poll How profitable was domaining in 2017 for you?

[boker]

I think that we could use this info to see exactly how healthy is the domaining industry in 2017 and what we could change for 2018. So, the important question is: How profitable was 2017 for you regarding just your domainig activity? I know there are guys who could make some xxxxx sales and loose money and in the same time they could be some guys selling for xxx or xxxx and make a healthy profit. It could help also if you add the total number of domains owned and a balance of sales and acquisition costs, like 5xxxx sales and 2xxxx cost of acquisition( including commissions and renewals).

 

[BrandMart]

I always make at least 4 figures. The uk market is bigger (and easier) than many people think

I tried selling some uk domains. Not much success.

 

[Nripesh Ranjan]

Hoping do well in future. Currently selling Between $500 - $1000 in a year.

 

[Crysis]

First of all CONGRATS! 1% of domainers (or less?) make half million in profit.

Can you explain us:

- How many domains do you own?
- Are all singular dictionary words / LL / LLL .com (And with this profit I suppose yes)?
- When have you start domaining (With this profit I suppose in early '90s, or do you have millions to buy amazing names in aftermarket)?

This can help domain industry to learn from a REAL PRO.

Thanks for your time.

You can search all the posts here. He has outlined his model. As far as I know, his budget for new purchases is six figures.

https://www.namepros.com/search/25202563/

On an annual average:
I sell one domain a week for four figures.
I sell one domain a month for five figures.
I sell one domain a year for six figures.

Most of my sales come from about 2,500 domains that I've acquired slowly over many years. I have 20,000 domains, but the rest are lower quality that sell for three figures.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/how-often-do-you-make-a-sale.1036107/page-2#post-6318475

 

[Addison]

@Addison where's your profile page? Would love to have a look.

https://www.namepros.com/members/addison.989980/

1% of domainers (or less?) make half million in profit.

There are more than you think, but you might be right about the percentage, because frequently, domainers don't stop buying domains with their earnings. When domainers are selling domains for substantial sums of money, the hardest thing for them to do is to accept that they have enough domains and stop buying more. If they can do that, their profits skyrocket.

How many domains do you own?

https://www.namepros.com/posts/6318475/

When have you start domaining (With this profit I suppose in early '90s, or do you have millions to buy amazing names in aftermarket)?

I bought throwaway domains in the 2000's except for a couple. I didn't discover a profitable niche until around 2010-2011. What's my niche? This.

Are all singular dictionary words / LL / LLL .com (And with this profit I suppose yes)?

Singular: https://www.namepros.com/posts/6412666/

You can search all the posts here. He has outlined his model.

https://www.namepros.com/search/member?user_id=989980

As far as I know, his budget for new purchases is six figures.

Yes, but the bulk of my portfolio are not domains worth six figures. I have those, but only sell about one per year in that order of magnitude.

Cost vs. Sale Prices:
I sell registration cost domains for three to four figures.
I sell three figure purchases for four to five figures.
I sell four figure purchases for five figures.
I sell five figure purchases for six figures.

 

[Addison]

I sell three figure purchases for four to five figures.

This is the sweet spot, because a three figure purchase can be sold for five figures, but you must have patience and the intestinal fortitude to decline a 10X return (four figure offer) before you can get to a 100X return (five figure sale).

Frequently, you have to be an early adopter (first) to a niche to buy domains at registration cost and sell them for four figures. That's harder to do. It's easier to find a three figure purchase in an established niche.

 

[boker]

https://www.namepros.com/members/addison.989980/


There are more than you think, but you might be right about the percentage, because frequently, domainers don't stop buying domains with their earnings. When domainers are selling domains for substantial sums of money, the hardest thing for them to do is to accept that they have enough domains and stop buying more. If they can do that, their profits skyrocket.


https://www.namepros.com/posts/6318475/


I bought throwaway domains in the 2000's except for a couple. I didn't discover a profitable niche until around 2010-2011. What's my niche? This.


Singular: https://www.namepros.com/posts/6412666/


https://www.namepros.com/search/member?user_id=989980


Yes, but the bulk of my portfolio are not domains worth six figures. I have those, but only sell about one per year in that order of magnitude.

Cost vs. Sale Prices:
I sell registration cost domains for three to four figures.
I sell three figure purchases for four to five figures.
I sell four figure purchases for five figures.
I sell five figure purchases for six figures.

Nice work Addison. Starting early certainly helps. I wonder if in your yearly profit you count as well all the bad acquisitions and domains that you didn't sold yet? For sure you most have xxx-xxxx-xxxxx acquisitions that you didn't sold and which should be taken out of the total sales revenue until they will get sold.

 

[Kate]

Not profitable, I reinvest all sales proceeds into domain names.
No profits, no taxes

 

[bmugford]

There are more than you think, but you might be right about the percentage, because frequently, domainers don't stop buying domains with their earnings. When domainers are selling domains for substantial sums of money, the hardest thing for them to do is to accept that they have enough domains and stop buying more. If they can do that, their profits skyrocket.

That is dead on.

For years I was reinvesting much of the sales revenue back into new domains as there were plenty of buying opportunities. I built a portfolio of 5000+ domains doing this, but it wasn't really until the re-seller prices exploded and there were less opportunities that my profits ramped up substantially.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

Yes, but the bulk of my portfolio are not domains worth six figures. I have those, but only sell about one per year in that order of magnitude.

Cost vs. Sale Prices:
I sell registration cost domains for three to four figures.
I sell three figure purchases for four to five figures.
I sell four figure purchases for five figures.
I sell five figure purchases for six figures.

That is a good cheat sheet when you factor in the average turnover.

You can make the most money selling to average buyers. That is why a company like Toyota is the largest car company and not Ferrari. You sell goods to where the average buyer is with a few outliers mixed in.

Brad

 

[Arca]

@Addison - You mentioned in one of the posts you linked to "easy to spell domain names in any top selling TLD" - How large percentage of your portfolio is constituted by .COM names?

 

[boker]

That is a good cheat sheet when you factor in the average turnover.

You can make the most money selling to average buyers. That is why a company like Toyota is the largest car company and not Ferrari. You sell goods to where the average buyer is with a few outliers mixed in.

Brad

This is true, but being the largest car manufacture does not mean that it's the most profitable, as far a could check, Ferrari was the most profitable in the last year, followed by BAIC(chinese) and Geely...Toyota was just number 7 on that list. Number 1 selling luxury cars( equivalent to one word .com and LL/LLL/com), number two and three selling low cost cars( equivalent to hand reg's, closeouts and cheap aftermarket domains), you can be on top using different strategies. I can bet that some of the one's who said that they have lost over 10k in this poll were dealing with high end value domains, but they didn't considered that it's not enough to buy domains for 10k each, you also need to sell them for much more to make a profit.

 

[GoKaizen]

Thanks for this @Addison.

Another thing people need to understand, learning to drop is just as important as learning what to buy.

https://www.namepros.com/members/addison.989980/


There are more than you think, but you might be right about the percentage, because frequently, domainers don't stop buying domains with their earnings. When domainers are selling domains for substantial sums of money, the hardest thing for them to do is to accept that they have enough domains and stop buying more. If they can do that, their profits skyrocket.


https://www.namepros.com/posts/6318475/


I bought throwaway domains in the 2000's except for a couple. I didn't discover a profitable niche until around 2010-2011. What's my niche? This.


Singular: https://www.namepros.com/posts/6412666/


https://www.namepros.com/search/member?user_id=989980


Yes, but the bulk of my portfolio are not domains worth six figures. I have those, but only sell about one per year in that order of magnitude.

Cost vs. Sale Prices:
I sell registration cost domains for three to four figures.
I sell three figure purchases for four to five figures.
I sell four figure purchases for five figures.
I sell five figure purchases for six figures.

 

[Joe N]

https://www.namepros.com/members/addison.989980/

Lol. I meant your portfolio... Where can we see your names that you own?

 

[bonin]

I always make at least 4 figures. The uk market is bigger (and easier) than many people think

Last night I send one rmail for one of my .co.uk names and in the morning I get this
Dear Mr Bonin
Thank you for your email.
What is the cost of the domain please?
Regards
Steve
Feeling shocked and positive

 

[Sirbigman]

Dreadful, Made a couple of grand. It's just a hobby for me, I mostly focus on my SEO and Web Development agency.

 

[Addison]

Nice work Addison. Starting early certainly helps. I wonder if in your yearly profit you count as well all the bad acquisitions and domains that you didn't sold yet? For sure you most have xxx-xxxx-xxxxx acquisitions that you didn't sold and which should be taken out of the total sales revenue until they will get sold.

Acquisitions only count against your profit in the year you purchase them. After that, domains only have holding costs (renewals) that are deducted from your profit.

How large percentage of your portfolio is constituted by .COM names?

I have about 1,500 of them at present. I don't sell .com domains as often, but when I do, it's frequently for five to six figures.

Another thing people need to understand, learning to drop is just as important as learning what to buy.

Superb point until you trim the fat from your portfolio.

Where do you sell your domains

Direct navigation: end users typing in my domains and filling out the inquiry form.

I don't have a portfolio site that lists my domains. I did for years, but it never resulted in an extra sale for me.

IME, end users want what they want, and the chances of you having a second domain they want are slim to virtually none.

 

[SuperBrander]

@Addison Interesting to read your advice. I'm wondering- can you share some domains you own? I'm curious to know which one word domains you own. Thx.

 

[MediaCode]

Excellent insights, @Addison. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Doron Vermaat]

I made about $20k in profits in 2017 - that's after renewals and new purchases. I do feel the end-user market for lower-end brandables (the ones that previously sold in the $2,000 range) has become a bit lukewarm while reseller prices have continued to go up. As a result, I haven't reinvested as much revenue into new domains as I did in previous years. My goal for this year is to further trim down my portfolio and reinvest profits into a few high-value names such as CVCV or perhaps a one-word .com if I can find a great deal.

 

[oberheimer]

Well it depends, last year I had a profit in the 4 figure range.
This year might be better

 

[Arca]

Acquisitions only count against your profit in the year you purchase them. After that, domains only have holding costs (renewals) that are deducted from your profit.


I have about 1,500 of them at present. I don't sell .com domains as often, but when I do, it's frequently for five to six figures.


Superb point until you trim the fat from your portfolio.


Direct navigation: end users typing in my domains and filling out the inquiry form.

I don't have a portfolio site that lists my domains. I did for years, but it never resulted in an extra sale for me.

IME, end users want what they want, and the chances of you having a second domain they want are slim to virtually none.

You own 20,000 domains but only 1500 .COM? That's a surprising portfolio composition.

 

[boker]

I made about $20k in profits in 2017 - that's after renewals and new purchases. I do feel the end-user market for lower-end brandables (the ones that previously sold in the $2,000 range) has become a bit lukewarm while reseller prices have continued to go up. As a result, I haven't reinvested as much revenue into new domains as I did in previous years. My goal for this year is to further trim down my portfolio and reinvest profits into a few high-value names such as CVCV or perhaps a one-word .com if I can find a great deal.

Great job Doron. I think that the end user market for brandables is the same like one year before, Brandroot for example sold 80 domains last month, their best month so far, BB is still selling a lot, even if they have way to many domains and the sale through rate is down, Brandpa started selling as well....the only big issue is that there are way to many domainers investing in brandables domains, so this is making the difference. In the same time, I think that there is a big competition regarding one word and cvcv's as well, so nobody knows the magic formula and it will be hard find underpriced cvcv's or one word .com's

 

[boker]

Acquisitions only count against your profit in the year you purchase them. After that, domains only have holding costs (renewals) that are deducted from your profit.

Yes, this in theory is exactly like this, but in practice, you can't say that you are profitable in 2017 if you buy in 2015 10 domains at 50k each, you don't sale them in 2016 and you don't make new acquisitions in 2016, but you sell one in 2017 for 100k, you can't say that you made a profit of 100k in 2017. I think that if you want to be honest with yourself, you need to spreed all the acquisitions over the years and try to figure it out if at the end of the day you are still on profit, if you count all that investments over the years. For example, if you have started investing in 2000, and invested over the years 500k and made 500k profit after all these years, you should spread the 500k for the 18 years when your money were invested.

 

[Doron Vermaat]

Great job Doron. I think that the end user market for brandables is the same like one year before, Brandroot for example sold 80 domains last month, their best month so far, BB is still selling a lot, even if they have way to many domains and the sale through rate is down, Brandpa started selling as well....the only big issue is that there are way to many domainers investing in brandables domains, so this is making the difference. In the same time, I think that there is a big competition regarding one word and cvcv's as well, so nobody knows the magic formula and it will be hard find underpriced cvcv's or one word .com's

Thanks, but Brandroot or BB selling more domains in a month/year than ever before doesn't mean anything without knowing how many domains they have listed for sale compared to previous years.

 

[boker]

Thanks, but Brandroot or BB selling more domains in a month/year than ever before doesn't mean anything without knowing how many domains they have listed for sale compared to previous years.

I know that it's important how many domains there are listed, but in the same time that means that there enough end users that are willing to pay 2-3k for a brandable...that should mean that end users pool didn't shrink, they just have more options( including a small part choosing ngtlds)