IT.COM

strategy Identifying a trend - "Trans + word" Domain Assets

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There was a professional appraisal that hit my desk today for evaluation and I found it very interesting once I started to dissect the data.
Asset Type:
Brandable / Two-word-merge / Psychological Influence
Note: There's some interesting sales data for assets starting with "Trans". There are 10 pages of Trans assets, but the oldest sales report is 2017. That means that we may have stumbled onto a low pulse trend. Depending on how many are developed would tell us if its a reseller hyped trend or an actual end-user branding trend. The bad news, is that that the consistency of value for similar comparisons is low, however, I think most of those are between investors looking to resell again. The good news is that this trend (hyped or not) is steady, meaning you have a little bit of current market liquidity on your side until the trends bubble pops.
Opinion:
There is plenty of demand it seems for Trans at the beginning or at the end of a brand name (As seen in a "Trans Logo" keyword search in Google Images.

While I do think the majority of the Trans + word sales are investor/reseller related, yours has the slight advantage of the psychological play/merge with velocity and the current trending Trans market value based on the consistent pattern we uncovered in sales data above.

If you look at the definition of Trans, you can see all the different directions it can go. There's no shortage of potential end-users
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Has anyone else noticed this low threshold word-combination trend?

Are you already investing in Trans assets (If so, how are they doing for you)?

Discuss and Share your experience with "Trans" domain assets to help shed more light on this potential trend and when the niche word-combination bubble might pop.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Haven't had any domain with "trans", however i agree the word is superb.
 
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I have four or five brandables containing the phrase “trans” for example, TRANSDEX and ULTRANS.

I rarely pursue specific themes such as “Trans assets” with the exception of when a new technology emerges, like blockchain or 5G.

This is partly because most of my acquisitions are on the drop - so I take what I can get! O_o

So I was fortunate to be able to acquire ULTRANS but I would also equally have bid on names like SUPERTRANS or INTERTRANS if I had had the opportunity.

I don’t consider domains like these to be in a “bubble” so therefore there is nothing that “might pop”.

So really I just happen to have some “trans” names almost by accident - simply because I liked the combo of “trans” with some other word. The words need to complement each other, for example a name like TRANSAPPLE would not make any sense.

I haven’t sold any of my “trans” domains, but am sure that I will because of the disruptions occurring in technology and transport and the shortage of great names for brands.

I strongly disagree with one aspect of the appraisal represented by the sentence:

“Depending on how many are developed would tell us if its a reseller hyped trend or an actual end-user branding trend.”

This is looking backwards into the past. The reason my business is doing well is because I try to look five years ahead, not five years behind. I haven’t actually measured it, but my average hold period seems to be about five years.

If you look at the latest small list of Mike Mann’s high value sales, you can see his average hold was around eight years:

https://onlinedomain.com/2019/04/15...or-122700-in-march-linkchecker-com-amvis-com/

Most likely none of his purchases would have had any comparable sales histories. You need to anticipate the future.

If you decide to mainly rely on sales history for acquisitions - well sorry, you have already missed the future trend.
 
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I have four or five brandables containing the phrase “trans” for example, TRANSDEX and ULTRANS.

I rarely pursue specific themes such as “Trans assets” with the exception of when a new technology emerges, like blockchain or 5G.

This is partly because most of my acquisitions are on the drop - so I take what I can get! O_o

So I was fortunate to be able to acquire ULTRANS but I would also equally have bid on names like SUPERTRANS or INTERTRANS if I had had the opportunity.

I don’t consider domains like these to be in a “bubble” so therefore there is nothing that “might pop”.

So really I just happen to have some “trans” names almost by accident - simply because I liked the combo of “trans” with some other word. The words need to complement each other, for example a name like TRANSAPPLE would not make any sense.

I haven’t sold any of my “trans” domains, but am sure that I will because of the disruptions occurring in technology and transport and the shortage of great names for brands.

I strongly disagree with one aspect of the appraisal represented by the sentence:

“Depending on how many are developed would tell us if its a reseller hyped trend or an actual end-user branding trend.”

This is looking backwards into the past. The reason my business is doing well is because I try to look five years ahead, not five years behind. I haven’t actually measured it, but my average hold period seems to be about five years.

If you look at the latest small list of Mike Mann’s high value sales, you can see his average hold was around eight years:

https://onlinedomain.com/2019/04/15...or-122700-in-march-linkchecker-com-amvis-com/

Most likely none of his purchases would have had any comparable sales histories. You need to anticipate the future.

If you decide to mainly rely on sales history for acquisitions - well sorry, you have already missed the future trend.
One should never rely on only one variable when evaluating a domain. I'm not sure how you translated that out of a simple data trend. I am a huge advocate of multiple variables in evaluations.

There are plenty of examples of valuable assets with no comparable sales history worth 5 figures. However, sales data, does reveal trends and very handy for tracking them. Knowing or being able to predict when a trend dies is critical if you are a niche investor, not knowing, could leave someone holding the preverbial Chips (previous well known trend that many lost money in) bag.

Just as one should never rely soley on sales history one should never rule it completely out as a variable either.

Each variable is a puzzle piece within a complex evaluation. 😁
 
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One should never rely on only one variable when evaluating a domain. I'm not sure how you translated that out of a simple data trend. I am a huge advocate of multiple variables in evaluations.
I completely agree that one should never rely on only one variable when evaluating a domain. I do not understand why you have concluded from my comment that I only rely on a single variable. My comment is actually warning against too much reliance on a single variable - namely, historical sales results.
 
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I completely agree that one should never rely on only one variable when evaluating a domain. I do not understand why you have concluded from my comment that I only rely on a single variable. My comment is actually warning against too much reliance on a single variable - namely, historical sales results.
The conclusion wasn't that one should only use sales data in your comment, it was your statement that sales data should not be used, with a reasoning that the historical data doesn't help.

It was simply that aspect of your comment I disagreed with. 😁

I completely agree it's an important variable that should never be overlooked.
 
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The conclusion wasn't that one should only use sales data in your comment, it was your statement that sales data should not be used, with a reasoning that the historical data doesn't help.
I never said that sales data should not be used. I said it should not be your main criteria. I actually spend a great deal of time studying sales data. And yes, the historical data does help (but less significantly when you are setting a trend rather than following one).

I said, and I quote with extra emphasis:

"If you decide to mainly rely on sales history for acquisitions - well sorry, you have already missed the future trend."
 
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I have just went through my portfolio - don't have any TRANS name, but for sure will add some if I stumble over a nice combo - Thanks @Eric Lyon and @BrandableDomain for this info!(y)
 
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I have only one Trans name. Transversal in .org. Even though I would prefer it in .com, I don't think it's that bad of a name even for a .org.
 
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I never said that sales data should not be used. I said it should not be your main criteria. I actually spend a great deal of time studying sales data. And yes, the historical data does help (but less significantly when you are setting a trend rather than following one).

I said, and I quote with extra emphasis:

"If you decide to mainly rely on sales history for acquisitions - well sorry, you have already missed the future trend."
Ahh, I see... That's my bad then. My scan missed the "mainly". Here's what my initial translation soaked in (Bolding the parts that psychologically stuck in my brain, causing the oversight of the word "Mainly"):
This is looking backwards into the past. The reason my business is doing well is because I try to look five years ahead, not five years behind. I haven’t actually measured it, but my average hold period seems to be about five years.

If you look at the latest small list of Mike Mann’s high value sales, you can see his average hold was around eight years:

https://onlinedomain.com/2019/04/15...or-122700-in-march-linkchecker-com-amvis-com/

Most likely none of his purchases would have had any comparable sales histories. You need to anticipate the future.
If I had seen the "mainly" I probably would have worded my initial response differently.

My apologizes. It looks like we agree on the majority then.

I'm still a firm believer that deep data mining domains acquired and parked vs. landed vs. developed reveals some great meat to the naked eye to identify hyped reseller/investor pumped trends, which not only helps in avoiding a pitfall of potentially being stuck holding the bag when the ball drops and the trending window closes, it also helps isolate the end-user trend, which is much more important than the reseller trend.

After all, we are presenting assets to end-users, ideally, right? This means that I want the most reliable and accurate data to identify actual markets looking to scale, without all the smoke and mirrors of hype.

At any rate, I just wanted to clarify my stance a little for the part you disagreed with in the original evaluation. Maybe now that I clarified a bit, it might make more sense. I may not have explained it good enough before.

At the end of the day, we all do things different and what works for one may not work for another.
 
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@FolioTeam
@BrandableDomain

Have either of you noticed an increased interest/inquiry in your trans assets starting in 2017 to today?

I ask because that can also be a trend indicator.
 
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@FolioTeam
@BrandableDomain

Have either of you noticed an increased interest/inquiry in your trans assets starting in 2017 to today?

I ask because that can also be a trend indicator.

No inquiries yet. But I've noticed an increase in daily traffic on the name. I simply chalked it up to probably domainers checking to see if it's available.
 
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I am a little confused by " but the oldest sales report is 2017.' Why are not the following, and ones like them, relevant? Perhaps I am totally misunderstanding something...
  • TransIndex $123 (2005)
  • TransClub $551 (2006)
  • TransAll $295 (2006)
  • TransGlobal $40,249 (2007)
  • TransPhase $700 (2007)
  • TransAlliance $800 (2007)
Clearly trans as part of an engineering and science term (as in transport, transaxle, transmission, transpiration, etc.) has been around, but probably of lowish value generally as a domain name, for a long time.

Trans as a gender term has clearly emerged really strongly in the past 5 years or so, and terms related to that are I presume selling more briskly and for more now than 10 years ago (although somewhat surprised that the TV version sold for so little this year in the exact word).

Interestingly trans as a word according to Ngram peaked in 1996 but has been pretty constant since then. I would not have predicted that.

Bob
 
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I thought it would be because of transsexual, have only transdating

or not, Google Trends shows downward
 
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I am a little confused by " but the oldest sales report is 2017.' Why are not the following, and ones like them, relevant? Perhaps I am totally misunderstanding something...
  • TransIndex $123 (2005)
  • TransClub $551 (2006)
  • TransAll $295 (2006)
  • TransGlobal $40,249 (2007)
  • TransPhase $700 (2007)
  • TransAlliance $800 (2007)
Clearly trans as part of an engineering and science term (as in transport, transaxle, transmission, transpiration, etc.) has been around, but probably of lowish value generally as a domain name, for a long time.

Trans as a gender term has clearly emerged really strongly in the past 5 years or so, and terms related to that are I presume selling more briskly and for more now than 10 years ago (although somewhat surprised that the TV version sold for so little this year in the exact word).

Interestingly trans as a word according to Ngram peaked in 1996 but has been pretty constant since then. I would not have predicted that.

Bob
great question. The consistency of multiple and repeat trans + word sales didn't pick up until 2017. Prior to that appears more scattered. There,are also some larger, pre trans word sales that may have influenced the spike later.
 
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There is no doubt the gender use is totally dominating now. In a Google search only 1 of the top 40 are not sites using it in a transgender sense (the other was an energy related use). As we have a more inclusive society the term finds huge use compared to 10 years ago.

Edit Add: This was from Canada. On a term like this I expect it varies a lot with your region your Google results.
 
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I have TransTurbo and TransPillar, both in com and accepted by BP, so maybe they know something, but also, there are some companies using this names around the world.
 
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There is no doubt the gender use is totally dominating now. In a Google search only 1 of the top 40 are not sites using it in a transgender sense (the other was an energy related use). As we have a more inclusive society the term finds huge use compared to 10 years ago.

Edit Add: This was from Canada. On a term like this I expect it varies a lot with your region your Google results.
The bigger question now is, how long will that niche trend before it fades with time and peoples interest shifts? Ridding the wave to it's peak before cashing out with a little profit, in the event the ideal buyer didn't acquire it prior to the trends bubble popping.

Granted, trans is flexible and goes in many directions, so there are plenty of uses. It's the large portfolio holders of them with the highest risk, when niche reseller liquidity is saturated and drops, leaving them holding the bag of hundreds or thousands of dollars in renewals.

This is sometimes (in my observations) a point in which hype is inserted as a panic button for the investor to dump the whole portfolio without a loss, possibly breaking even.

Trends motivated by portfolio dump hype can show similar consistancies, making it even more complex to figure out when to dump yourself.

Catch 22 I suppose.

Added note: One way to identify that may be deep data mining into how many of the same niche sales are from the same portfolio holder.
 
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It is interesting that 3 of the top 10 sales with trans as prefix involve globe or global. Combinations like this strike me as valuable because they could ride the gender related sharp increase but also are ideal for companies that operate globally e.g. in freight transport. Combinations with transfer, connection, delivery are also in the top 20. Also 3 of the top 20 involve coin or bank. If I owned domains related to any of these niches (global, transport, banking) definitely hold on to them and hope for a good ROI.

In general, I think, it is hard to sell for large prices domains intended primarily for nonprofits or low profit information sites related to them. I don't see trans as a major social trend as changing any time soon, but I would sell when a reasonable price is offered for domains primarily related to gender use. I think also .org will be a popular choice and competition in that niche (.net also works, and possibly the .lgbt new extension will get some of the gender related use of term, although just 2300 registrations and no aftermarket sales of note).

Bob
 
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@FolioTeam
@BrandableDomain

Have either of you noticed an increased interest/inquiry in your trans assets starting in 2017 to today?

I ask because that can also be a trend indicator.
No enquiries yet on any of my half a dozen “trans” domains. But since most of them are for sale at Uni Market with BIN pricing, there isn’t really much imperative for buyers to need to contact me.

Also, that small number probably isn’t enough to be statistically significant.

Because I mostly deal in brandable names, I pay very little attention to traffic. Most of my domains get almost zero traffic, yet on average I make a sale around every three weeks.

Just looked in my account today and here are the traffic figures for the two examples I mentioned:

TRANSDEX 0.18 visitors per day.
ULTRANS 0.29 visitors per day.

Most of my domains have similar hopeless traffic figures, yet buyers come by and my average sales price this year is a bit below $5,000. (Last year was a little above.) So something is working.
 
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I'm still a firm believer that deep data mining domains acquired and parked vs. landed vs. developed reveals some great meat to the naked eye to identify hyped reseller/investor pumped trends, which not only helps in avoiding a pitfall of potentially being stuck holding the bag when the ball drops and the trending window closes, it also helps isolate the end-user trend, which is much more important than the reseller trend.
Yes, I should pay more attention to deep data mining of deployed domains to gain actionable insights. As the saying goes: “Knowledge is Power.”

That’s a particularly good idea to highlight the difference between an “end-user trend” and a “reseller trend” which is a new perspective for me to think about.
 
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I am a little confused by " but the oldest sales report is 2017.' Why are not the following, and ones like them, relevant? Perhaps I am totally misunderstanding something...
  • TransIndex $123 (2005)
  • TransClub $551 (2006)
  • TransAll $295 (2006)
  • TransGlobal $40,249 (2007)
  • TransPhase $700 (2007)
  • TransAlliance $800 (2007)
I think the sales from years ago are still very relevant. But it leaves us with the big challenge of figuring out how to interpret the data.

Some of the examples are likely “off the market forever” so we have to imagine whether they would still sell today if they were placed back on the market. Keeping in mind that many of the best domains were sold years ago.

A comparison came to mind which might explain this possibly confusing comment. Leonardo da Vinci paintings! There have only been one or two sales in the last hundred years or so, but that doesn’t mean he has lost popularity! His paintings are “off the market forever.”

So (adding another example) we need to combine good general knowledge and foresight with available data to decide whether “hoverboard” related domains or “trans” related domains are a fad or a long term trend.
 
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I have only one domain "Trans Identity ( king)"
Recently bought and only 1 low ball offer
 
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I came across a name on dropcatch.com a few days ago, I passed it and everyone else too and it dropped. This thread made me look for it and found it was available to hand reg and I did reg TransAllies in king. Its .org is taken and developed.
 
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