eBay as domain selling platform

[larryhg]

Hi fellows,

I'm trying for first time to sell a domain of my portfolio over eBay, it's "hollywood-stories.com". A free appraisal estimated it's value at between 50k and 75k, although I'm selling it from 40k (and probably will lower it, depends). I won't post the URL to the auction, as that would be kind of spamming and I've already posted the proper announcement in the right forum (external auctions one).

How's your experience working with eBay and escrow.com?
What's the recommended min. bid setting for a mid-high profile domain name?
Ever sold a domain name over eBay for more than 10k?
Any recommendation?

Many thanks in advance,
cheers.

 

[cache]

are you using fixed price?

I think high price like yours may not be the best to use ebay.

 

[End User King]

Listen to JP. I was in an auction alongside him a while back with a different name. Only thing is mine's only did $800, while this dude this $15,000+.

Helps to have 2-3 character dns. Btw...who appraised the domain of yours, not that it's bad or nothing.

 

[larryhg]

No fixed price, I'm open to any serious offers in fact, even out of eBay (of course taking the auction down and paying the fee, fortunately eBay is cheap nowadays and it costs just 20$ to get a decent listing).

Is the credit card verification a major show stopper?

How's the price? I think it's fair, I've been checking for hollywood related domain names and rate for certainly high values.

What's the best way for selling high priced domain names? My portfolio is mainly about those, I work hard to get the really nice ones and also put special effort on not conflicting with other people. One of the problems of this business is that some people "snipe" a domain which is about to expire and that can trash someone else's ideas/projects. I also keep out of registering trademarks and names/aliases of people.

I'm pretty sure one can get certain success on this business without violating some rules It's all about creativity, and thinking about good investment.

BTW, swiftappraisal.com was used for the domain.

Cheers and many thanks for the replies!

 

[Sam]

Never, ever use swiftdomain as your appraisal guide...

IMO use the 99 cent NR price .... thats the best way to get bids.

 

[larryhg]

Well, if you use "fair" settings, not trying to overprice your domain, you can get decent estimations. I would prefer to have real appraisals out there but there are so many scams and everyone else seems to be using the same method: scripts.

A real appraisal must be done by a marketing professional and it requires time, and of course costs way more than 20/30$!

Also, some other types of scams are people who do "free appraisals" on domains already listed/to be listed, then if the seller gets "fooled", the scam guy goes and snipes for the domain name, looking in the most popular places, say Sedo.com, etc. Then he proceeds to buy it at the price he set Game over.

hollywood-stories.com is at least worth > 10k.

Cheers!

 

[DeluxeNames.com]

hollywood-stories.com is at least worth > 10k.
Cheers!

Worth at least 10k? Are you serious? You seem like a nice guy, I'm not trying to rain on your parade but with a dash in it like that an it being the less desireable plural: "Stories" instead of the more desireable singular: "Story", you would be lucky to get 1k for it. Put up a site and then you can sell it for much more.

 

[larryhg]

I also own the singular version of it. It could be sold together as well, we'll see. As I said, I'm open to fair offers and I hope it can work well over eBay. Although, I'm not sure you're taking into account the name itself, and most important, the keywords.

Cheers!

 

[Sam]

If you can get $100+ for the pair. Run for the bank

 

[Domainate.com]

A real appraisal must be done by a marketing professional and it requires time, and of course costs way more than 20/30$!

Appraisals that cost money are useless. If you want opinions of value, post on NP's appraisal board. Not always accurate, but more accurate than a pay appraisal will ever be, and most people giving appraisals in there including me have years of experience in domains to back them up.

Speaking of which, "hollywood stories" has a whopping 171 OVT. HollywoodStories.com wouldn't even be worth close to $10k let alone Hollywood-Stories.com, not when few people are searching for hollywood stories...sorry.

 

[larryhg]

Heh, we'll see
I'm also planning to sell the ongalaxy set, with the com, org and net TLDs. I bet it's a nice one but I seriously doubt it's suitable for eBay. I think I'll go on private and agency offers for that one.

 

[NameClerk]

I've sold many domains on Ebay and I think I have a pretty good feel for what a domain will sell for there.

My honest opinion is that hollywood-stories.com would sell for approx. $23.50 on Ebay (give or take $20 in either direction)

I really hope I'm wrong and that the name works out for you.

%%-

 

[DeluxeNames.com]

I've sold many domains on Ebay and I think I have a pretty good feel for what a domain will sell for there.

My honest opinion is that hollywood-stories.com would sell for approx. $23.50 on Ebay (give or take $20 in either direction)

I really hope I'm wrong and that the name works out for you.

%%-

That sounds about right to me. The problem with NamePros is that there's people that will put silly ideas in other's heads that their name is worth 40K when it is worth far less. This only creates dissapointment later on for the owner when the realize the truth.

 

[larryhg]

I didn't say it was worth 40k "for sure". There's a difference between what something is worth for, and how much someone is willing to paid for it

And that's a huge playground, you have fair players, non fair players, etc, etc.

 

[Ronald Regging]

I honestly don't see much value in it undeveloped. I agree with NameClerk on the Ebay take... People don't pay much on Ebay unless it's a truly high quality name, or a crap name in a mystery auction

 

[dotnom]

I leave ebay out of the sales process because as many people said before me the prices are really really low
To make people see your auction you will pay more than the value of the domain

Good domains make good sales but even then i believe they may get even more $ if these were sold to targeted sites like sedo or afternic or other

I avoid ebay for domain sales. Many domains don't get even the registration fee

 

[rome2ng]

sell it cheaper to at least cover you capital.

by increasing to a 10k value, the chance are very low for sales.

 

[dotbidz]

I've used ebay to sell domain names for a long time, so much so that I decided to open my own site just for domain name auctions...lol

::crosses fingers::: hopefully it will take off.

eBay has become scam central lately (well, for a while) but hopefully it wont spill over into the domain names part of it.

 

[Ronald Regging]

My first domain sale and most successful one to date sold on Ebay for $512. Don't be fooled, it didn't really sell on it's own merit from the normal Ebay bidders, it sold because I contacted about 50-70 end users and included a link to it. I think if you have a large field of end users to contact this is the best way to do it, because it gives them the sense that there will be other people interested in it and time is limited...

 

[Lasher]

My first domain sale and most successful one to date sold on Ebay for $512. Don't be fooled, it didn't really sell on it's own merit from the normal Ebay bidders, it sold because I contacted about 50-70 end users and included a link to it. I think if you have a large field of end users to contact this is the best way to do it, because it gives them the sense that there will be other people interested in it and time is limited...

Would you mind saying what the domain was and if you have a feel for how many of those 50-70 end users ended up bidding? Thanks!