new gtlds Analysis of ngTLD Sales

[Bob Hawkes]

I just released my fourth (monthly) analysis of NameBio reported ngTLD sales. This was another huge month for .top, but .app also did very well for such a new extension, snagging two of the top five sales in the 30 day period. Here are the highlights.

During the monthly period ending June 22, 2018 there were

• 104 recorded ngTLD domain name sales;
• The average sales price was about $3450, while the median price was $1580;
• In terms of major sales, 8 were for $10,000 or more;
• The highest price sales in this period were bz.top for $53,904, RN.app for $15,000, host.app for $14,162 bet.top for $13,861 and ttt.top for $13,130;
• There were sales in 16 different extensions during the reporting period;

The complete report with commentary, links (to sources and the previous three similar analysis reports) and a list of all extensions sold during the 30 day period is available here:

https://agreatnameforyou.blogspot.com/2018/06/ngtld-sales-report-may-23-june-22-2018.html

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

+ use WHOIS...
Very helpful tool to distinguish "regs" and "aftermarket sales".
In most cases I can determine them even without WHOIS.

You are talking about TLD where domainers are just spectators.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

+ there are many Chinese newbies with cryptoincome...
They don't know how to reinvest their money and burn it by regging Premium .TOPs...

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

They also like to burn it with .online except Premiums... because .online requires the same premium fee yearly.
With .TOP Premiums - renewal is standard.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

WHOIS is the best information source to get what is going...
When you research it continiously and daily - you have chances to avoid mistakes and to make money...

For me NameBio is already like Estibot... just for fun.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

So if an average domain investor holds say 500 new TLD domains across dozens of extensions but none of them are five character or less .TOP domains what does their cash flow probably look like?

X sales at median price of $xxx per sale
500 renewals at average cost of $xx per domain
Net cash flow?

The comparison to .Net and .Org is interesting. I still hold dozens of .Net domains. I think I sold one last year for low $XXX but it has an original registration date from the late 90s. The last year I had a net addition of .Net registrations to my portfolio was likely 2008 ( every year since more drops than adds). The last year I had a net addition of .TV domains to my portfolio was likely 2012 (since then occasional adds but far more drops as $30 renewals consume the rare sale).

I like the way you posed this @garptrader - I think you have hit on various key ideas, sales as fraction of a portfolio, how many years typically hold, sales prices and renewals are all important factors. Registry sales and premium renewals complicate the calculation, of course. I may try to do a more quantitative calculation, but I suspect numbers would show that a net sale would be more likely, when registry values excluded from ngTLD sales the average price would be same order of magnitude or slightly favour ngTLDs, renewal costs (once premiums excluded if no registry sales counted) would be pretty similar when averaged over holding time if the investor seeks the best renewal deals, and that overall it is better ROI to invest in net or org but the new extensions would be within a factor of 2 or 3 when everything is factored in. An earlier calculation I did trying to work in most of these factors found that ROI is maybe 40% for new extensions compared to all (mainly com) - I think uncertainty in some factors means it might really be 20% or maybe 50%. Thanks again for a concise, clear, insightful comment.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Regarding sales under $500...
This can be done with any traditional domains... for such results - nTLDs are not needed at all.

I agree that the median prices in both legacy and new (and many 'general') country code are similar. A domain investor might therefore, I agree, say why not simply stay with what I know. I think that is a totally smart move for many domainers, probably the majority. Of course the same argument could be held for all sorts of other extensions such as .io, .co, .pro etc. that many find to be worthwhile investments.

But just because the median prices are similar, most a bit under $500 as you say, does not necessarily mean that end users, and therefor domainers might want to consider new extensions. Early in 2018 I laid out 12 reasons in this post in case interested.

Thanks for your comment, @Jurgen Wolf - at least they keep the thread in the active list , and multiple viewpoints are always worthwhile!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

For me NameBio is already like Estibot... just for fun.

I disagree with this so strongly that I am lost for words!

Yes, NameBio has well recognized biases because certain venues list and others don't, it generally under represents private sales, it does not include sales less than $100, a few registries report premiums and most do not, etc.

But it does have a wealth of daily updated sales data from many of the most important venues. It is trivial to search in powerful ways, it easily gives statistics. In minutes I can see if words starting or ending a certain way have sold, and where and when and for how much.

I am so grateful to Michael and his team for creating such a fantastic tool, and making it readily available to us all, free! I do accept that in any field, there are multiple sources of information, some quantitative and some qualitative. These should not be discounted, but nor should a widely used, long term, powerful database of domain sales value.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

You are doing statistics or domaining???

If only statistics - then Yes, NameBio is completely enough.
But if you want to live from domaining - you should research the domains in other ways, via various methods...
Even information from parking (traffic) is very valuable in terms of analysis...

 

[Bob Hawkes]

You are doing statistics or domaining???

If only statistics - then Yes, NameBio is completely enough.
But if you want to live from domaining - you should research the domains in other ways, via various methods...
Even information from parking (traffic) is very valuable in terms of analysis...

I agree - in fact in a recent post on NamePros I say this "My main advice is to be cautious of placing too much emphasis on any single aspect of a domain name, but rather research it based on multiple criteria."
When evaluating a domain name, whether for potential purchase or setting a price or for arguments in a negotiation, I feel that it is important to look at potential users and uses, history, similar sales, NameBio stats, aesthetics of the word, Google search data, advertiser CPC etc, name uniqueness, new social or technological trends that might influence the value, etc.

The title of this thread is ANALYSIS so I think using NameBio statistics is relevant! I see the purpose of analysis as partly to see if there are trends that may be beneficial to domain investors. Yes, there are always biases in any dataset, even errors most of the time. But refusing to use data will be bad for the domain community for at least two reasons.

1. We will miss seeing changes in the landscape, such as which types of domains are now selling more often and for more, and which are not showing any sales. We make uninformed investment decisions.
2. Spending by businesses on quality domains will be more common when the topic of digital asset worth receives more attention in university and college business courses. That will happen more if there is additional analysis and other forms of scholarly commentary. I know that may not seem important to those needing to make sales, but in the long run the domain industry will be stronger, and there will be more high value sales, when there is more treatment of domain names in the education of those who lead startups, manage businesses, work as consultants, marketing or advertising/branding.

Thanks again for your post, @Jurgen Wolf

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Also keep in mind the following, starting from this post:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/the-pro-discussion.522420/page-303#post-6863855

 

[robert widener]

great read

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Regular inbound inquiries only on .life
Very low conversion with other nTLDs...
From my own experience.

 

[vravis9]

@MetBob I should say you are doing great work here... putting all stats of ngTLD..that gives clear of monthly sales...

Thanks for gining your time for this...

I will look forward for each month updates...

 

[Bob Hawkes]

@MetBob I should say you are doing great work here... putting all stats of ngTLD..that gives clear of monthly sales...

Thanks for gining your time for this...

I will look forward for each month updates...

Thank you for your generous comments, @vravis9. I will have the next monthly report up very soon, hopefully today. The next one expands analysis to look at the type of ngTLD names selling (e.g. fraction short vs single word vs longer) and also a bit closer look at venues. It will show a month of mixed messages - more sales but lower average prices. Details soon!

 

[vravis9]

(e.g. fraction short vs single word vs longer) and also a bit closer look at venues

That will be great... I wish all sales data is made available without omitting any platform...lack of this definitely making the data half reliable!
...also I wish all sales from brandable market places are updated on NameBio or anywhere else...mainly we need total sales numbers and comparison between these market places...as far I know nothing is available like this.

Thanks

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I have just posted the new monthly ngTLD sales analysis (covers Aug 23 - Sept 22, 2018 inclusive), based on NameBio sales information. While number of sales is up (but see Note 1 in full report) as well as number of extensions with sales, the average price is considerably down, as is the number of major sales and the total dollar volume.

Here is the summary:

• 313 NameBio recorded ngTLD domain name sales in the 30 day period, with $198,500 total sale volume (Although see Note 1).
• The average sales price was $634. The median price was roughly $198.
• In terms of major sales, 3 were for $10,000 or more 30 were for $1000 or more.
• There were sales during the month in 46 different extensions, the most since I started these reports. Ten different extensions had 10 or more sales in the month.
• The highest sale during the month was AD.top which sold for $32,232. AR.studio at $15,495 and transparency.online at $10,000 took second and third places.
• There were ngTLD domain sales during the month at 10 different venues. Flippa had the highest number of sales, but Jiangsu Bangning had the highest sales volume. Sedo took third place in sales volume.
• For the 100 highest value sales in the month: 12% were 3 letter (or less), 32% were single word, 36% were two word, 3% were three word, and 17% were other.
• Registries accounted for just over 40% of the dollar volume of these sales, but less than 10% of the number of sales this month (Note 3).
• So far in 2018 there have been 1120 ngTLD sales in total listed on NameBio, with an average sales price of $3743, accounting for a total of $4.2 million sales volume.

A few of the names sold in the last 30 days that I personally liked (in no particular order): ticket_city, games_business, smile_direct, AR_studio, a_company, Mr_glass, biomedicine_online, Chelsa_fun, wonder_top and Plato_top. I think these, and a number of other sales, do a great job of congruence between the name and the extension. Interestingly some of these such as ticket_city went for deal prices imho. The most valuable domain name sold in this period in my opinion? Probably AR_studio (although in terms of price it was second). Clearly the names smile_direct and Mr_glass have great value to one or a few specific end users. I like the idea of Chelsea_fun, even though the price was modest. I think it could be a model for effective use of this relatively new extension.

When I was doing the venue part of the analysis I realized that GoDaddy had only a single ngTLD sale during the reporting period! So many legacy sales are there, and I believe they routinely report to NameBio, so why is it not a venue for ngTLD sales? I also looked at Sedo over the years in ngTLDs. There is a trend toward higher prices (slightly) and higher volume of sales. For example at Sedo alone this year there are 132 sales with $4124 average price 2018YTD and total volume $544k. The 2017 average was $3939 and 2016 was $2473.

The full report, including notes on limitations, methodology, possible problems, etc. is available at the following link. If you scroll to near bottom of each report I give links to all previous reports in one place for those who wish to do comparisons.

https://agreatnameforyou.blogspot.com/2018/09/new-extension-sales-analysis-aug-23.html

The next report will be out in the last week of October, and will cover the period ending Oct 22. Note that the analysis includes all sales reported in NameBio during the period, but does not include any other ngTLD sales even if reported on reputable sources. Please do keep in mind which venues do, and do not, report to NameBio in considering the report.

Read the small print on the full report but essentially this is for educational purposes, should not be considered domain investment advice, and is offered without warranty and you are responsible for your own domain investment decisions. As always, I am so appreciative to Michael and the folks at NameBio for making such an awesome database of information available to us all.

Take care and have a good day, NPs friends.

Bob

 

[vravis9]

Thanks @MetBob

Sedo over the years in ngTLDs. There is a trend toward higher prices

Few days ago I was going through NameBio sales data for each venue separately...
I was checking number of sales till date and total dollar volume and average price per name...
Sedo was on top of all platforms in terms of average price... usually when you see a big price sale it's most often occured on Sedo..

The only reported higher sales than Sedo is private sales!!

And this is applicable for all extensions...

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I seem to hex the ngTLDs as just after my sales report we had two days in a row with not a single NameBio reported ngTLD sale!.

Past week has been one of the quietest in months for new extension domain sales. Just 9 sales in NameBio database over 5 extensions (top, xyz, online, app, plus) across 5 different venues (West, Sedo, Flippa, Alibaba Cloud, Jiangsu Bangning), $780 average selling price, range $117 to $1341.

https://namebio.com/?s==UDN1gjN3gTM

Does anyone know if the .global registry have stopped reporting to NameBio? They typically had 12 or so major sales per month, but the last was Aug 12 and not a single report since then on NameBio.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I will be posting the new monthly analysis of ngTLD sales in just over a week. Unless the rate picks up in this last week, it looks like this will be the lowest month in a bit. The $57,500 sale of design in .online is the leader so far in the month (Sept 24 sale). It turns out that it and king (also in .online, but a few days before so not in this report) were both sold, and are in use, by the same Australian based company. Although through Sedo, these were Radix registry sales. Dynadot has emerged as one of the more active marketplaces for ngTLD sales. I will provide the numbers when I do the next report. Anyway, stay tuned!
Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I have posted the new monthly analysis of ngTLD sales. It was a quiet month (over the 8 months I have done these analyses the average is about 120 sales per month, and this one was 67) although dollar volume not much changed.

• 67 NameBio recorded ngTLD sales in the 30 day period, with $180,800 total sale volume.
• The average sales price was $2955. The median price was $801.
• In terms of major sales, 1 was > $50,000, 8 were > $5000 and 29 > $1000.
• Sales in 22 different extensions.
• There were ngTLD domain sales during the month at 11 different venues. Dynadot had the largest number of sales (25) followed by Alibaba Cloud (15).
• Registries accounted for almost 64% of dollar volume, but less than 19% by number.

The full report is at this link, and includes a list of all extensions sold, some of my favourite names sold, the highest price sales, etc.

Since the last report I have started writing regularly for NameTalent. I did a report there as well looking at the monthly sales analysis, however from the perspective of what actionable items might we take from it to guide our domain name investing. Here are a few of the items covered, but please go to the full report at the link below for the full picture.

What types of ngTLD domain names sell?
"In terms of the types of domain names that sold: 69% were single word, 14% were short (defined as 3 or fewer characters), and 9% were geographical." The geographical were all Asia based. There were 3 adult names a couple of number (or mixed) domains. Quality words that match the extension dominate ngTLD sales, and in general that is what you should invest in (although it is true that a few 2 and 3 word do sell, as in the AirConditioning a few months ago).

What venues are getting more active in ngTLD sales?
The big change this month from last was that Dynadot got significantly more active and Flippa less. Sedo continue to have sales each month, often for excellent prices. I am personally going to transfer some registrations to Dynadot and try selling at their marketplace. Remember that Undeveloped, Efty, and most registrar marketplaces do not report to NameBio.

How is the year 2018 shaping up? Do the ngTLDs have momentum or is interest waning?
This month was down slightly, but overall it looks like 2018 will be not much different than 2017 and 2016 in number and sales volume. See details in report.

Should you invest in ngTLDs?
Please check out what I say in the report!

Here is the link to the full NameTalent post and it also includes links to all 8 monthly analyses of ngTLD sales. As always, thanks for reading, and welcome your comments, here or there.

https://nametalent.com/2018/10/recent-new-extensions-domain-sales-actionable-insights/

I will issue the next analysis about the end of November.

Happy domain name investing, everyone!

Bob