"), the registrar took the domain out of our account and changed the nameservers on it *without even contacting us* - when queried they claimed they'd been told it was stolen.

Registrar, IP and WHOIS history and some investigation showed not only had we not done any such thing, the people we'd bought it from, had picked it up from the registrars own expired domain system as they sold rather than deleting them. Long story cut short, a previous registration of the domain had been in the name of this company claiming ownership, but that was years prior, and it had dropped, been re-registered, not-renewed again and sold on (twice) since then - so not even the "original" domain as such !

Where that could have been a simple margin-over-cost flip due to "oops we'd lost
our domain due to whatever, I see you now own a matching domain, can we buy it from you ?" conversation (which happen every now and then) due to starting with the bullcarp, once I managed to get the domain back (and then separately get them to unlock it so I could make changes to it) instead of being happy if it would get 5-ish, I started with the "you gave me agro, so now it's 25 grand" pricepoint

I used them as an example in a talk, and when doing the prep looked at the whois etc to grab some dates - it was showing a hugedomains landing page so not managed properly post acquisition !

Back on topic...

I do "prune" regularly as well as do new registrations and direct acquisitions - regular 3, 4 and 5 figure sales come from combinations of inbound enquires, own websites, custom landing pages, as well as 3rd-party platforms - been very impressed with DomainAgents who contacted me regarding a domain owned for a while that had been earmarked for a project but not started on - all done-and-dusted in 8 days from initial contact to domain paid and gone

The average age of a domain we've sold is ...

SELECT COUNT(*), SUM( TIMESTAMPDIFF (YEAR, registrationdate, expirydate) ) AS age FROM domains WHERE status="Sold";
| count(*) | age  |
+----------+------+
|      679 | 5015 |

Looks like about 8 years old on average to me

WHERE status="Sold" AND TIMESTAMPDIFF (YEAR, registrationdate, expirydate)=0;
| count(*) |
+----------+
|      107 |
+----------+

So 1/6th of sales are domains less than a year old, but the average price across all of those shows as ~315

Slightly scarier is the number in the drop table of 12281 - that's about 150k in regfees (let alone all the renewal fees) on domains that didnt sell