discuss If your sales the last several months were less than renewals what do you do?

[garptrader]

While certain segments of the domain market CHIPS, short numeric and LL/LLL names seem to be more liquid, domains in general are illiquid unless you are willing to sell at 3-5% of end user value. Certain times of the year are slower but what do you do when see few buyers and too many renewals?

 

[brindle123]

Be way more selective in what you buy in the first place, only renew the really good domains, put the money you would have spent on renewing the dead weight into renewing the better domains.

Sales are few and far between so be very careful what you are buying. Don't get caught up in the buyouts either. Diversify but don't go crazy trying to own every domain.

Try to sell across multiple platforms.
Don't start $1 auctions if you can avoid it. Put them up for reg fee instead.

 

[Hypersot]

You start doing domaining in multiple ways.

When I first started domaining 2-3 years ago, I had myself trying out the various ways that this 'business' can bring revenue.
Reason was obvious, .. if one way didn't pay out then the other way would have to support it.

Fortunately, parking is paying off for me so I can 'play' with domains with some ease of heart.
I suggest you do the same, find other ways to pay for your renewals when selling domains gets a bad day(s).

 

[inforg]

If you are in this situation, it is likely a quality issue.

1. Drop some
2. Dump some on eBay or forums for whatever they bring
3. Stop buying more
4. Re-evaluate your business model
5. Look at your pricing it might be too low to produce return or too high to sell anything
6. Add some more capital to your budget if you have it

 

[Asfas1000]

Sales being less than renewals doesn't mean much per se. You may be holding your domains for the right buyers.

If you have good domains, there's no reason to be worried.

 

[Asfas1000]

I should add that number of inquiries might be a better indication of end user demand, rather than sales...

 

[Michael Seatory]

Be way more selective in what you buy in the first place, only renew the really good domains, put the money you would have spent on renewing the dead weight into renewing the better domains.

Sales are few and far between so be very careful what you are buying. Don't get caught up in the buyouts either. Diversify but don't go crazy trying to own every domain.

Try to sell across multiple platforms.
Don't start $1 auctions if you can avoid it. Put them up for reg fee instead.

Could you share some more info on listing on multiple platforms? I have been researching where to list my domains so far I have...
sedo
flippa
godaddy
afternic
ebay
NamePros.
And some less well known ones have been mentioned...
aged.domains
prycr.com

I understand most sites have different listing fees and varying commissions. I have also observed that certain niches seem to command higher prices on some platforms.

My question is. Why do you recommend selling across multiple platforms?
What factors do you consider before your decision on where to list?
Or are you suggesting to list on other platforms if a name remains unsold on one?

 

[Michael Seatory]

You start doing domaining in multiple ways.

When I first started domaining 2-3 years ago, I had myself trying out the various ways that this 'business' can bring revenue.
Reason was obvious, .. if one way didn't pay out then the other way would have to support it.

Fortunately, parking is paying off for me so I can 'play' with domains with some ease of heart.
I suggest you do the same, find other ways to pay for your renewals when selling domains gets a bad day(s).

Why is parking working for you?
Do you recommend using a particular parking service?
Is it just that you have good names with good existing traffic?
Do you suggest any other ways of monetizing to cover reg fees?

 

[Michael Seatory]

If you are in this situation, it is likely a quality issue.

1. Drop some
2. Dump some on eBay or forums for whatever they bring
3. Stop buying more
4. Re-evaluate your business model
5. Look at your pricing it might be too low to produce return or too high to sell anything
6. Add some more capital to your budget if you have it

Feel that number 6 may not be particularly helpful? Particularly if the other points are not addressed first.

 

[inforg]

Feel that number 6 may not be particularly helpful? Particularly if the other points are not addressed first.

It is hard to tell based on original post and without seeing the portfolio quality and quantity. A few months is a pretty short timeline. I measure profit by year, and frequently have slow periods of a few months where money going out is more than what came in, but I have never had an entire year where I lost money.

If he is leveraging all the money coming in without setting aside operating capital, he may need to add capital. It goes back to number 4 - he needs to figure out his business model.

When I make sales, my first allocation of money is to renewals. In good times, I like to be 6 months ahead on renewals. Then I spend part on more names and/or pocket some. Being less than 3-4 months out on my renewals is my trigger for dropping/dumping lower quality names, looking at pricing, etc..

 

[Michael Seatory]

It is hard to tell based on original post and without seeing the portfolio quality and quantity. A few months is a pretty short timeline. I measure profit by year, and frequently have slow periods of a few months where money going out is more than what came in, but I have never had an entire year where I lost money.

If he is leveraging all the money coming in without setting aside operating capital, he may need to add capital. It goes back to number 4 - he needs to figure out his business model.

When I make sales, my first allocation of money is to renewals. In good times, I like to be 6 months ahead on renewals. Then I spend part on more names and/or pocket some. Being less than 3-4 months out on my renewals is my trigger for dropping/dumping lower quality names, looking at pricing, etc..

I am sure this makes sense but currently got me in a spin! I suppose what is getting me is the fact that the domains may have varying renewal dates? Can you help me clarify what you are saying.

Lets say I bought 15 domains, one in each month of the year since January 2015.
In your scenario, I would have renewed 3 domains (jan/feb/mar) and would have 6 x $10 (renewal fee) in the bank?
If I had less $60 in the bank say $30-$40 This would be a signal/trigger for dumping or dropping 3 lowest quality.

If that makes any sense to you and you can help me work it out I would be very grateful.

 

[garptrader]

While the ideal buyer is an end user the reality is most domains are bought by domainers. It is probably a common fault that we tend to become attached to our domains and price them more than anyone else is willing to pay for them. Low-dollar sales don't help much with renewals but in ten years I have had only a small number of sales over $1500 (none since the launch of new TLDs).

 

[DomainVP]

Take a few days to do end user outreach with domains that you are willing to drop. I'm sure you have some domains on hand that you could sell and cover your renewals.

If you are in this situation you must be proactive, you cannot expect someone just to appear and want to buy your domain.

 

[4pm]

Low-dollar sales don't help much with renewals but in ten years I have had only a small number of sales over $1500 (none since the launch of new TLDs).

this is a) a portfolio quality problem or/and b) pricing
the above factors' weights are measured by the number and quality of offers received: no x,xxx offers - portfolio quality is low, many offers but no sales - pricing is the issue...
accordingly, you need to work on a) or b) or both of them depending on your offers stats

for example, you seem to hold a lot of 2-word tvs... its a waste of money and a portfolio quality problem. how much in renewals would you save if you dropped them all vs how many sales you's lose if any at all?

just imho

 

[garptrader]

Another frustrations is letting names drop, seeing them get picked up by another domainer and priced at four to five figures. It seems the only price anyone is willing to pay for domains is reg fee or backorder. I let FlashGames.tv go a couple months ago - picked up by someone else and the .Net and .Org are priced in the six figure range. Even the .XYZ which to me is worthless is priced five figures. That is a highly-searched keyword but still not one of my better names. As well, sometimes you need two words like "Real Estate" or "Miami Beach" or "New York" or "Wedding Dresses"

 

[4pm]

Another frustrations is letting names drop, seeing them get picked up by another domainer and priced at four to five figures.

instead of being frustrated you should feel somewhat satisfied as its not you anymore who's left holding the bag paying renewals for the name that had never had a single price request ...this is what i feel when i see my dropped names picked up and priced four figures, honestly. i look at every dropped name as a lesson on how to avoid crap and pick better names, what sells and what dont, every drop is an opportunity to improve my portfolio quality with the saved renewals.

drop crap, pick better names, auction off so-so stuff at $1, drink good alcohol, never give up

 

[4pm]

sometimes you need two words like "Real Estate" or "Miami Beach" or "New York" or "Wedding Dresses"

the bitter truth is 100% buyers minus around 100 people in the world think they can live with 2 words only in .com and sometimes their ccTLD... it's up to you to choose between the whole world and 100 people
of course, they sometimes sell. the question is do you want to rely on 1:1,000,000 exceptions... your sales/offers stats should be clearly indicating if that works for you

btw offtopic but still... is "New York" considered as 2 words or 1?

 

[Bullock]

btw offtopic but still... is "New York" considered as 2 words or 1?

"bank accont", "credit card" are considered as one word.

 

[garptrader]

I have dropped probably 80% of my .Net domains over the years and have pared back my .TV holdings as well - despite the fact these extensions have been around for many years (.Net launched 30 years ago and .TV 15+ years ago). Selling domains in anything other than .COM is a real challenge. .TV renewals at $28-$30 each are far more expensive than .COM which means the occasional sale is consumed by renewal costs. So I have avoided new TLDs completely because I do not see mass end user aftermarket acceptance of them for at least a decade.

Another issue is non-English domains. CPC and search volume are higher for English keywords. Also, while acceptance of paying for an aftermarket domain is not universal in developed markets, there is more willingness to buy an aftermarket English domain than is the case in Spanish / Portuguese markets where social media channels are more prevalent or where local CCTLDs present a reg fee alternative. Sometimes when I have done outbound marketing for Spanish domains, the recipient does not even understand what I am referring to when I try to market a domain name relevant to their business.

Regardless, I work in finance so I see how much companies spend on marketing, professional services, travel, IT costs, etc and it drives me nuts the resistance to spending more than reg fee for a domain relevant to their business (even in US markets).