I went to a bar tonight and...

[Debt.tv]

I went to a bar tonight for a buddy of mine who was celebrating his engagement. Somehow or another domains names came up and one of his buddies said his dad registered kegs.com a long time ago for their 35 year old business. The business is not doing well right now and he had no idea that this domain was pretty valuable. Estibot in my opinion does not do this name justice. The domain owners actually redirects kegs.com to the business website. I told him if his business fails he could have a pretty nice retirement if he just sells the domain name.

I just wanted to post this because he is just one person who has a pretty valuable name and had no idea it was valuable. I wonder how many people have domain names and don't have a clue they are sitting on a goldmine.

Any thoughts?

 

[Ross]

I went to a bar tonight for a buddy of mine who was celebrating his engagement. Somehow or another domains names came up and one of his buddies said his dad registered kegs.com a long time ago for their 35 year old business. The business is not doing well right now and he had no idea that this domain was pretty valuable. Estibot in my opinion does not do this name justice. The domain owners actually redirects kegs.com to the business website. I told him if his business fails he could have a pretty nice retirement if he just sells the domain name.

I just wanted to post this because he is just one person who has a pretty valuable name and had no idea it was valuable. I wonder how many people have domain names and don't have a clue they are sitting on a goldmine.

Any thoughts?

This why you do your research on domain names. I have gotten some pretty nice names for pennies from just asking people if their domain was for sale.

 

[Keral_Patel]

There are many who have valuable domain names and do not know the value of their domain names. But alas they are not my friends or I have no contacts with them :D

You did a nice thing to tell him about the real value of the domain name. As a true friend that is what you should be doing

 

[henrysim]

Yes, there is a lot.
especially those who own only 1 or 2 domain. in most case they don't know the valuation of their domains.

but the problem is they don't seem to reply for the emai
that sent to their whois contact.

 

[FPForum]

Business is business. I would have told him if his business fails I would offer him a fair amount for the domain, or possible offer to broker his name and take profit from it. You know the domain sale business. He has probably never heard of Afternic, Sedo, NP, and other place's to sell domains. You could still offer to do this for him if he ever wishes to sell

 

[dbtbandit67]

that is a very nice domain, but it is premature to believe that it is good for an automatic flip, which would lead to a good retirement. there are a lot of domainers out there that have portfolios of many terrific terrific domains, which sometimes takes years to find a deal that is beneficial to both the owner and buyer. and sometimes it just doesn't work out at all, which is why domainers looking for end-users should have large portfolios.

if you are going to broker this deal for your buddy's dad, first and foremost, ask yourself who is your target market? who exactly would benefit from that domain and why exactly would they benefit from it, and how exactly are you going to approach them about it.

goodluck!

 

[theuniverse]

tell him the value of the domain.

 

[dbtbandit67]

if he is looking for a quick flip, putting it on sedo and paying for featured auctions/domains is a way to go. sedo's target market are domainers, and that is a domain that other domainers would want

if you were interested in taking the route of targetting an end-user: a beer/brewery company may be interested in it.. you know, kegs

 

[FedPrimeRate.com]

Advise your friend to get rid of the hidden text at the bottom of his website!

 

[Debt.tv]

If your view of a pretty nice retirement is buying a new Kia or Hyundai for yourself, sure...lol

He said a few distributers have offered 200k+ for this domain. If you put them in a bidding war, this could fetch a pretty fair price.

 

[bmugford]

$200K for KEGS.com? I would jump on that in a second.

He said a few distributers have offered 200k+ for this domain. If you put them in a bidding war, this could fetch a pretty fair price.

 

[irishmat]

$200K for KEGS.com? I would jump on that in a second.

i agree, jump on that definitely!!!

 

[htmlindex]

$200K for KEGS.com? I would jump on that in a second.

You'd be crazy not to take $200k for that name right now IMO

 

[lzy]

Take the 200k and run! :imho:

 

[Jingles]

How could he have no idea that the name is valuable if he's already received such high offers?

 

[Debt.tv]

How could he have no idea that the name is valuable if he's already received such high offers?

His business is still running and will probably be running for quite a few more years and he has no intention of selling it until he folds his business or he needs money.

There is a lot of money in the beer industry and in 10 years when he may be more likely to sell it, it may be worth more money.

Don't forget beer sells in goodtimes and badtimes.

 

[Chef Patrick]

Great story, hopefully your friend will let you broker the deal

 

[Jingles]

His business is still running and will probably be running for quite a few more years and he has no intention of selling it until he folds his business or he needs money.

There is a lot of money in the beer industry and in 10 years when he may be more likely to sell it, it may be worth more money.

Don't forget beer sells in goodtimes and badtimes.

Ok.......still wondering though how he had no idea that the name is valuable if he's had 200K+ offers coming his way for the name itself.

 

[Debt.tv]

Ok.......still wondering though how he had no idea that the name is valuable if he's had 200K+ offers coming his way for the name itself.

He said he knew the domain had some value and to him, it is worth more than 200k because he is the end user of this domain. To us domainers, yes, take 200k and run but to an end user, its value is....who knows. At this moment in his life, he really doesn't care, he just cares about keeping his employees employed, and hoping his business starts to pick up. Their website is not helping there business, but I guess his old man developed the site himself, which is why it doesn't look as good as it probably should.

I guess, I want to help him earn some money with this domain name and I believe just forwarding it to there business site is not helping any. (according to him, TONS of traffic and no sales)

If this was your domain, what would you do to monitize the site?

 

[blaknite]

Don't let your friends dad lose his buisness and resort to selling this name. Instead use it to save his business. Perhaps you can even make a profit by helping him with the web design. (though I would reccomend you outsource if you feel its above your capabilities. Its going to be a big job.)

Looking over his site, I'd say the site is very representative of what an average cookie cutter business site looked like five or more years ago. It still has trappings of SEO that is now black hat and was popular back then. (obvious hidden text) There is very little effort to turn the visitors into buyers. It looks more like a brochure annoucing the existance of a product rather than a user involved site.

First off a complete site redesign is in order. Lose the focus on SABCO and put it on KEGS.com. One is far more brandable. I'd make the site kegs.com independant, featuring all kinds of brewery articles, forums, diy how to's, videos, ect. Then treat sabco as an exclusive business partner of kegs.com (IE promote their products throuought the site as if they were a separate entitiy.)

He could cover the additional cost of the web design work by earning additional income from featuring affilate links for similar but non-competitive products. If he sells barrels and equiptment, partner with a specialty yeast supplier, and someone who sells grain.

I'm sure most of us here realize this, and your friend's dad probably doesn't. The people he wants to find his website are not searching for brewery equiptment. Thats why he isn't getting any sales. It would seem they should be looking for brewery equiptment, but more than likely they are searching for things like "how to make my own beer at home." By turning kegs.com into a separate entity that focuses on the kind of people he really wants to sell to. Contests, Tshirts, mugs, events, can all be features of the kegs.com brand. By making the site a separate entity he can inspire people to be interested in his type of products and then be there to direct them to SABCO when they're ready to buy. Even if the people arent all interested in brewing, he can turn a profit from the extra traffic and use it to support both the site and his business.

SABCO in its own right needs a bit of work. Mostly just a site redesign that changes the focus from informational to Straight Sales. Kind of like good cop bad cop. One site provides motivation to act the other provides a means for the action to follow. They are a married pair, but to the vistor they seem independant. People can build a feeling of trust from kegs.com because they don't sell anything directly and trust their oppinon that producst from SABCO are of good quality and fair price. People would not normally build that same level of trust dealing with SABCO directly because buyers are inherently distrustful of sellers.