domains A quick chat with the Queen of .xyz on her 2021 sales, outbound and more

[equity78]

In this interview we hear from Swetha on her 2021 total sales, whether she does outbound on any sales, and what she plans to do with the profits.​

Q1) It was July of 2020 when I first interviewed you, back then you said you had 13000 domains, Among them 90% are .xyz. Can you tell us what that number is today? Swetha) I have around 19K .xyz domains and I have been renewing all except a few 100. Q2) You have certainly had […]
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[equity78]

Thank you to @DNGear for taking the time.

 

[DNGear]

Thanks Raymond.

 

[Jimmysun]

Very good interview

 

[BRANDERX]

She can probably be as successful & make as much with fewer names. Renewals are just awful.

imo

 

[alcy]

She can probably be as successful & make as much with fewer names. Renewals are just awful.

imo

actually that's the thing. she cannot. her strategy and success relies entirely on huge folio and monopoly of all good and decent 1worders.

this is why she says she renews basically all things.

 

[Charybdis]

@DNGear I noticed that you had been using Alter.com for your landing pages, but now you reverted back do Dan. What's the reason?

I tried to buy one of your .xyz domains on Dan and here is what I got on the checkout page, on the very last step:

bank transfer - 1% discount
AliPay - 1% surcharge
credit card - 2% surcharge

I tried two domains: the first domain is 1995 USD, the second domain is 39888 USD. I received these same discounts or fees in both cases. And the buyers will only see these fees or discounts on the very last step, not on the landing page and not on the first checkout page.

Sure, the potential buyer gets 1% discount when paying by bank transfer, that is a good thing. But how many buyers pay by bank transfer?

But there is 1-2% surcharge in case of credit card payment. Isn't it harming your sales?

For example, in the case of the 39888 USD domain, the surcharge is 797.76 USD when paying by credit card. But at least in the case of bank transfer, there is 398.88 USD discount. However the bank transfer is usually not cheap, so paying 39888 USD by bank transfer usually costs a lot.

On Alter the commission is 10% but there is no surcharge, and no discount in case of bank transfer. As a domain buyer I would hate hidden surprise fees.

I am just curious about your choice of the landing pages.

 

[endas2022]

great interview

 

[DNGear]

@DNGear I noticed that you had been using Alter.com for your landing pages, but now you reverted back do Dan. What's the reason?

I tried to buy one of your .xyz domains on Dan and here is what I got on the checkout page, on the very last step:

bank transfer - 1% discount
AliPay - 1% surcharge
credit card - 2% surcharge

I tried two domains: the first domain is 1995 USD, the second domain is 39888 USD. I received these same discounts or fees in both cases. And the buyers will only see these fees or discounts on the very last step, not on the landing page and not on the first checkout page.

Sure, the potential buyer gets 1% discount when paying by bank transfer, that is a good thing. But how many buyers pay by bank transfer?

But there is 1-2% surcharge in case of credit card payment. Isn't it harming your sales?

For example, in the case of the 39888 USD domain, the surcharge is 797.76 USD when paying by credit card. But at least in the case of bank transfer, there is 398.88 USD discount. However the bank transfer is usually not cheap, so paying 39888 USD by bank transfer usually costs a lot.

On Alter the commission is 10% but there is no surcharge, and no discount in case of bank transfer. As a domain buyer I would hate hidden surprise fees.

I am just curious about your choice of the landing pages.

@DAN.COM @LaszloSchenk

 

[DNGear]

@DNGear I noticed that you had been using Alter.com for your landing pages, but now you reverted back do Dan. What's the reason?

I tried to buy one of your .xyz domains on Dan and here is what I got on the checkout page, on the very last step:

bank transfer - 1% discount
AliPay - 1% surcharge
credit card - 2% surcharge

I tried two domains: the first domain is 1995 USD, the second domain is 39888 USD. I received these same discounts or fees in both cases. And the buyers will only see these fees or discounts on the very last step, not on the landing page and not on the first checkout page.

Sure, the potential buyer gets 1% discount when paying by bank transfer, that is a good thing. But how many buyers pay by bank transfer?

But there is 1-2% surcharge in case of credit card payment. Isn't it harming your sales?

For example, in the case of the 39888 USD domain, the surcharge is 797.76 USD when paying by credit card. But at least in the case of bank transfer, there is 398.88 USD discount. However the bank transfer is usually not cheap, so paying 39888 USD by bank transfer usually costs a lot.

On Alter the commission is 10% but there is no surcharge, and no discount in case of bank transfer. As a domain buyer I would hate hidden surprise fees.

I am just curious about your choice of the landing pages.

Alter is a good marketplace. No doubt.
Issue which i found was their extensive promotion towards brandable .com's. I never see any .xyz on their front page.

 

[DAN.COM]

@DAN.COM @LaszloSchenk

Thanks for tagging us here @DNGear. The post seems more like advertising for another platform as we do not spot a question for us to answer.

What we can share with you is that since Dan 2.0 has gone live in mid-July of 2021 that we increased our # of parked domains by just 15% while increasing the marketplace revenue by +200%.

And if we stick to the facts, Dan sellers are now selling more domains for higher prices than before our checkout revamp.

 

[equity78]

Thanks for tagging us here @DNGear. The post seems more like advertising for another platform as we do not spot a question for us to answer.

What we can share with you is that since Dan 2.0 has gone live in mid-July of 2021 that we increased our # of parked domains by just 15% while increasing the marketplace revenue by +200%.

And if we stick to the facts, Dan sellers are now selling more domains for higher prices than before our checkout revamp.

If I am spending $10,000 it's going bank transfer and the discount appreciated. A lot of places won't even take a credit card for $39,888.

 

[BrandBoogie]

Great article! Congrats Swetha - @DNGear - on your success! You have always been a very big inspiration for me. I had always wondered if most of your sales are BIN. If so how do you come up with your prices?

 

[Charybdis]

Alter is a good marketplace. No doubt.
Issue which i found was their extensive promotion towards brandable .com's. I never see any .xyz on their front page.

Show attachment 204920

Yeah I'm not saying that Dan is bad, this 1% discount in case of bank transfer is a good thing for sure. I just don't like this 2% credit card surcharge, but this is just my personal preference. Maybe the 1% bank transfer discount is so enticing for the potential buyers, that overall even with this 2% credit card surcharge, this 1% bank transfer discount increases the sales. But it's also possible that the 2% credit card surcharge harms the sales. I don't know, I don't have the data.

 

[DNGear]

Great article! Congrats Swetha - @DNGear - on your success! You have always been a very big inspiration for me. I had always wondered if most of your sales are BIN. If so how do you come up with your prices?

More than 90% would be BIN's only.
Price depends on multiple factors.
I just check each and every keyword for their popularity. I mean how many extensions it was registered. Any other popular extensions sold? if not how much they priced it?

 

[NickB]

Thanks for tagging us here @DNGear. The post seems more like advertising for another platform as we do not spot a question for us to answer.

What we can share with you is that since Dan 2.0 has gone live in mid-July of 2021 that we increased our # of parked domains by just 15% while increasing the marketplace revenue by +200%.

And if we stick to the facts, Dan sellers are now selling more domains for higher prices than before our checkout revamp.

Comparing 2 different platforms and asking about someone's preference is not advertising.........

 

[Start]

Thanks for tagging us here @DNGear. The post seems more like advertising for another platform as we do not spot a question for us to answer.

What we can share with you is that since Dan 2.0 has gone live in mid-July of 2021 that we increased our # of parked domains by just 15% while increasing the marketplace revenue by +200%.

And if we stick to the facts, Dan sellers are now selling more domains for higher prices than before our checkout revamp.

The hidden fees are a real problem with Dan.com... please make the fees clearer at Dan.com's FAQ/guide page.

You have a great sale system overall, but it helps if the fees are made clear to people, so that they can factor it into their calculations for how to do the sale, and what the profit will be.


Dan.com doesn't mention the extra 1% or 2% (or 1% wire transfer discount) anywhere on its pages... and for a sale over $1500, apparently PayPal isn't possible at Dan.com, so it has to be an extra 2% by credit card. Or else wire transfer, but that's not practical for a sale at $2000 to $3000, because it probably ends up costing more than credit card and is a lot slower.


However, at this page https://dan.com/help_center , it says:

"Are there any hidden costs, beyond the yearly registration of the domain?
No, at Dan.com we care about transparency and never add any additional fees or costs."

But they are hidden, because no one is told about it beforehand. I only found out because of reading about it at NamePros this year. A lot of people still don't know - I mentioned the extra fees in another post a few months ago, and people didn't understand:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/if...ill-dan-show-my-profile.1251138/#post-8386549


When I first did a sale through Dan.com, the buyer later said the total was more than he had expected, and I didn't know why.

And when negotiating, sometimes to simplify the amounts for the buyer, as a seller I may say that I will cover the escrow fees too, so that $X is the total for the buyer. And if sellers don't know about the extra fees, that's a problem.


If you could also find a way to send PayPal payouts over $2000 without charging extra, that would be very helpful too.

But I do the like functionality of your platform... but it would be helpful if fees were made clear so that people can take it into consideration. People will be happy to learn about the 1% wire transfer discount as well!


---

Also, regarding this thread, congratulations to DNGear! I don't understand why people pay so much for .xyz, but your sales are very impressive!

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Nice interview. There is a difference between .com and .xyz though just wanted to throw that out there, there is no "truth" other than that you have to own enough domains of high enough quality in the right extensions to turn a profit.

This is certainly the right extension for the crypto niche by the looks of things, very lucky and riding the luck by following what works is a good strategy as long as you're making money.

All the best.

 

[karamakate]

Swetha: I knew, there isn’t any difference between a .com and a .xyz

You know nothing.

 

[Deven Patel]

Alter is a good marketplace. No doubt.
Issue which i found was their extensive promotion towards brandable .com's. I never see any .xyz on their front page.

Thanks for the feedback and for using Alter in the past. Much appreciated!

I just wanted to clarify that we treat all extensions equally on our marketplace. Our smart search algorithm ranks names based on buyer feedback just like Google (SEO). Those names on our front page are the top X% of our inventory. It looks like you had some greats names and some of them could've eventually made it onto our homepage with enough time (it takes at least a few weeks for our algorithm to collect and assess buyer signals).

Buyers also enter our marketplace from many different entry points. The homepage is probably the least popular. In case you didn't know, there's a traffic breakdown chart on your Alter dashboard that shows you exactly how much traffic our marketplace generated for your portfolio compared to direct/type-in traffic. I just took a quick peek at your data and it seems like we actually generated about 14% more traffic to your portfolio. That's no small feat. And that number would've gone up as our algorithm had more time to assess your names.

Anyway, best of luck with your portfolio! With a lot of the .com inventory being out of circulation, .xyz seems like a great alternative. Kudos for having the foresight to bet on this extension early.

 

[marijuanadomain]

Hope the Domain King invites the XYZ Queen for X-Mas dinner-talk about pigeon shit domains

 

[blogspotter]

Congrats Shwetha..


When I started domaining last year, I studied the sales and portfolio of several veteran domainers who I considered intelligent. You were one of those. And you being so kind as to share all your sales and your portfolio, your model was the one that gave me the most insights.

But I just wanted to thank you for generously sharing your Data.

Because of what I learnt from you and other domainers who generously shared information; ever since my first sale las last in November 2020, I have also crossed 6 figures in 1 year, which is very small compared to yours, but I am really happy with my result. Hoping to have a much better 2022..


This is your year and now with Block.xyz on the block, the future is looking really bright for you.

Wish you an even brighter future..

 

[bmugford]

You know nothing.

I would not go that far, but to say there is nothing different between a .com and a .xyz is kinda silly. I could say there is no difference between .xyz and .horse as they both work the same way.

There is no comparison to .com when it comes to value, demand, usage, awareness, etc. No other extension is close.

I am glad you are doing well with .xyz. Your sales have obviously been impressive.

I am still waiting for someone else to replicate it though as when only a handful of parties seem to be doing well, I question how deep the demand for the extension actually is.

Brad

 

[blogspotter]

You all are missing the point. What she means by that is the .xyz is a generic TLD like .com and .net and not one of the specific ones.

If she should xyz as the same as .com she won't be selling her ultra premium SLDS for 5 figures. She would be pricing them at 7 figures, or going by her pricing, she would be pricing them at high 8s.

 

[Haroon Basha]

Highly inspiring indeed. Thank you Raymond and Swetha.