How to price brandable domains

[svede]

I am looking to get the community's opinion on how they price brandable domains. When I say brandable domains, I am referring to:
- non-dictionary .coms (or it must be a very odd/archaic dictionary to break this rule)
- LLLL.com
- 5-7 Letter pronounceable .coms
- dictionary word .com that has been modified (i.e., -ly ending)
- 2 dictionary words that fit together or sound good together (RedBox.com, FitBit.com)

Obviously, we all hope that an enduser sees our domain and tracks us down, but that tends to be less likely in brandables IMHO. So how do you decide how much to price for your BINs - whether listed on Sedo/Afternic or your own brandable domain site (assuming you make the choice - unlike BrandBucket.com). Do you list really low and hope it invites buyers? Do you list high hoping to find companies willing to pay it? How would you find something in the "middle"?? I have been comparing all sorts of brandable domain sites (BrandBucket.com, Brandroot.com, Namerific.com, and all sorts of smaller ones) and don't see much of a strong pattern. Any thoughts? I wan't to maximize profits (obviously) while realizing that higher quantity sold can sometimes be higher profits.

EDIT:
Also, for anyone who has their own brandable domain website, do you invite offers/negotiation despite having a BIN? If so, do interested parties usually ask on their own? Or do you "advertise" that in some way (without impacting those who might be willing to pay BIN??

Any and all constructive comments welcome!!

Thanks,
Stephen

 

[svede]

there is only one way to find out what your brandable name is worth, and that's to look at how much money was transferred to your account for it, after it sells.

Yes, but the question wasn't how much it is worth. The question was how to price it; what BIN to set for it.

Thanks!

 

[dncafe]

On a side note, the one with Ali Zandi is a must watch.

That's a good one too, although I feel like he gives Flippa too much credit for his success, when it's really his outbound marketing efforts that sell the domains and not the marketplace.

I wish he talked more about outbound marketing, as that is a good way to find buyers for brandable domains.

 

[svede]

I haven't seen that one yet, I'll have to watch it. I presume this is the one you are referring to?
http://www.domainsherpa.com/ali-zandi-flippa-interview/

 

[alcy]

Yes, but the question wasn't how much it is worth. The question was how to price it; what BIN to set for it.

Thanks!

well... that kinda boils down to same thing. if the only way to find out what its worth is to wait til it sells, then there are no rules for setting buynow prices.

it's a bit like asking how much it'll cost us to buy a condo on mars

 

[svede]

well... that kinda boils down to same thing. if the only way to find out what its worth is to wait til it sells, then there are no rules for setting buynow prices.

it's a bit like asking how much it'll cost us to buy a condo on mars

I disagree 100%.... if I price a bad domain at $100k, it will never sell. If I price all my domains at $5 they might all sell in one day (probably to another domainer)... does that make those the right prices? NO. There will always be the chance of overpricing (resulting in less endusers) or underpricing (leaving $$ on the table), but what it sells at and what the ideal price to set the BIN are two COMPLETELY different things. If I am content selling low because I get a lot more sales and still make strong profits, then that is fine, that is what I should set my BIN at. But I am asking for how people decide to price the BIN. Telling me it is based on what it finally sells at is a joke. I can't know what it will sell at when I decide the BIN. Which is why I am asking how people try to make that decision. What you are suggesting ONLY works for taking offers, NOT for BIN. They are not at all the same thing.

 

[alcy]

maybe they are not same thing... but neither are brandable domains same thing as "domains" in the regular sense of the word to me.

therefore I am merely suggesting that the principles of pricing or otherwise one normally applies to domain selling, may not apply to brandable domain selling.

I don't mean this in a negative way for brandable domains. it's just so different that there are no rules.

seems to me the only way for you to a very rough idea of how to set your price (or the worth of your brandable domain) will be to post the domain name here, wait for 100 opinions/appraisals, add them all up, and divide by 100.

 

[svede]

I absolutely agree that there aren't clear rules... but that doesn't mean certain methods don't work better. I have ideas on what to price my domains at - I feel I at least know the general "value" based on studying past sales. However, I am looking for other people's thoughts - many of whom have shared already. I don't simply want an appraisal - not that I wouldn't do that for some - but I want to understand how others think when setting BIDs in a market that has so few, if any, rules to it. I want to put some sort of order to this chaos to improve my sales. Will the "rules" I establish for myself always work? No - because as you said there really aren't any hard and fast rules. For every 10 domains that fit a rule you will have 1 or 2 that break it. But at least it helps me keep my sanity and price my domains better. And I am sure there are a lot of others out there that feel the same way.

Thanks!

 

[alcy]

great. at least we went from total disagreement to total agreement

but I still think the only way to get idea of what yoru domain is worth is to post name here, get 100 people to take shot at price, add it up and divide by 100 consider it, it might be fun game for all.

and to do this for every domain. cause the thing about brandable domains is that they are all unique.

in fact if you put a brandable domain name under microscope, you would see different dna for each.

 

[svede]

LOL, well it's because I like to find common ground and you presented some.

I don't agree that you can know what to set the price of something by what it will finally sell at (discounting the possibility of time travel). You can use past sales, similar BIN (i.e., keeping your similarly priced to its competition), etc - but now we are delving into the whole point of this thread - what stats/processes/methods do people use when setting the prices.

Assuming the 100 people were all people who sold brandable domains, then yes, that would probably help. But I am still left in the dark not understanding why they are priced that way. I am not someone who likes to be left in the dark - I want to understand and believe it is critical to running a business. No, I won't understand everything and rules can be broken, but at least I can manage better. Plus, where would I find 100 people to price each of my domains. What about when I am using what I would list it as BIN for helping me determine if it is worth buying?

But I think we both agree it is isn't easy to determine and there are no rules that will never be broken. Yet People keep setting BINs on their brandables domains (and selling them) and I want to understand that. I don't want to keep discussing how impossible this is, because it obviously is possible (even if the answer is just gut/experience - as in they don't really know why they price something at $x,xxx).

Thanks!

 

[alcy]

I absolutely agree that there aren't clear rules... but that doesn't mean certain methods don't work better. I have ideas on what to price my domains at - I feel I at least know the general "value" based on studying past sales. However, I am looking for other people's thoughts - many of whom have shared already. I don't simply want an appraisal - not that I wouldn't do that for some - but I want to understand how others think when setting BIDs in a market that has so few, if any, rules to it. I want to put some sort of order to this chaos to improve my sales. Will the "rules" I establish for myself always work? No - because as you said there really aren't any hard and fast rules. For every 10 domains that fit a rule you will have 1 or 2 that break it. But at least it helps me keep my sanity and price my domains better. And I am sure there are a lot of others out there that feel the same way.

Thanks!

lol

umm.... how exactly do you go about putting logic or order into something that by definition and nature and design is illogical and full of chaos?

maybe I should begin by asking u whether you are at all open and prepared to accept the possibility that your quesiton may not have an answer at all?

 

[svede]

That is what machine learning is all about (one of my areas of study - I'm a software engineer). There are always things you can find in common in chaos. Yes, you will always have outliers, but that doesn't mean you can't find patterns.

Also, I have already stated that there IS an answer. Even if the answer is as Biggie said to throw a dart at a pizza box with prices. Prices don't magically appear when someone posts a brandable domain for sale. Someone must decide how they come up with that price. I am asking the community how they personally do that task. I welcome any answer as long as it is honestly what they do or know others to do or will help me find a way to better do it myself.

Can we please get back to the topic and stop this rabbit trail?

 

[alcy]

we can do whatever you want to do.. this is your thread.

all I was saying is that the topic IS the rabbit trail.

good luck

 

[equity78]

There is not rhyme or reason, a lot of things really come down to salesmanship, timing and luck and the randomness that is domain sales. It is art not science, those trying to apply mathematical equations or scientific study will go mad. Why did Dudu.com sell for $1million and LoLo.com $21,000 3years after it sold for $37,000 and the seller took a loss ? I mean you don't get much better than the two same repeating letters for a CVCV.

Let's take a look at some Brand Bucket type brandables that sold this week on Sedo

hayal.com 10,000 USD
stockplus.com 10,000 EUR Not the brandable that Brand Bucket sells, but what a guy like Mike Berkens does.
exbit.com 8,000 USD
saurus.com 7,000 USD
travelko.com 5,000 USD
designow.com 5,000 USD
crystalina.com 3,999 USD
fuzza.com 2,698 USD
nisita.com 2,600 USD
biddr.com 2,500 USD
sorbus.com 2,100 GBP
golfie.com 2,100 USD
carcool.com 2,000 USD
mobrand.com 2,000 USD
e-vault.com 1,999 EUR
appsumer.com 1,450 USD
manvia.com 1,400 EUR
lingome.com 1,300 USD
woldo.com 1,250 USD
maxla.com 1,000 USD
growgirl.com 999 USD
bikasa.com 925 USD
krali.com 800 USD
ornata.com 700 EUR

Then there is that point about language, sometimes an English speaker sees a name and thinks it was a M.U.P. Made Up Pronounceable, but it was bought for a meaning in Spanish or Portuguese.

There are a lot of factors that bring about a sales.

 

[svede]

Absolutely, my mention of machine learning wasn't that I was going to make it all mathematical. That being said, all language and creativity breaks down mathematically (I mean they wrote code that can write Shakespeare-style poetry...)... but that is digressing.

The point is more that we can try to study and understand it to better price things. If someone finds that domains that are a keyword + "ly" always sell fast when priced at $3,000, he probably won't want to set a BIN on a similar one for for $1,000.

I completely agree there are many factors, but that doesn't mean we can't boil away some of the excess. People will ALWAYS find outliers. I'm okay with that. Salemanship can result in more sales as you said. So can marketing. Language is huge. But let's take BrandBucket as an example. They price domains daily. Do you really think that they choose random numbers? No, they probably go by many different factors including past sales, current market, language-similarity, keywords, etc etc. I am just asking for what people do so I can better develop mine. There will ALWAYS be subjectiveness to it - I'm okay with that. But people still make the decision somehow.

So, let's take one I got recently - Teamso.com. I look at a number of things in deciding the value:
- radio test
- uses an English word
- short (6 letters)
- catchy (to me - subjective)

From there, I go and decide what I want to price it at.

What do you do for brandable domains?

 

[equity78]

I didn't read your comment about machine learning til after I posted, I had this thread open for a few hours and just replied, after I read your comment, and thought he is going to think I am rebuking machine learning. Not at all, I would just say the brandable space is a different space especially the M.U.P.S. because why does one person sell theirs for $1,000 and another gets $8,000 ?

 

[svede]

Ah, no problem!

But, I think you are misunderstanding my question.

My question is not what is the maximum price I could sell for; it is not what is the value of the domain.

It is how do people decide what to price brandables domains at.

That person may have gotten $8,000 because they asked for that much and someone fell in love with it - that simple. I completely accept that it isn't 100% science, but has a lot of art and chance to it.

But that being said, when you have 1,000 domains that have sold and even 40% of them have something in common and are priced similarly, this can form a pattern to look for. I am sure that Brand Bucket uses lots of data to determine pricing - and a lot of subjectiveness! I just want to understand how others do it better.

I should also add that there are FAR more outliers in LLLL.com because it could be the letters belonging to a huge company. Due to stuff like this, I would NEVER lock myself into a formula.

But doesn't every use guiding principals in conjunction with subjective instinct when pricing?

I am just hoping to uncover more of that.

 

[equity78]

I did do a breakdown of that awhile back Svede when Brand Bucket produced stats and had some helpful info added by @hookbox

19 names ending in ZO like Foozo.com sold out of the 680. I had owned some names ending in zo which at the time I thought were ok, but then changed my mind and dropped a pronounceable 5 letter one and I also dropped Cloudzo.com. Seeing names like Spoonzo.com sell for four figures makes me think I should have kept the name.

Here are some other letter combinations that resulted in sales:

18 ending in ly

17 ending in io

Margot Bushnaq the founder actually commented on Namepros saying this about .io, "Names ending in -io had a burst of popularity around 2007-2009. It then
died off because it started to be seen as too "web 2.0" and trendy.
For some reason, however, we've seen a resurgence not only in interest
in -io names from buyers, but in new companies launched — most likely
because of people starting to use the TLD .io as a hack when they can't
find a suitable .com."

10 ending in US

9 ending in mo with 27 others containing mo in the name

8 ending in XO

7 ending in sy

5 ending in oo with 25 others containing oo in the name.

Wondering about starting letter popularity ? Here is the number of sales by starting letter:

a 60
b 35
c 39
d 32
e 33
f 29
g 14
h 7
i 23
j 13
k 14
L 18
M 37
N 13
O 32
P 35
Q 8
R 18
S 62
T 36
U 12
V 43
W 18
X 7
Y 16
Z 26

The most popular letter being S, followed by A and surprisingly V. I thought N and R would have been more popular for starting letters.

Only 48 of the 680 sales were 4 letters, 5 letters came in at 136. 6 letter names seem to be one of the most popular lengths in domains sold so far on the site.

Full list of sales http://tldinvestors.com/2013/07/brand-bucket-sales-inside-the-numbers.html

 

[equity78]

Ah, no problem!

But, I think you are misunderstanding my question.

My question is not what is the maximum price I could sell for; it is not what is the value of the domain.

It is how do people decide what to price brandables domains at.

That person may have gotten $8,000 because they asked for that much and someone fell in love with it - that simple. I completely accept that it isn't 100% science, but has a lot of art and chance to it.

But that being said, when you have 1,000 domains that have sold and even 40% of them have something in common and are priced similarly, this can form a pattern to look for. I am sure that Brand Bucket uses lots of data to determine pricing - and a lot of subjectiveness! I just want to understand how others do it better.

I should also add that there are FAR more outliers in LLLL.com because it could be the letters belonging to a huge company. Due to stuff like this, I would NEVER lock myself into a formula.

But doesn't every use guiding principals in conjunction with subjective instinct when pricing?

I am just hoping to uncover more of that.

I think it comes down to who you are, everyone knows Adam Dicker, when I first did that post, I was talking with Adam because I work with him on some stuff, now Adam owns one word generic .coms like Planets.com and Worm.com and Mistress.com. When I told him the sales prices he could not believe it, he told me he would not have paid $10. So different people value these things differently.

 

[svede]

Thanks equity!

That is exactly what I am talking about. Looking at stats to help assess what to price something at. There will always be outliers and money left or never gotten, but seeing where stuff sells and what makes them sell at those pricepoints can help a lot. I think the key is to always keep an open mind and never lock yourself to a formula - I completely admit that gut instinct is huge here - perhaps even more so than traditional domaining (although I find that is huge there, too).

Thanks!

 

[svede]

I think it comes down to who you are, everyone knows Adam Dicker, when I first did that post, I was talking with Adam because I work with him on some stuff, now Adam owns one word generic .coms like Planets.com and Worm.com and Mistress.com. When I told him the sales prices he could not believe it, he told me he would not have paid $10. So different people value these things differently.

Yes, there are a lot of people that look down upon brandable domains because they have less "inherent" value and their value (if unsold) can change with the trends... no question, they are much higher risk and not as strong overall... but I still like it and it personally appeals to me, which is why I am moving into more of that area from the traditional keyword domaining that I have done in the past. I like the entrepreneurial spirit and way of thinking as well as enjoy linguistics immensely.

Thanks!