Frank Schilling - Uni - Uniregistry Announces Domain Liquidity

[Vito]

Did you ever dream about selling your entire domain portfolio?
Well now here is your chance!

Pretty big News in my honest opinion.

@Frank.Schilling / Uni Announces Domain Liquidity.
Domain Portfolio acquisitions...

https://twitter.com/Frank_Schilling/status/1132796141400207360

Domain Portfolio Submittal Form - HERE

Pretty huge news since nobody else in the Industry offers this outright.

Nobody else in the Industry offers this outright.
This could be an Industry game changer here.

Best of luck to Frank, Uni and of course to all domainers submitting their domain portfolios for sale.

 

[MapleDots]

Let me know your portfolio via DM, ill be happy to pick a few

Maybe he should send you some domains he doesn't own just to see what you would offer

 

[jberryhill]

THE Truth is

The truth is that you are a liar.

You think it is okay to lie to other people in order to waste their time. Because that is what you have done by representing yourself as the owner of domains you are pretending to be interested in selling.

You seem offended by the fact that someone has offered to look at domain portfolios and potentially make offers to buy them.

So, in your mind, that makes it okay to lie and waste the time of other people who are getting paid to do their jobs.

You just explained to everyone here that you and your friends agreed to tell a lie, and then you go on about "THE Truth"?

That's just plain funny.

 

[sholiviks]

I have been following this thread for the past 3 days. I normally don't post comment on this site. I stay by the sideline and learn from experienced domainers. However, after reading KRajmys' comments, I just cannot resist rebutting some of the false narratives and negative statements he made about Frank Shillings. I'm not here to defend Frank. His good track record in the domain industry over the past 20 years speaks volume.

A little about me. I retired from the corporate world about 2 years ago. Before that, I was an executive at an engineering firm here in Washington DC. I also taught computer science at a state college back in the early 90s. So, I do not have the level of experience most of you have. I learned from past sales experience and also follow multiple blog sites to learn about how domain investing works. I see myself as an accidental domainer. In any case, I've been buying and selling domains since 2005.

With that as a backdrop, I want to share my direct experience with Frank. I've not personally met him in person. However, based on my business experience with him, I would say that Frank is the most honest person I've ever done business with in my entire life. He is a person of integrity. Unlike some of the other wealthy people in the domain industry, Frank, in my opinion, is a humble and trustworthy person with integrity, as I will show you from my experience of doing business with him. Frank is also the opposite of some of the so-called "sherpas" who blow their trumpets and bloviate about their "success" and domain sales on social media.

Here is my story:
I sold my portfolio to Frank Shilling last year. Before that, I reached out to a couple of big names in the industry and I received multiple offers, varying from buyers offering me higher average price per domain for a portion of the portfolio to a payment plan and monthly payment until the portfolio sells. None of these offers met my need as I needed the lump sum to bootstrap a project.

Then one evening, I was talking to a broker friend of mine about the offers I received. He later offered to help and pitch the portfolio to Frank. I honestly wasn't expecting anything to come out of it as I later received another promising offer. At any rate, about 2 weeks later I heard back from my broker friend and told me Frank was interested in buying the portfolio. After a couple of back and forth negotiations, we agreed on a price that I was happy with. Even though the price was a bit lower than what I initially received from other buyers that wanted to cherry pick from my portfolio, I was very happy with the outcome of the sale. I was able to use the proceed to jump start my new project which I wouldn't have been able to do without selling the portfolio. I'm forever grateful to Frank.

Now, here is the most important thing about my portfolio sale. The payment for the portfolio sale was based on trust - the old fashion way. He gave me a choice to either wire the money directly to me or use escrow service. Again, based on his reputation I alluded to in my opening paragraph, I opted for wire transfer. Frank later wired the money to my bank account without any issue. Again, he kept his promise. Here is why this matters, you know a person by not just how they treat their own relatives but by how they treat other people they don't know. Frank has never met me in person. He treated me better than how an most people would have treated me.

Save the best for last.
Here is the best part of the story. After I sold the portfolio to Frank, remember what I said above about not really hoping for a sale? It turned out that I left 3 of the domains (.net. .org and .co) I needed as redirects in the portfolio I sold to Frank. So I went back to my broker friend and asked if Frank could sell those 3 domains back to me. I was surprised Frank said yes. He gave the 3 domains back to me not at an end user price but for less than $100.

Again, this is my first-hand experience with Frank. Others may say whatever they want. In my world, and in the world of other people he has touched, Frank is a great person with integrity and trust. Thank you all for your time.

 

[Paul Nicks]

See this is why we can't have nice things... Frank and Uni are trying to do something that will benefit a certain section of the community that needs immediate money from their assets, but it has turned into a bashing from people who are not in the situation to need the immediate money.

Try to understand who the intended audience is, if you have premium names and are able to hold onto them until they sell then this program was not created for you IMO.

I'm greatly interested in what Frank's doing here and hope he succeeds

 

[karmaco]

In reality they are looking for valuable names from a person who needs money now for a massive bargain. Majority of what is submitted will be rejected.

I hope if anyone gets more than chump change from them they will be able to post about it. There will probably be an NDA to prohibit that.

I would not get too excited or consider it a game changer unless you have top names you want to liquidate at any cost. And even people needing money would be smart to hold onto their best names and drop the rest.

Sorry but I am skeptical.

 

[Paul Nicks]

I don't think people who buy at low balls $$ and try to sell at $$$$-$$$$$ need much respect. If some one is supporting them I'm sure they belong to same category as franc/uniregistry.

You just described the entire industry, and the majority of all industries. Buy at wholesale and sell at retail is a core tenant of the every retailer. We have bought several portfolios at per-domain prices that look ridiculous individually, but when added up represent a good deal for us and the seller.

At the end of the day, Uni is extending a process that works in very large quantities down to lower quantity portfolios. Time will tell if the economics work out, but I hope they do.

 

[MapleDots]

So me and my friends have submitted 10000+ names for them to review and offer
Off-course we will not sell any of them, but this is my way of dealing with low ballers.

You know....

Statements like that will not earn you any friends here. Some of us look at domaining as a serious business, and now you're just spouting nonsense.

I understand you are doing it as a hobby, but as soon as you undermine some of the tools domainers use to make a living then you are definitely not contributing here.

Our tools are serious business for some of us, and at this point you need to stop, look back, read your posts, take a deep breath, and consider how your words and actions are affecting our ability to conduct business. If they decide to stop this program because of guys like you then it is a great loss for the rest of us.

Please consider the consequences of your actions more carefully moving forward.

 

[cipcip]

Interesting, I submitted 4-5 names just to see how this works.

Response got:

Thank you for your entry! Due to the volume of inbound submissions we are not currently able to reply to each individual user. We will contact you via the contact information provided if your names qualify for our service. Please allow 2-3 weeks for a response.

Thank you!

-The Uniregistry Marketing Team

 

[EJS]

I seriously doubt the credibility of this post because the author has not only blogged frequently about Uniregistry but also has visited their office, promoted Uniregistry job postings, ran polls about Uniregistry etc.

Take a look over - https://domaininvesting.com/?s=uniregistry

I am the author of the post you mentioned. I have never visited Uniregistry offices. Even if I did, who cares? What would that have to do with anything?

My blog earns advertising revenue from quite a few domain industry advertisers. You can see all of them because I do not do affiliate marketing - just the banners and a few sidebar links. None of the advertising is performance based, but I am sure advertisers do expect me to publish articles on a regular basis. They would probably also like me to stick to topics related to the domain industry, of which Uniregistry is a big part. That is why I write about Uniregistry. I write about many industry companies without regard for whether or not they advertise. Sometimes, on a slower news day, job listings I notice that might interest readers get published. If that isn't interesting to you, go elsewhere I guess. Someone might be looking for a job and sometimes the job openings are notable (ie the Donuts CMO job listing I wrote about).

For the record, Uniregistry advertised about 5 years ago. The company is also one of 14 corporate sponsors of my Pan-Mass Challenge ride with John Berryhill (I believe Uniregistry is a client of his but that is not my business).

Beyond the deal for the 5 names, there was no compensation whatsoever. Aside from that, as I mentioned at the bottom of the post, I did tell Frank I was going to write about my experience because it would not be fair to share offers from him or anyone without prior consent.

 

[anunt]

who else wasted an hour reading this thread

i wish i can go back in time and get this hour back

 

[imadoer]

My experience

The first batch he gave me prices on every name. sold a few..still waiting on payment.

The next batch he cherry picked the names he liked and lowballed me for the lot.

Not submitting more names

 

[Recons.Com]

Common not all industries works this way. Uni will try to buy at $$ and sell it at minimum $$$$.
No retailer in any other industry tries to sell at 100 times the whole sale price.

You demonstrate lack of understanding of how this industry and economics in general work.

The reason $xx/name acquisition is required when selling the names at low $xxxx is the market liquidity, or the lack of it in this case.

If you have a clothing shop, you are fine with 3x margin from msrp to cost, because you will sell almost all your inventory at msrp to 80% off, in average for 2x over the purchase cost.

If you are in domains, then you need 10x to 200x of your cost for absolute majority of names (reseller to reseller excluded), because you will sell only 1% of your names. Meaning each sale has to be pay the renewal for 99 others.

If you purchase 1000 names at $50 average, then you invest $50000 and will sell 10 names at $1500 average post commission for total of $15K out of which you will have to pay $8500 for renewals, leaving you with $6500. If you had to incur some other costs (equipment, office, software, freelancers etc.) and factor in your own time (let's assume 50 hours at $20) you are probably left with just $5000 or 10% return on your investment.

You could get that kind of return from real estate or stocks with much less risk and work involved.

So, no, Frank cannot offer more than single digits % of your potential sale value for most names (highly liquid names can get 10% to 35% of the end user price).

It is also the matter of him having lots of other alternatives. Why would he pay, for instance, 2x cost of an average LLLL, if he can get similar names at NJ, GD etc. auctions?

The only saving is time and for that he might pay 10%-20% bonus.

 

[YairDD]

@YairDD .. Could you please enlighten us with some of the details.
1- How many domains did you submit?
2- Did they only make an offer for a single domain or for all of them?
3- What sort of price range was it?
4- What sort of details/instructions on how to proceed were you given?

Both retailer and end user pricing for a 2 word domain like this can range quite a bit .. and in the end, it really doesn't matter what the rest of us value it at .. it's more about what they value it at. Most importantly it's essential to remember that a portfolio price is more about a global feeling for an average of all the domains.

That being said, I'd say typical USABLE 2-word brandables ideally retail anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 with most in the lower 2500-5000 range. While TitaniumGlass does sound cool .. the two words don't intrinsically go together. While the brandable side equates "titanium" to strong, some people might be confused thinking it's a keyword and that somehow the website owner has found a way to fuse Titanium to Glass (which would make TitaniumGlass a keyword .. and in this specific case I'd say it would be more valuable if indeed that made the product superior)

Note that I said USABLE because most of the 2-word domains discussed at NamePros are garbage and would not sell at any price (many I wouldn't even bother taking for free). On the flip side, there most definitely are very strong 2-word brandables that could go higher into the 5-figures .. but this discussion is about average liquid pricing of typical portfolios, so not much point in discussing the exceptions.

I think it would really be helpful in ending useless blind speculation if you shared some of the details.

Sure, I don't mind sharing.

1. I have submitted 6 domains.
2. They made an offer for only 1 domain and I've received a reply a few hours after submitting the names.
3. They offered me $300 for TitaniumGlass which I declined. I would totally sell it to them if the price was around 500. they said they have a buyer for $300 and it is not negotiable.
4. They just told me "We have a $300 buyer for titaniumglass" asked if it's negotiable, said it isn't, I passed.

Also, If anyone gets an offer for a domain they have, I would and I'm sure everyone else would love to know all of the details.

Thanks!

 

[Vito]

@EJS Elliot wrote an article based off of a transaction he just completed with Frank/@Uniregistry right here...

https://domaininvesting.com/my-experience-with-uniregistrys-domain-liquidity/

Sounds like a win win for them both and sounds like it can only get better as more of us sign up to be included in their buyer network.

 

[EJS]

Glad you're happy with prices quoted. You're right, who knows what they would've brought on GD. For those that didn't read your article...here are the names you published with prices offered.

To be clear, I am not "happy" with the majority of the offers that were made. I am not offended or upset either - it's business. Quite a few of those offers are lower than what I paid in private or in auction (a few are much lower). For instance, Innerbalance.com sold at auction (to me) for over $1,600 less than 2 years ago: https://namebio.com/innerbalance.com . Citronella.com sold (to me) for $4,600: https://namebio.com/citronella.com

The reason I participated was to get an idea of what Domain Liquidity is all about and to share what I learned with readers.

 

[RogueWriter]

A couple of years ago I could have used this as an option for a quick sale. Left a high paying job, took one for 1/3 of the income, and was unable to maintain 300 of my domains. It was rather painful to watch competitors snap domains I had accumulated over the years as they dropped. I am working at a much smaller scale now, but an opportunity to sell 250 of those at once might have helped me retain an additional 50 of the ones I wanted to keep.

So good for them for marketing this as an option, you never know when someone's circumstance might necessitate a quick sale; underselling beats getting zero.

 

[bmugford]

There really needs to be more information about this to make any real conclusions in my view.

Many large domain investors will buy portfolios of domains @ wholesale prices. It is not that unique really.
It just depends on what type of prices they are willing to offer.

Most people with solid to good domains tend to make sales.

It seems like it makes sense business wise, but they might just end up getting flooded with crap domains to sort through. It could be a major resource drain for them instead of a buying opportunity.

Brad

 

[Ategy]

You would really pick that one out of all of them? is it because it is probably the cheapest one of all? because EthExchange for example, I wouldn't accept anything below $5k, BitcoinSwap nothing under $3k and the other would prob be near the thousand dollars.

Titanium glass is a thing.

I like that one the most as I see it as being the most likely to sell. The others vary in quality, but I saw TitaniumGlass as a brandable. Meaning I was Titanium as an adjective to simply mean "Strong" .. as in Strong Glass. I did a search, but didn't initially see that "Titanium Glass" actually is a thing and actually contains Titanium .. which now makes it a keyword. Since it's not necessarily a very well known term, I think the likelihood of it selling via incoming lead is probably still as a brandable .. but as a keyword it has more potential as an outbound (if indeed it's a viable industry/technology, which it seems to be).

All that said .. I think that takes the $300 from being a good/fair WHOLESALE offer, to meh offer. It certainly isn't a bad WHOLESALE offer, but my overall optimism with this potential program has gone down a notch. Let me be VERY clear in that I'm not saying it's bad .. but I think we need much more information and data before deciding either way.

@YairDD .. thanks for sharing your information .. and sorry this has turned into a thread discussing the merits of your domains.

Looks like the hopes of all those big portfolio domain holder are shattered on UNI's liquidation sale as it seems to be a:
CHERRY PICK LIQUIDATION SALE

Sigh .. you can't even say that based on this ONE portfolio submission of only 6 names. Looking at that one example, it's a Cherry Pick Wholesale Acquisition (request).

I think some of us were expecting far worse .. such as $300 for all 6 domains. That would have been "liquidation" pricing (meaning below wholesale .. meaning you should only accept if you urgently need liquid cash money because of some emergency).

Obviously we were all hoping to see a $1500-2000 offer for all 6 domains .. but if you really think that a professional domainer should have made that (WHOLESALE) offer given the other likely acquisition options .. then you have little chance of ever becoming a good domainer.


It's also important to note that this "service" only launched this week. Who knows how few potential buyers saw these 6 domains. Resubmit the same 6 domains in a month or two with a larger buyer pool, and you might see a $1000+ offer for all 6 domains? Again .. it's really too early to say anything.

 

[dbdomains]

Looks like the hopes of all those big portfolio domain holder are shattered on UNI's liquidation sale as it seems to be a:

CHERRY PICK LIQUIDATION SALE

Dude, WHO CARES?!?!

Seriously, why are you wasting time tilting at this windmill? What do you get out of someone not submitting their domains to Uniregistry? If someone wants to spend their time putting together a list for a business to consider, why does it bother you? If Uniregistry offers on only 10% or 1% or 3 domains ever submitted to them, why do you care? If Uni offers 5% - 10% of EUV, so what? Plenty of people on Namepros do that. There was no promise to purchase a seller's domains. It's an option for domain asset holders to explore, just like reaching out to end users directly, listing on marketplaces or auction sites, getting a broker, or letting bad investments drop.

Are you here to save us from ourselves? Do you think we don't know that the prices he will offer are wholesale prices? Are you some large competitor of Uniregistry upset because they came up with and are marketing the idea? Are you a disgruntled wanna-be seller who submitted a bunch of names to Uniregistry, or Frank and they were rejected? Is this just sour grapes?

Come on, spill it. Why do you care so much about this?

It is incredibly unseemly for a relative forum noob to come in here, disparage somebody or their business, brag about doing mischief against them and having no evidence to back up your assertions.

 

[MapleDots]

They will only pay cents on the dollar.
Now if they put the portfolio up for public bids then it would be fair to the seller.

So Uni offers 10k for the portfolio, the domainer thinks it's too low. Put it up for auction and final is 28k bid. Now Uni gets a commission and everyone is happy.

Now reality ....

Only GoDaddy is set up to be able to accomplish a task like this. Maybe Sedo too but the advantage would go to godaddy.

@Joe Styler would be the best to comment on that but I think godaddy needs to jump on something similar.

 

[garptrader]

It would be interesting to see how much Uniregistry would be willing to pay for a portfolio of the same nTLDs that Uinregistry normally promotes to domain investors.

$25k invested in NTLDs and Uniregistry is willing to pay X for the portfolio....

 

[equity78]

There really needs to be more information about this to make any real conclusions in my view.

Many large domain investors will buy portfolios of domains @ wholesale prices. It is not that unique really.
It just depends on what type of prices they are willing to offer.

Most people with solid to good domains tend to make sales.

It seems like it makes sense business wise, but they might just end up getting flooded with crap domains to sort through. It could be a major resource drain for them instead of a buying opportunity.

Brad

That's what I have been saying Brad, more info is needed to properly assess if the juice is worth the squeeze.

They are going to get spammed out the window, I mean the poor person that needs to read the email,

Hello Frank,

I own 2000 .sexy names, I think you own that string, well I would be happy to sell my meticulously chosen, one by one portfolio for $200,000. Tell me where I send my banking info.

Thanks Iam.Sexy

 

[Ategy]

I have 4 very important points to make for everyone posting negatively on this:

1- Lack of Information.
There isn't enough information given by Uni to judge either way whether this is something to be seen as good or not (or at least in the eyes of the average NamePros domainer). What really constantly frustrates me about this industry is the number of people who rush to make judgement without sufficient data nor being fully informed.

The only fact here is that until we see some more information and hard data, any assumptions and judgements are completely unfounded and just go to show how some people like to spread their opinions in pure ignorance. That being said .. there here are more important FACTS that actually SHOULD be part of the discussion:


2- Portfolio sales are NOT intended for everyone.
If you follow my daily blog and lists of domains at auction, it's no secret that I've had a very stressful couple of years. Health issues (myself, my mom and my dog), condo flooding, and more in context, a business that suffered a big loss because of the death of an overseas middleman at a crucial moment right before payment. I had just started domaining then, and thankfully it's (retail) domaining that had actually saved me on a financial level. But this sort of portfolio acquisition service most certainly could be helpful for people who are going through hardships .. both on the financial level .. but also on a personal level. Domaining takes time and effort .. imagine if your significant other suddenly get diagnosed with cancer and the extra time you had to devote to domaining suddenly disappears. While this obviously is not the ideal solution .. it has the potential to be a REAL solution to the alternative of letting your portfolio expire.

Similarly .. if YOU pass away .. ask yourself .. do the people who will inherit your estate have any clue what to do with your portfolio? Again .. while this would certainly not give anyone optimal retail pricing, it still is a better alternative to nothing ... and more importantly, is one of hopefully many portfolio liquidation solutions which together with more competition could bring fairer pricing to liquidations.

It seems that what some here should be more angry about is not that Uni/Frank is the first to do this as an official "service" (for lack of a better word) in the context of a large marketplace, but instead you should be frustrated with the fact that there are not actually MORE big players who are doing this.

Imagine if Huge Domains, Afternic and a handful of other big marketplaces were doing this .. combine that with more awareness/aggressiveness of individual domainer investor portfolio acquirers .. then all of a sudden there could potentially be REAL liquid pricing on our portfolios. It's all about having MORE options .. not fewer! Anybody who is against this clearly has no clue about how economics works!

Most importantly, if you have the time to manage your leads and portfolio and are running a profitable domaining business .. then unless they have amazing buyers and will be paying very generous wholesale pricing, then this program is not for you, and by trashing this program and submitting false portfolios, you are just hurting others who it could truly help and benefit.


3- Frank's / Uni's wholesale purchase price threshold is NOT the same as ours.
With his sales staff and infrastructure and Uni marketplace, @Frank Schilling can afford to buy domains at higher prices than the average domainer and still make a profit. For those of us who invest time to find great wholesale bargains, this could be a profitable sales channel. And while I'd definitely agree that the prices would be far lower than retail prices, in this case volume COULD most certainly compensate ... again though .. it really depends on the actual data of what they end up buying and at what prices.

Anyone speculating about purchase pricing without any hard data is not only doing a disservice to all of us .. but you're also showing how truly nonobjective you are and your opinion on this matter is less than worthless, as the ONLY thing it is accomplishing is damaging our industry by attacking one of many channels to hopefully bring in more competition on the wholesale acquisition side.

If you want to look for a really bad business model for the average domainer in the domain industry, look at the BrandBucket model where they actually ask us to PAY THEM to give them EXCLUSIVE rights with giant commissions on our domains in their overwhelmingly oversized portfolios. While this could work for a few, overall I personally think that model is very very bad for the average domainer. I could go on, but I don't want to take this off-topic.


4- Supply and Demand
While I've touched at this a few times above .. some of you need to inform yourselves on the very foundational principle of supply and demand! Seriously .. it's a very basic fact that as the number of people and businesses who want our domains goes up .. the higher our domains go up in value! This is a very basic economic FACT! It applies from wholesale through to retail levels. So while Uni/Frank might or might not offer us good or even fair pricing, it's still one more little bit of upwards pressure on the overall value of our domains. The added bonus here is that if it actually does take off .. then there will most certainly be other big players looking to copy their playbook, which could have the potential of actually pushing wholesale pricing on our domains upwards .. and in turn be one part of a real move toward ACTUAL wholesale liquidity.

 

[Silentptnr]

I read the entire, exhausting thread.

I like the concept and the effort by Frank and Uni.

There are many considerations an investor has to plan for and this seems a viable option.

The service is optional yet reliable.

Thanks to everyone for giving feedback.

I do suggest investors carefully consider this option and apply if deemed appropriate.

I truly hope this type of service continues and that others develop.

I plan to submit maybe 100 names for sale with realistic expectations.

Keep you posted.

That's all I'll say for now.

P.S. Thanks for sharing your experience @EJS !