sales Input sought - How has last month been in sales and queries?

[Bob Hawkes]

Hi NamePros friends,

I am working on an article on statistical trends due to the pandemic. I am not yet 100% sure whether I will find any clear enough trends to publish it at NamePros, but if I do I would also like to include commentary from domain investors as part of the article.

Therefore, if you would be so kind, please add in replies to this post any information or comments that you are willing to share publicly. By posting here I am assuming that you are fine with me quoting you in the article, with attribution of course.

1. Have you seen any significant changes in number of offers, sales or inquiries during the past month?
2. On the sales front, have you seen changes in the types of domain names that are getting traffic or inquiries, either in terms of price level or niche?
3. If you do parking, have you noted any change in parking revenue of late? (e.g. more people on Internet, has it meant more visits to parking sites and clicks).

While I will not be able to include all comments, I really appreciate all who take the time to respond.

Sincerely,

Bob

 

[FolioTeam]

1. About 3 offers in March. One was a non-payment. Didn't agree on price on the other two.

2. There has been about 30-50% more traffic on my names. Used to have a daily average of 30-40 visitors on 170~ names after filtering out bot traffic in Google analytics. Now, that number has shot up to 40-60 visitors daily.

3. I don't park names.

 

[brandsly]

Some have speculated that the upper end may be seeing more of a pull back, which makes sense as company rebranding and new marketing campaigns focus on more day to day things during the pandemic.
Bob

I definitely thought the same after the last month, and was prepared to hold out the higher-end names for even longer term and not expect any higher sales for a while. My highest sale last month was $4500, and even that one was changed to payment plan after the buyer almost backed out when the virus situation quickly escalated (and cited the situation in an email). However, this month started with an $8K sale, which gives me a lot of hope that there is still demand and end user spending on premium names.

 

[biggie]

Hi

if,
1% is floor str
then I've already met that.

and,
that 1% str was greater than, the cost to renew portfolio

and
with the few monthly $ from ppc...
the need to sell to sustain, is removed



still, I look at sales/earnings over span of time, that is larger than a snapshot of a few months.
so, whether I had sold any names or received any inquiries to date, it wouldn't be notation for this pandemic.
as one could sell a domain in July or September, that would wash this point away.



imo...

 

[SuperBrander]

March was pretty great. 25K sale, 4K sale, 3K sale and a few other smaller sales. April on the other hand has been bad for me so far. One buyer bailed on a 8K sale that was already in escrow (first with some coronavirus excuses asking for extra time, then he just disappeared). Not a lot of inquiries this month either so far. Good thing I have a few installment plans that are still being financed. Hopefully things will pick up in the second half of the month.

 

[Domain Monk]

I bought around 5000-6000 in 2016/17, then added another bit more than 1000 in 2018-2019. So I had around 7000 names for the past couple of years.

I just added a couple thousand more names this year as I decided to scale my business and portfolio for the coming year, am also in the process of rebuilding my portfolio site.

I didn't have a a lucky big sale or anything...I've been an entrepreneur for quite some time, so I came into domaining with initial capital. I started investing in domains after selling my previous company.

I also didn't just dump half a million dollars in domains and hope for the best. I started investing with maybe high 4 figure-low 5 figure, and when I figured out what I was doing (by endless amount of hard work), I scaled up - and scaled up as fast as I possibly could.

I have yet to sell my biggest purchases yet, but I see them as long term investments, separate from the main portfolio.

And now let's get the thread back on Bob's topic haha.

First of all thanks allot brandsly for great information so much gratitude to you, inspiring.

I have a question , you purchased 5000 to 6000 names in 1 year, that looks a big task and lot of hard work even though you had the capital, how many hours did you spend per day ?

 

[brandsly]

First of all thanks allot brandsly for great information so much gratitude to you, inspiring.

I have a question , you purchased 5000 to 6000 names in 1 year, that looks a big task and lot of hard work even though you had the capital, how many hours did you spend per day ?

A lot. Basically, if I wasn't eating or sleeping, I was working, didn't even take weekends off. But, I think it's just as important to work smart besides working hard.

 

[bobo4us]

I've only been recording net revenue on my sales spreadsheet (after deducting commission, transfer fees, escrow fees etc., gross sales numbers below are estimates.). I will start to record gross sales from now on. The majority of my sales are BIN, very few payment plans from time to time.

I do not monitor my traffic much, nor do I earn any parking revenue, so I'm no help on those.

Hopefully these data can be of some help for your research.

great sales, where do you make most of the sales? and how do you sort for nmaes? auctions or mostly handreg?
Thanks for your input

 

[brandsly]

great sales, where do you make most of the sales? and how do you sort for nmaes? auctions or mostly handreg?
Thanks for your input

Thanks. Please refer to the posts followed by that post in the same thread.

 

[mickey-jay]

Thanks @alcy . I’m still in the process of writing that long post about my portfolio/sales stats/domaining journey, which I’ve mentioned in other threads before. It will just take me some time as it’s a lot of information...starting from digging through my emails and finding gross sale numbers for hundreds of names haha.

Here I will do my best to answer your questions, but I will give more details in a future post.

My portfolio is a mixed pot from all kinds of sources. Many people on the forum remember me joining the forum in 2016 and was buying domains all over the place.

I started very late and I wanted to build a decent sized portfolio as fast I as I possibly could, so I bought from all the sources I could think of - all the auction platforms, the forum, private acquisitions, dropcatching, marketplaces etc. So most of my portfolio is from the aftermarket.

I did some handreg in the very beginning, but most of them were dropped after the first year. Now that I have a lot more experience, I actually started to handreg some here and there again, especially for emerging technologies. But hand reg is still only a very small percentage of my portfolio. I love love good aged keyword domains, but just as much as I love newer trendy startup-y names. I only focus on brandables and what I can envision being names of new startups, and I think that is very important - being able to see uses for every name you buy. In fact, I get many new business ideas from the names I buy, so much so that I intentionally price some names higher just so I don’t sell them too fast, hoping to develop them myself one day when I have time.

My overall acquisition cost is around $1xx, however, top 2 names I own already cost around $100K, and I've bought quite a bit of liquid names averaging $xxxx each. Taken those out, average acquisition cost for rest of the names would be $xx. I've definitely overpaid for a lot of names in auctions given the current state of the aftermarket, but I've balanced those cost out by finding names that slip under the radar - more on that in the future post.

The net sales from the post above include the acquisition costs, but acquisition costs are pretty much negligible for the most part. Most of the time, acquisition costs are 2-3% of the sales price, in exceptional cases, it could be 5-10% of sales price for bigger sales. Why 2-3%? Because that’s my annual sell through rate, and I always try to get all my new investments back in a year.

I don’t have any special sales strategy. I list all names on Afternic/Sedo and point them to Dan. Everything has BIN prices. I used to have my own landing pages, but had to switch to Dan because of an international relocation and I was no longer able to accept credit card payments. It worked out quite well as I know that I'm not very good at negotiation haha. Nowadays, Afternic brokers and Dan handle most of the inquiries. Majority of the names are just sold at the listed BIN prices.

As I mentioned in other posts before, I believe good names sell themselves. I have a few hundred names listed on various marketplaces, but I see them more as learning experiences. I still like to have full control over my portfolio.

Very Impressive journey. I can't wait to read the long post about your domaining journey.
If i may ask what's your yearly profit range like after deducting renewal cost.

 

[brandsly]

I really appreciate the interests, but as I mentioned before, let's please return the thread back to Bob's topic and I will share more details about everything in a separate thread in the future. I don't mean any disrespect for anyone but I will no longer be answering questions about my sales on this thread. I shared relevant data to help Bob with his research project - the topic of the thread.

Thank you.

 

[The Durfer]

yes to all your questions, more sales and more traffic. ty.

 

[OnlineBusiness.com]

While I've collected names over the past 20 yrs, I've only been domaining full-time since this past Nov/Dec so I don't have much comparison to last year.

That said, I had two end-user sales fall through due to the crisis. Both deals were in escrow and the buyers agreed they would fund, however eventually cited the crisis as to why they couldn't continue.

One deal was for $6K and the other was for $8K. So I can definitely say sales for me for March have been down compared to an otherwise non-crisis world.

Other sales for March where: $5.5K, $4.2K, $3.3K, $699

For this month, April I had a $12K sale (on a payment plan). And another small $500 sale come through so far.

So while I can see businesses being apprehensive about buying domains, I still think we domain investors will continue to see sales in the coming months.

Hopefully some of the upcoming PPP loan funds being disbursed will be used to secure domains (not likely but you never know).

 

[Oladapo Olatunji]

I really appreciate the interests, but as I mentioned before, let's please return the thread back to Bob's topic and I will share more details about everything in a separate thread in the future. I don't mean any disrespect for anyone but I will no longer be answering questions about my sales on this thread. I shared relevant data to help Bob with his research project - the topic of the thread.

Thank you.

I appreciate you for releasing info how you get to this level. But for new peoples like us who benefit from your experience we still need you to give us some secret tips.

 

[Domain Monk]

I appreciate you for releasing info how you get to this level. But for new peoples like us who benefit from your experience we still need you to give us some secret tips.

Only tips I see is

Consistency
Persistence
And gather knowledge

No other secret recipe or short cut to success

 

[sircc]

I appreciate you for releasing info how you get to this level. But for new peoples like us who benefit from your experience we still need you to give us some secret tips.

This website has literally thousands of pages of tips. You might want to start reading them.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thank you so much everyone who took the time to respond.

I have just now posted the NamePros Blog article. So while too late to include additional comments in the article, you can of course at any time share your reflections in this thread.

Thanks again. It shows the power of the NamePros community that by combining our many experiences we can get a multifaceted view on a question.

Stay safe and I hope that all is well with each of your.

Sincerely,

Bob

 

[BrandableDomain]

I delayed commenting on this valuable thread because I had a pending sale this week for $640 that has been agreed on, but the buyer still has not actually clicked to buy it.

But then 2 days ago, someone clicked “BIN” on another domain and bought it for $3,500.

Here is a calendar of my 17 domain sales so far in 2020 from about 3,200 owned. All but two transacted on the Uniregistry Market platform where I have most of my names:

JAN

10 Jan: $10,000
14 Jan: $500
20 Jan: $5,000
27 Jan: $950
31 Jan: $2,000

FEB

4 Feb: $800
17 Feb: $1,500
25 Feb: $1,600
29 Feb: $600
29 Feb: $2,000

MAR

6 Mar: $6,390
10 Mar: $5,000
10 Mar: $999
12 Mar: $25,000
16 Mar: $1,000
27 Mar: $300

APR (as at 18th April)

16 Apr: $3500

(Note I also declined a $4,500 offer in April)

This is too small a sample to draw conclusions, but it would seem that sales for me began to decline from about the middle of March which more or less coincides with the perceived severity of the rapid rise of the global Covid-19 crisis.

In terms of strategy, I have been lowering prices on many of my lower value domains since the middle of last year, whenever I’ve found some spare time. I didn’t change prices on many high value names either up or down.

This did seem to result in materially more sales at the lower end of the price spectrum.

It’s hard to say how long this apparent downturn might last. It might be like the sharemarket where uncertainty is severely punished. On one hand, the world is heading into a protracted recession. On the other, a lot of people are suddenly at home in their new home offices and are dreaming about side hustles. So many will be wanting to acquire a new domain address.

What doesn’t seem to reconcile is the fact that I seem to be getting just as many leads in my Uniregistry Market account as usual, or maybe more, but buyers seem to be suddenly more hesitant or something.

I’m still buying strongly because my business is usually very profitable. But at the same time, I am dropping more names than usual. I’m hoping to still have ample cash on hand in the months ahead meaning I hope that sales don’t decline too much so I can afford to keep buying. There are likely to be some very good buying opportunities this year. Good luck and good health to all.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thank you so much for your detailed information just shared, @BrandableDomain So for you March was definitely not a down month in terms of dollar volume.

From what others have said, both in this thread and in other ways, I think the experience you describe below is fairly common. Perhaps with more time unscheduled, there does seem to be more browsing of domain names, and even initial offers, but as you say hesitancy in closing.

What doesn’t seem to reconcile is the fact that I seem to be getting just as many leads in my Uniregistry Market account as usual, or maybe more, but buyers seem to be suddenly more hesitant or something.

I have heard (various ways) of a number of experienced successful domain investors doing this - lowering prices somewhat at low end, but not at all at upper end. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over a longer time period, and supposedly get reflected in sales statistics. The question of pricing that leads to the best product of sell-through rate times net price is important but hard to determine.

In terms of strategy, I have been lowering prices on many of my lower value domains since the middle of last year, whenever I’ve found some spare time. I didn’t change prices on many high value names either up or down.

Thanks again for a really detailed response that will help us all, and best wishes for continued success.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for sharing your experience, @biggie and congratulations on already by this point in the year doing enough sales to cover your renewals. I agree entirely with your caution that none off us should feel that very short term results, on small number statistics, are necessarily meaningful.

still, I look at sales/earnings over span of time, that is larger than a snapshot of a few months.

Thanks again, and best wishes for continued success during 2020 and beyond.

Bob

 

[BrandableDomain]

Thank you so much for your detailed information just shared, @BrandableDomain So for you March was definitely not a down month in terms of dollar volume.

Yes, March was one of my best months ever, thanks to my outlier sale of one of my best domains for $25,000. But if you look more closely, all the big sales were in the first half of the month. So while it is too soon to draw conclusions, the second half of March (and April so far) does seem to foretell a possible declining trend.

I love your later comment which should be the foundation of a post in itself if it hasn’t already been covered by someone:

"The question of pricing that leads to the best product of sell-through rate times net price is important but hard to determine."

 

[biggie]

I agree entirely with your caution that none off us should feel that very short term results, on small number statistics, are necesly meaningful.

Hi

with that caution in mind...

it should be noted that,
any sales stat can be meaningful, to any seller, any time, and at their discretion.

i'm not trying to take nobody's joy or toss salt, on "what, means what," to who.

my post, reflects specifically, how I look at my sales.
which is in contrast, with respect... to title of this thread,

let me elaborate:
as years pass, some sellers may have more sales at any given time of the year than others,
or had more sales last year than 3 years prior, vice-versa, etc..
after a decade or so, it becomes more about the years you put in, and the "amounts the domains sold for".

and to that extent, "sold price" is more meaningful, in retrospect, than which month of the year it sold.
just saying....

imo..

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I love your later comment which should be the foundation of a post in itself if it hasn’t already been covered by someone:

"The question of pricing that leads to the best product of sell-through rate times net price is important but hard to determine."

Thank you @BrandableDomain , and I agree.

I have thought about the question, almost from my first months in semi-serious domaining, but it is of course impossible to answer precisely, and difficult to even estimate. The debate we saw earlier in the whether to shoot the moon, or not, in pricing is related. But even more simply than that, if I have say a domain name that many investors would price at $5000, if I price it at $10,000, would I still get at least half as many sales, since in many cases the prospective owner really wants that specific name? Or if I price it at $2500, will I get twice as many?

I do hope to put together a post on just that question, not too long in future. Have come up with a couple of semi-quantitative ways to possibly investigate it, and other areas of sales / consumer behaviour have some ideas to offer I presume (have not researched that part yet).

A really interesting question more directly related to the topic of this thread is whether that changes during stressed economic times. That is, do potential buyers become more price conscious at times like this. It seems some smart domain investors guess that they do, and have done some repricing at the lower end in their portfolios.

Thanks again for your response.

Bob

 

[DnFolk]

last month (march) only four sales compare to my montly average of twelve. in last 18 days of march i had just one sale that too at the end. The sale prices were following, all sales from afternic in march -
9999
988
988
999
Thanks to first sale price it covered up mostly for less number of sales. offers dried upto 75%

After underwhelming last month (march) i was not having much expecations from april and time ahead, but to my surprise and amusement this month (april) has been really good. Till now (19th april) i had 10 sales, out of which 7 from afternic, 1 dan, 2 private. though highest price only 3k (2700 euro) but still great, I'm now expecting more sales to cover up last month. offers are back on track.

PS I have about 2200+ names currently.

EDIT - With offers and sales Must mention the observation that some niches particularly are trending very well. Trends have changed overnight from coronavirus.

 

[kaposzta]

I don't see much change.
January: nothing
February: 2 offers, 2 sales, $1150 gross
March: 0 offer, 1 sale, $395 gross
April: 1 lowball offer, 2 fake offers, 1 sale, $1588 gross

Portfolio size is ~200-250 this year, 80% is .co.

 

[damance]

outbound
0 sales
0 offers