interviews Interview: AbdulBasit Makrani on His $400,000 in Domain Sales Between January and June 2021

[James Iles]

One of my favorite domain name investors is AbdulBasit Makrani (@AbdulBasit.com), the founder of AbdulBasit.com who owns a portfolio of several thousand domain names. I last featured AbdulBasit on my blog in December 2020 when he broke $500,000 in sales for the year. Now, he’s back to discuss how he’s faring in 2021...


Read the interview on my blog

 

[Charybdis]

And also very few via Afternic lander which is sometimes surprising to me considering the number of sale happens via GoDaddy search compare to lander. But still the lander conversion is acceptable.

Isn't the problem here that your landing pages are only make offer without BIN and without installment payments option?

I think if you used landing pages with BIN and installment payments option, you would sell more domains via your landing pages. And if you paid less commission on landing pages then you would save money.

Some large marketplaces say that the best converting landing pages are the landing pages with a realistic buy it now price + long term installment payment option. And the worst performing version is the make offer only without BIN and installments.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Isn't the problem here that your landing pages are only make offer without BIN and without installment payments option?

I think if you used landing pages with BIN and installment payments option, you would sell more domains via your landing pages. And if you paid less commission on landing pages then you would save money.

Some large marketplaces say that the best converting landing pages are the landing pages with a realistic buy it now price + long term installment payment option. And the worst performing version is the make offer only without BIN and installments.

I agree that without the installment payment option, I'm missing out many more deals no matter if they get cancelled anytime during the installment which is the part of that model.

I've talked with many investors who've moved from Dan landers to AN (ns3/ns4) and found out to be overall better conversion with them mainly because of the GoDaddy trust people have in their minds.

Also I've tried Uniregistry landers for many years and I was doing okay with them but since I moved all my domains to AN landers, the results were amazing right from the start.

I'll admit that it was difficult for myself to convert a direct inquiry coming via Uniregistry lander if I compare to what AN brokers are converting from AN landers. Some might say I wasn't good at communication/negotiation but what I believe is that it's the GoDaddy trust factor which people have in mind. We've seen many times here at NamePros where sellers have shared that the buyer went through GoDaddy to purchase the domain and paid more than what the seller was offering far less if purchased directly from the seller.

I would love to try out AN make offer + installment option lander if they ever come up in the future which would definitely boost up the sales.

 

[lovely4ever]

Congrats bro @AbdulBasit.com for the amazing results you are achieving !
you have a collection of high quality .CO domains , but what do you think about this extension in general ?
i mean for the medium quality .CO domains and the future trend of the .CO ??
i woud love to hear your thoughts and openion please .

 

[GoWebnames.com]

Thank you!

Those are some good questions for sure.

1) 59 domains were sold from Jan-Jun 2021. I purposely shared only a few of the sales. But the total number of sales makes it clear the average sales amount which is +$6,500.

2) On an average I can say $400 each for those 1,820 domains. No hand registration domains at all.

Thank you, this sort of information is quite helpful.
I was guessing the same, $300-$700 is sort of what you end up spending for any kind of old domains.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Congrats bro @AbdulBasit.com for the amazing results you are achieving !
you have a collection of high quality .CO domains , but what do you think about this extension in general ?
i mean for the medium quality .CO domains and the future trend of the .CO ??
i woud love to hear your thoughts and openion please .

Happy to see you like it

I'm confident about the .CO extension right from it's launch and have been closely watching it. If you study this extension, you'll notice that slowly but steadily the awareness and demand among endusers is increasing and so are the prices in auction houses.

Although I invest only in 1 word and 3L .CO domains and rarely into 2 words. But now a days people are selling 2 words quite regularly. The reason I don't invest in 2 words .CO is because my minimum selling price for any domain is $1,988 and setting up the same base price for regular 2 words .CO won't work successfully.

Good luck!

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

@AbdulBasit.com Thanks for always being so open to the community! You are one of my favorite investors too. Congratulations on your success and peace my brother. Always stay as humble as you are.

Cheers,
Frans

Thank you Frans! Your kind words mean a lot!

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Cool, but where to find the client

I don't do outbound. I simply use AN landers.

 

[Eng.Balogun]

Since I receive the report every month, I can say that more than 50% of my sales are happening via GoDaddy search and the rest is via partner registrars and the lander itself.

I'll share my thoughts on Afternic BIN lander next week on my blog and NamePros.

Thanks!
Looking forward to the post...

 

[nametrekker]

Congrats, Abdul! @AbdulBasit.com

Keep forging on! Everything you're doing, keep doing.

Making those ROI(s) without having any domains registered pre-1997 in your portfolio is outstanding.

Also nice you're willing to share advice, and point out what has worked for you.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Congrats again @AbdulBasit.com !

What is the biggest change you’ve made in the last couple years? As far as I remember, before that you were regularly under $200k per year.

Thank you!

Mainly it's the lander change from Uniregistry to Afternic.
Then I would say it's the price change (overall increment) and doubled my portfolio during the last 2-3 years period.

 

[topros]

More than half of my sales are happening via GoDaddy search where buyers just type in the domain and just checkout. Very few are via partner registrars where again there is BIN on their search results page. And also very few via Afternic lander which is sometimes surprising to me considering the number of sale happens via GoDaddy search compare to lander. But still the lander conversion is acceptable.

Since I've tried other platforms like I mentioned earlier, I'm a bit hesitant to give a try to some other companies because so far the results at Afternic are overall very good but I appreciate your suggestion and the detailed reply you did.

If you ever try Afternic landers, my suggestion is to go with NS3/NS4, put up BIN, try for at least some months and with your entire portfolio to see clear results.

Best wishes!

congrats @AbdulBasit.com

If you ever try Afternic landers, my suggestion is to go with NS3/NS4, put up BIN, try for at least some months and with your entire portfolio to see clear results.

How can i do/change NS3/NS4 @ Afternic landerpage?

have you sold any domain @ sedo?

 

[Sinh]

Congratulations @AbdulBasit.com, you are doing a great job. Thank you for your sharing always.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

congrats @AbdulBasit.com

If you ever try Afternic landers, my suggestion is to go with NS3/NS4, put up BIN, try for at least some months and with your entire portfolio to see clear results.

How can i do/change NS3/NS4 @ Afternic landerpage?

have you sold any domain @ sedo?

Thanks!

Simply change the nameservers to ns3.afternic.com/ns4.afternic.com
Yes, I've sold domains via Sedo but that's occasionally. Like this year I've sold Overloop.com for $42,888. More details here.

 

[DomainNameFlow]

Thanks!

Simply change the nameservers to ns3.afternic.com/ns4.afternic.com
Yes, I've sold domains via Sedo but that's occasionally. Like this year I've sold Overloop.com for $42,888. More details here.

Congrats!! @AbdulBasit.com

if you know or have any guess, why ns3 & ns4 pair is better than ns1 & ns2 when it comes to sales?

 

[jiy k]

Inspiring Sales. Congratulations. I see only NS1 and NS2 mentioned.in Afternic. Can you please tell me where are NS3 and NS4 mentioned.
Thank you.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Inspiring Sales. Congratulations. I see only NS1 and NS2 mentioned.in Afternic. Can you please tell me where are NS3 and NS4 mentioned.
Thank you.

Thanks!
You may want to check here and search for ns1 and ns3 for better understanding.

 

[jiy k]

@AbdulBasit.com Thank You for this Informative Article.

 

[Domainuu]

Congratulations @AbdulBasit.com.
Could you please shed some light on your new additional 1820 domains, how many percentages of privately acquired or auction houses?

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Congratulations @AbdulBasit.com.
Could you please shed some light on your new additional 1820 domains, how many percentages of privately acquired or auction houses?

Thank you!

That's another nice question which I never calculated exactly but I can give some rough estimates...
I did the most number of acquisitions in the last year than ever. It took a lot of time but the grinding was worth it on a long term basis. Between 20-25% was acquired privately. And usually they were in 4 figures each which increased the overall acquisitions cost.

 

[barybadrinath]

Abdul bhai is an intelligent domainer and moreover a great human being. I hope so called journalist interviewing him also learns something about honesty and neutral journalism.

 

[Sutruk]

Congrats AbdulBasit and thanks for the interview! Impressive sales! Very well done!

 

[Wisher]

Thank you!

All my domains are pointing to Afternic landers (ns3/ns4). I've set BIN under my Afternic account so then it shows the BIN prices at GoDaddy and every other partner registrar of Afternic. That's how BIN works.
Any lead generated via AN lander form goes to the AN broker and they handle it.

I've tried Efty but not Dan or Alter. No plans to try them because what I've learned over the years by trying Bodis, Efty, Uniregistry landers is that you may save commission and handle the leads by yourself but if you need more $$$ then it's better to give AN landers a try because endusers are more aware and trusts GoDaddy brand than anyone else.

I too believe that installment payments increase the conversion rate but unfortunately AN don't offer that as of now. If they'll do in the future, I'll definitely be trying that and I'm sure it will bring in more better results.

Have you considered testing some of your portfolio with the new Buy it now GD ones to see if uptick in conversions? Would be good if anyone has any data on it. Agree on the GD branding. You can have higher commissions and still make more if conversions are better.

 

[Wisher]

It's worth testing with GD BIN at least in my opinion. Could split portfolio equally and try it.

With payment plans you can run into cashflow issues and get buyers flaking out. Can also potentially grow your portfolio quicker with the cash up front.
But yes on the face of it the conversion will be better. And it would be good to have the option in Afternic for those that want it.

Even still if GD brand gives enough uplift in conversion over others landers you can still potentially make more overall profit.

 

[huwenbin]

Cool, but where to find the client

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Congrats, Abdul! @AbdulBasit.com

Keep forging on! Everything you're doing, keep doing.

Making those ROI(s) without having any domains registered pre-1997 in your portfolio is outstanding.

Also nice you're willing to share advice, and point out what has worked for you.

Thank you so much!

I'm always eager to learn something new and just wants to give back whatever I can back to our community which has helped me in many ways.