Even a blind chicken can find a great domain!

[MapleDots]

On namePros most of us are familiar with a famous domainer that spent an entire night hand registering domains only to see them sell for millions of dollars. The domainer continues his streak and today is one of the most successful domainers on the planet.

Seems to me some businesses like Huge Domains are very much copying this process by registering millions of domains and hoping a percentage of them will resell at a profit. The difference here being that Huge Domains mostly registered dropped domains figuring eventually someone else will want them.

In German there is an expression.....

"Auch ein blindes Huhn findet mal ein Korn."

Loosely translated to english it means....

"Even a blind chicken sometimes finds a piece of corn"

The question here is can this be repeated in 2019?

So if someone decided to randomly sit 10 people down and hand register any combination of two word .com's could one conceivably have a successful business?

My opinion on this is that one probably could as long as the selling price of the domains stayed in the 2-4k range. Two word .com's are still very much in demand and chances of success are probably pretty good.

So what do my fellow domainers think?

Any successful blind chickens out there?

 

[xynames]

Maple I'm curious - since you're the OP who started this thread - I'd ask: I've observed that you've spent or tried to spend a lot of money on domains past couple years. How have sales been?

I'm at the opposite end - most every domain XYNames has acquired was years and years ago. Acquired very few past couple years, sold MANY.

 

[Recons.Com]

Wow so your selling rate for hand reg domains is 2/40 = 5%
That is unrealistically high, higher than selling rate for any pro domainer here, are you sure you are telling the truth? or you are just trying to win a silly argument.

Oh btw I would like to just ignore you because your comments are uneducated (no offense).
thanks

40 is too small of a sample size. You can have 10 hand regs and sell 2, especially if you are ok with xxx$ sales, and it might look like achieving 20% sell through, but it is still bad business and much worse than passively selling 1% out of 10,000 names with very small additional work needed besides renewals etc for $2000 average post commission.

In first case, you'll make from couple hundred to couple grands, in the second, even after renewals, you'll have around $120,000.

 

[JayT]

I have more than 40 domains after doing this for some years...can you people assuming go away? I plan to grow way past whatever % I have in the coming years too. Guess what? All hand reg!

 

[Recons.Com]

Maple I'm curious - since you're the OP who started this thread - I'd ask: I've observed that you've spent or tried to spend a lot of money on domains past couple years. How have sales been?

I'm at the opposite end - most every domain XYNames has acquired was years and years ago. Acquired very few past couple years, sold MANY.

I checked your website. You have around 1300 names listed, some really great ones, but also many of those you can re-stock at $8-20 range from the closeouts or even drops. Just curious, why are you acquiring "very few" past couple years?

 

[Ostrados]

40 is too small of a sample size. You can have 10 hand regs and sell 2, especially if you are ok with xxx$ sales, and it might look like achieving 20% sell through, but it is still bad business and much worse than passively selling 1% out of 10,000 names with very small additional work needed besides renewals etc for $2000 average post commission.

In first case, you'll make from couple hundred to couple grands, in the second, even after renewals, you'll have around $120,000.

In case we are talking about average selling price of $2500 per domain, as in my calculations, then the selling rate of 5% for hand regs is very high. I know I can get 50% selling rate if I sell at $20.

Also it could happen that 1 domainer get lucky and sell 2 out of 10 hand reg domains at $2500 each (or even more) within 1st year but that would be statistical fluke of 1 out of 100,000 domainers, also it is not maintainable on the long run (ex: the extraordinary high rate will not repeat in the upcoming years)

 

[JayT]

@recons I turn down $xxx on multiple domains. I have domains I want millions for, and know I can get. I don't care if I have 10 domains or 100 domains. I have what I have because it's what I want. I don't think one domain is better than another. I know all that matters is who wants it and how bad. Sure there are probability, but I also know suggesting .2% sell though rate was stated to misguide us. If anyone is doing this, you are a COMPLETE NOOB <- stop domaining and find a new hobby!

 

[Recons.Com]

@recons I turn down $xxx on multiple domains. I have domains I want millions for, and know I can get. I don't care if I have 10 domains or 100 domains. I have what I have because it's what I want. I don't think one domain is better than another. I know all that matters is who wants it and how bad. Sure there are probability, but I also know suggesting .2% sell though rate was stated to misguide us. If anyone is doing this, you are a COMPLETE NOOB <- stop domaining and find a new hobby!

Would you mind sharing link to your portfolio and info on what you sold and for how much?

"Wanting" doesn't matter, btw. You might want "billions" and that is useless info for the subject.

 

[JayT]

okay check out rule_violation and only scratch the surface (adult content on url don't go if you aren't old enough).

EDIT/ADD: No, i'm not sharing my sales...how rude of you!

 

[boker]

The problem is not if it is possible to sell hand reg domains or not, yes it is possible, the problem is that it is not economically profitable! it is not a good business model to follow.

Statistically, hand reg domains have much lower chance to sell, and thus if you adopt hand registration as a strategy, they you will need to compensate with high quantity, and high quantity will increase the renewal costs and make it very hard to make any profits.

Think about it in terms of Quality vs Quantity, lets do a comparison which is more profitable.

Lets say:

• selling chance of a hand reg is 0.2% per year
• selling chance of a high quality domains is 2% per year.
• You will need 10 hand reg domains : for each 1 high quality domain. And thus you will need 500 hand reg domains VS 50 high quality domain to sell 1 domain per year.
• Lets assume average sale value is $2,500 per domain
• Lets assume you sell only 1 domain per year

Hand Reg Domains:

• Acquisition cost for 500 domains = 500*$9 = $4,500
• Renewal cost for 500 domains = 500*$9 = $4,500 per year
• Sales per year (1 domain) = $2,500

5 years forecast:
Total Spending: $4,500 + $4,500 x 5 = $27,000
Total Revenue = $2,500 x 5 = $12,500
Income = $12,500 - $27,000 = -$14,500 (loss)​

High Quality Domains:

Lets assume the average acquisition (closeouts, auctions..etc) is $100 per domain then:

• Acquisition cost for 50 domains = 50*$100 = $5,000
• Renewal cost for 50 domains = 50*$9 = $450 per year
• Sales per year (1 domain) = $2500

5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $5,000 + $450 x 5 = $7,250
Total Revenue = $2,500 x 5 = $12,500
Income = $12,500 - $7,250 = $5,250 (profit)​

Ok, your calculations are in so many way wrong that it's hard to choose where to start. First, I wonder why so many errors if you are a domainer from 2011? First, why do you count 9$ for a handreg, when you have big players like dynadot, namesilo with $5 $6 offers all the time and if you count the smaller players, like lcn and others, you can get to at least $3.8 on average(believe me), without risking with unknown registrars. Also, after 8 years in domaining you don't seem to take in account that for a hand reg portofolio, more than for an aftermarket portofolio, you are curating your domains at the end of the year, based on views, inquiries and others, so you don't renew all of them, probably at best 60-70%. Also, probably you don't count any outbound done, because if you know what you are buying, for sure you can do some sales from reaching out to end users just to cover all your expenses. Also, because your average acquisition cost is so low, 3-4$, you can afford to negotiate a lot on the price and sell some for $500, $700, $1000 which will leave enough profit and and will raise your STR much more than for your aftermarket portofolio,(way more). And I could go ahead giving you exact numbers, but probably it's not worth it. If you want to tell me that with 5k investment(even counting just 500 domains) you are doing only one sale of 2.5k in one year, than something is wrong with you and you should start a poll to see how many sales are made by a domainer with 500 domains( we are not taking about first day domainers)

I will not say anything about the aftermarket acquisitions, where $50 on average it's not viable for a quality portofolio,(even if you hunt just brandables for BB, BP and others) the competition is so high and the costs are going to the sky.

 

[boker]

Would you mind sharing link to your portfolio and info on what you sold and for how much?

"Wanting" doesn't matter, btw. You might want "billions" and that is useless info for the subject.

@Recons.Com I can share some sales and some numbers from my own portofolio if you want. Let's take for example 2017, because out of around 800 domains, I've sold roughly 23 domains to end users(prices mid xxx to low xxxx) and I've sold 357 or so to other domainers, making xxxxx profit on both sides. I never lost any money on any given year from 2015 when I've started, I've never acquired any aftermarket domain, but I know what I'm buying and testing multiple strategies all the time. Soon, I would do a test , investing the same amount in just aftermarket domains and just handreg in the same time frame(2 years) at the end I will share my results, but I'm doing this with some experience already, so this will not work for everybody who started today.

 

[Recons.Com]

@Recons.Com I can share some sales and some numbers from my own portofolio if you want. Let's take for example 2017, because out of around 800 domains, I've sold roughly 23 domains to end users(prices mid xxx to low xxxx) and I've sold 357 or so to other domainers, making xxxxx profit on both sides. I never lost any money on any given year from 2015 when I've started, I've never acquired any aftermarket domain, but I know what I'm buying and testing multiple strategies all the time. Soon, I would do a test , investing the same amount in just aftermarket domains and just handreg in the same time frame(2 years) at the end I will share my results, but I'm doing this with some experience already, so this will not work for everybody who started today.

@boker your business model is different. It also requires lots of work and doesn't leave much for future.

I sold "only" 35 names, but my average sale price was around $4,300. My sell through % was just under 3%, but revenue was much better if I sold 50% of 1300 .coms I had (average for the year) at $xx.

I assume, the OP basically means end user sales, not when you are reseller to resellers. Your end user sales are also close to 3%, which is great. And it might make sense for you to focus on those and reduce the amount of time you have to spend with domains or the same amount of time for much higher revenue.

Now aftermarket vs handreg: I don't really distinguish and look down on some of my names because they are handreg. It is just that I have to spend less time looking through aftermarket and identifying good names than looking at drops and I am willing to pay premium of $5 to $xxx for that luxury. And also, most of the great names won't make it to drops, as they will be picked up at the auctions or closeouts and then one is left looking through leftovers (expireds) of leftovers (non-backordered ones) of leftovers (closeouts). And it is still possible to find a diamond in the rough there, but, again, too much time per name. If I value my time at $100/hr and it takes and hour to find a great name in the list, then its cost is no longer $8 for me, it is $108.

 

[Ostrados]

Ok, your calculations are in so many way wrong that it's hard to choose where to start. First, I wonder why so many errors if you are a domainer from 2011? First, why do you count 9$ for a handreg, when you have big players like dynadot, namesilo with $5 $6 offers all the time and if you count the smaller players, like lcn and others, you can get to at least $3.8 on average(believe me), without risking with unknown registrars.

Best option I know about now is Dynadto with $6.99 / $9 renew for .com (they have now special offer of $5.99 until 30 April) but that will not make a big difference in calcs. Because what is important is the renew cost which is the main contributer to the total cost and it is always around $9. The cheapest renewal cost currently is $8.56 at Porkbun.

Here is the calcs if we take $6.99 as reg and $8.56 as renewal, old values are in red to compare:

Hand Reg Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $24,859 (was $27,000)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = -$12,395 (loss) (was -$14,500)

High Quality Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $7,140 (was $7,250)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = $5,360 (profit) (was $5,250)

As you can say that didn't help a lot on the long run because the renewal costs are around $9.

Also, after 8 years in domaining you don't seem to take in account that for a hand reg portofolio, more than for an aftermarket portofolio, you are curating your domains at the end of the year, based on views, inquiries and others, so you don't renew all of them, probably at best 60-70%.

That also will not make a difference because you will register new domains to replace the old ones! so if you maintain 500 domains all the time what you drop will cancel out with what you register, the cost of newly registered domain will be exactly the same as if you didn't drop any domain and just renewed all of them.

Also, probably you don't count any outbound done, because if you know what you are buying, for sure you can do some sales from reaching out to end users just to cover all your expenses. .

I agree with this I didn't take outbound in consideration, it surely will improve your selling ratio and can make a difference. But the problem is that with hand reg domains they are not very special, and so end user have many other alternatives to chose from. If you can do outbound successfully and get higher than 0.5% selling ratio on hand reg domains, then it can start to be profitable model.

 

[boker]

@boker your business model is different. It also requires lots of work and doesn't leave much for future.

I sold "only" 35 names, but my average sale price was around $4,300. My sell through % was just under 3%, but revenue was much better if I sold 50% of 1300 .coms I had (average for the year) at $xx.

I assume, the OP basically means end user sales, not when you are reseller to resellers. Your end user sales are also close to 3%, which is great. And it might make sense for you to focus on those and reduce the amount of time you have to spend with domains or the same amount of time for much higher revenue.

Now aftermarket vs handreg: I don't really distinguish and look down on some of my names because they are handreg. It is just that I have to spend less time looking through aftermarket and identifying good names than looking at drops and I am willing to pay premium of $5 to $xxx for that luxury. And also, most of the great names won't make it to drops, as they will be picked up at the auctions or closeouts and then one is left looking through leftovers (expireds) of leftovers (non-backordered ones) of leftovers (closeouts). And it is still possible to find a diamond in the rough there, but, again, too much time per name. If I value my time at $100/hr and it takes and hour to find a great name in the list, then its cost is no longer $8 for me, it is $108.

My reseller sales are just to make sure I cover all my expenses for my entire portofolio, so that my end user sales will be all profit. It's great that you count your time so valuable, at $100 per hour, I do a different count, I thinking that if I can do more than average wages in the country where I live, in the half time working for home doing domains, than I would choose domains.

Best option I know about now is Dynadto with $6.99 / $9 renew for .com (they have now special offer of $5.99 until 30 April) but that will not make a big difference in calcs. Because what is important is the renew cost which is the main contributer to the total cost and it is always around $9. The cheapest renewal cost currently is $8.56 at Porkbun.

Here is the calcs if we take $6.99 as reg and $8.56 as renewal, old values are in red to compare:

Hand Reg Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $24,859 (was $27,000)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = -$12,395 (loss) (was -$14,500)

High Quality Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $7,140 (was $7,250)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = $5,360 (profit) (was $5,250)

As you can say that didn't help a lot on the long run because the renewal costs are around $9.



That also will not make a difference because you will register new domains to replace the old ones! so if you maintain 500 domains all the time what you drop will cancel out with what you register, the cost of newly registered domain will be exactly the same as if you didn't drop any domain and just renewed all of them.



I agree with this I didn't take outbound in consideration, it surely will improve your selling ratio and can a difference. But the problem is that with hand reg domains they are not very special, and so end user have many other alternatives to chose from. If you can do outbound successfully and get higher than 0.5% selling ratio on hand reg domains, then it can start to be profitable model.

I'm telling you that my average for last year was $3.8, not ...$6.9. Also, it's very important the renew part, because let's say you renew just your best 50% of your portofolio, and you acquire new domains at 1-2$ each, so that will change everything.
If can assure you that in some cases and some type of domains you can reach two digits % selling ratio, not 0.5% higher, but that will be mostly at xxx-low xxxx amounts, which will still make a big profit.
Also, if you count that you can reinvest in the next second the revenue made from selling after a few weeks( because of the lower price) at the end of the cycle( let's say 5 years) you will have multiple times more profit compared if you would have waited 2-5 years to sell an aftermarket domains acquired for $50 at $2500.

 

[mitch007]

Here is a "blind chicken" finding a great domain. (I guess I am the chicken, lol )
This is mine
ChickenKnows.com

 

[Ostrados]

My reseller sales are just to make sure I cover all my expenses for my entire portofolio, so that my end user sales will be all profit. It's great that you count your time so valuable, at $100 per hour, I do a different count, I thinking that if I can do

I'm telling you that my average for last year was $3.8, not ...$6.9. Also, it's very important the renew part, because let's say you renew just your best 50% of your portofolio, and you acquire new domains at 1-2$ each, so that will change everything.
If can assure you that in some cases and some type of domains you can reach two digits % selling ratio, not 0.5% higher, but that will be mostly at xxx-low xxxx amounts, which will still make a big profit.
Also, if you count that you can reinvest in the next second the revenue made from selling after a few weeks( because of the lower price) at the end of the cycle( let's say 5 years) you will have multiple times more profit compared if you would have waited 2-5 years to sell an aftermarket domains acquired for $50 at $2500.

Where did you get $3.8 and $6.9?
Regarding $1-2$ I don't do NetSol and I will never do that. way to risky registrar for me.

I understand that you can get high selling ratio at lower xxx-xxxx prices, if you revise my calcs they were done on the assumption of Average selling price of $2,500 for which I used lower ratios of 0.2% vs 2% (hand reg vs high quality domains).

the calcs were done on a set of fixed parameters just to make comparison between 2 models. What is important here are not the numbers themselves but the relativistic output of 2 models. Change parameters as you want, add outbound if you wish (it will help both models and offset the relative difference) and the end model B will always be better than option A by a margin.

 

[boker]

Where did you get $3.8 and $6.9?
Regarding $1-2$ I don't do NetSol and I will never do that. way to risky registrar for me.

I understand that you can get high selling ratio at lower xxx-xxxx prices, if you revise my calcs they were done on the assumption of Average selling price of $2,500 for which I used lower ratios of 0.2% vs 2% (hand reg vs high quality domains).

the calcs were done on a set of fixed parameters just to make comparison between 2 models. What is important here are not the numbers themselves but the relativistic output of 2 models. Change parameters as you want, add outbound if you wish (it will help both models and offset the relative difference) and the end model B will always be better than option A on the long run!

This is your thought, I think that with lower acquisition cost, selling lower and reinvesting all the time will result in a higher profit for the same period( waiting with an aftermarket domain 2-5 years to sell at $2500).
Netsol will be one choice but there are others, like domain.com, dotster, lcn register.it and others. The average was $3.8

 

[Name Trader]

A great domain is anything that sells

Well.... at least by my definition anyways

I would slightly modify that statement. A great domain is any domain that sells for a substantial profit.

Regging a domain for $8 and selling it $20. I wouldn't call a great domain by itself. If it could be consistently repeatable over 10,000 domains, then as a group they could be called great domains

The administration might kill you though if that was 10,000 different buyers

 

[MapleDots]

Maple I'm curious - since you're the OP who started this thread - I'd ask: I've observed that you've spent or tried to spend a lot of money on domains past couple years. How have sales been?

I'm at the opposite end - most every domain XYNames has acquired was years and years ago. Acquired very few past couple years, sold MANY.

I used to be more open with my purchases and sales but because I operate in four distinctive niches I have found a number people and entities copying my business motto.

So I made a new years resolution to simply shut up and say no more and that seems to be working well for me. I have silently bought and sold under the radar and the less I say the better my deals are getting.

My advice to anyone working in a particular niche would be to say as little as possible, just make your deals and be done with it.

 

[MapleDots]

I would slightly modify that statement. A great domain is any domain that sells for a substantial profit.

Regging a domain for $8 and selling it $20. I wouldn't call a great domain by itself. If it could be consistently repeatable over 10,000 domains, then as a group they could be called great domains

The administration might kill you though if that was 10,000 different buyers

You are correct up to a point...

If one can automate the process and sell enough domains for a 12 dollar profit margin then one get get rich as well. I can think of a particular dollar store that is listed on the stock exchange selling items for a dollar or so profit.

That said, I am with you because my minimum sales price is 1k. I will not respond to any offer for less and it states that clearly on my site. www.mapledots.ca/contact

 

[Want2learn]

If the domain sells it can never be an idiotic domain.

A sale is a sale

Furthermore he has a platform to stand on. He has connects. His marketing is genius. I bet Mike Mann could sell a lot of names that we couldn't, even if our comparable domain was better in some way shape or form!