question Is it a good time to outbound?

[topdom]

Negatives: Economy slowing down, uncertainities, martial law/revolution may be coming, only basic needs matter.

Positives: Endusers are at home. They are playing online games, and checking email more often. They have more time to think about domains.
Also Corona would slow down in the summer, and its creators would be hunted one by one, so no more new spreading.., so not big uncertainity.

Corona may spread to the South hemisphere, and this needs to be blocked.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I think it is never a good time to do outbound unless you have a name that is very precisely a big upgrade for that business (and of course does not possibly involve TM issues). Even in those situations, I think this is probably a horrible time to do outbound. Many people in charge of businesses are deeply stressed with managing to survive and caring for their employees, and bothering them to think about a new name is not on their priority list anywhere.
Bob

 

[frostify]

What I have found success in recently is a one-two approach of

1.) find a great short domain, preferably one or two word dictionary for .COM or .NET
2.) build a small Dropshipping site or working prototype to go with the domain.

I've had a number of recent sales averaging about $150 each by doing this and spending just 4 to 5 hours building the dropshipping sites, graphics, articles/written content for each of these projects.

After fees and such it comes out to about $18 to $25 per-hour for me on average. You'll have bad days and great days, but for me this has been about my average based on my skill in researching potential names and my ability to develop starter sites. It can fluctuate quite a bit but the average is pretty decent. Some of the big sales make up for the ones that don't sell at all and the failures I liquidate + cost of renewing domains, etc.

I used to never build starter sites or proofs of concept to go with my domains but times are changing, it's getting more competitive in the domain industry and it's harder to sell just a domain on it's own.

I want to share examples of my sales but I don't want search engines to index this page and the buyers come back to me asking why their name is on Google Search results for NamePros.

 

[DomainVP]

"Not right now" seems to be the tune many companies are singing.

Recent response:

Thanks for reaching out. At this time we are scaling back non essential expenses.

However after the market has stabilized I will be happy to pickup this conversation again.

Owning this domain while is important to us / me $2800 is a non essential expense and is far more than I'm willing to spend at this moment.

 

[frostify]

An interesting idea. So in just 4 or 5 hr work you can actually get a little site that does dropshipping up and running? I've never tried it, but assumed, clearly wrongly, that it was much harder.

Your success is inspirational because as well as often selling the site, I presume even if that does not happen, you at least make a little revenue from the site.

I understand you not wanting to share names in an indexed forum, but could you share the sort of product/service areas that this seems to work in? The dropshipping is through Amazon or similar, I presume? Does the Amazon move to pause fulfilled by Amazon third party affect what is possible?

You mention content, do all of your developed mini-sites do drop-shipping, or are some simply content information site, perhaps with monetization through ads.

Thanks for sharing your success here. I agree with your point that selling domains is getting more competitive and some of us will need to think of new approaches.

Bob

I personally use WordPress + WooCommerce so that the end-user who may not know skills such as HTML/CSS/JavaScript can use an easy to use control panel to manage their site which makes it much more desirable for them to bid/BIN if they know they can control it without programming.

You can use WooCommerce + Amazon Associate program as one example, but you can also do Shopify + Oberlo which also has an easy-to-use control panel for the buyer who may not know programming and Oberlo can dropship products.

In one example I had a 2 word .COM (brandable sort of domain like you might see on BrandBucket) and I built a shopify site that dropshipped watches and I sold it within 48 hours for $300.00.

You just have to get creative.

Other niches I have sold sites in vary from fish tanks, home & gardening, security equipment, watches, gaming hardware, BBQs and outdoor cooking, etc. It's pretty much a completely different niche every time but the trend I try to follow is products without too much competition or put a unique spin on it, and then you want products with a healthy margin of profit, cart values of $50 to $100 seem to be a good target.

For SEO I hire freelance writers on sites like Fiverr so that these sites have unique articles for Google to pick up on. Often "guides" or "reviews" that incorporate the very products the starter sites are trying to sell.

 

[chuckworries]

Check out response I got.

And this one.

 

[bmugford]

Is it a good time to outbound?

No. I don't think a lot of people are going to be in the mood to spend money while the world is falling apart.

Brad

 

[DomainVP]

$2800.. ohh

That was just to start the payment plan


Conversely to all of that I did sell one for $800 today. They couldn't pay via PayPal because PP wouldn't take their card, so started an Escrow transaction and everything was completed within an hour.

Which is unusual for Escrow when dealing with international credit payments.

So I don't think they are very busy right now.

 

[koolishman]

Endusers are at home.

But are they in the mood to buy now, or wait to see how this pans out?

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

the endusers you are targetting usually aren't going to be work from home types but I'm assuming will be large companies with deep pockets.

many non-essential companies will be closed indefinitely. sure many will be working from home.

but I think in that Scenario.

Do you really think they will be opening non-essential emails not work related or looks non work related?

People think working remotely is much easier. I say no. Most don't have a "Set up" so they will be a mess.

lol most people love going to work because they have "Set up" their work space at work. and usually a cleaner comes in to tidy up. people at home? working? are messy.

so much going on. plus they are worrying about not screwing up work because that will just be an excuse for them to get fired later when this economy worsens.

so yea. don't know if outbounds would be great right now. probably just a waste of time but I guess wouldn't hurt.

 

[bmugford]

(the problem in my case: people never respond to any email, as if my nonexisting brother reads and deletes emails on both sides).

I think most people are just not that receptive to being spammed about domain names, especially now.

Brad

 

[koolishman]

just offered a com for 50 usd got responce from end user:
"try 1500.00"

You offered a .com for 50 to end user, but he wants to pay you 1500?

What am I missing?

 

[dande]

Outbounding is never a good idea. And now is probably the worst time to try the bad idea.

I'd suggest you spend the time working to improve your portfolio in readiness to when this will finally be over.

 

[Martins B.]

People currently are thinking about where to cut costs and how to survive.

Definitely not in the best mood to probably spend a lot of money on a non-necessity.

 

[NickB]

Most medium, large & enterprise companies will be going through a period of massive restructuring and imo they will have little or no interest in domains that are put in front of them through a cold out bound approach......

New, fairly new, small or start up businesses in the below areas might have some interest if you have a name that is a viable upgrade...

Food production
health care
delivery of goods, transportation etc
remote working/education
banking/money tech
communications - virtual, voice, video etc

probably other sectors but these where the ones that sprung to mind....

so in short if your doing out bound, be smart, be selective, be personal, have a good pitch ready, pick an industry that is benefiting or can provide a valuable service during these difficult times and make sure you have a good domain which is a clear upgrade on what a potential customer has.

Oh and be prepared for those low ball offers......

 

[mpls]

People in these days are in a hurry to buy food.
Not domains.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Efty have shared on Twitter some data that shows since the pandemic on their platform there are actually more people looking at domains, but a lower number of offers. I think it is true that we may see some who are out of work browsing for domain names, but I don't think, as @jamesall says that hardly any would be willing to make an acquisition in a time when survival is job one. I stand by what I said earlier that this would be a terrible time to do outbound, both for a sensitivity reason, and because low probability of success right now.
Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

build a small Dropshipping site or working prototype to go with the domain.

I've had a number of recent sales averaging about $150 each by doing this and spending just 4 to 5 hours building the dropshipping sites, graphics, articles/written content for each of these projects.

An interesting idea. So in just 4 or 5 hr work you can actually get a little site that does dropshipping up and running? I've never tried it, but assumed, clearly wrongly, that it was much harder.

Your success is inspirational because as well as often selling the site, I presume even if that does not happen, you at least make a little revenue from the site.

I understand you not wanting to share names in an indexed forum, but could you share the sort of product/service areas that this seems to work in? The dropshipping is through Amazon or similar, I presume? Does the Amazon move to pause fulfilled by Amazon third party affect what is possible?

You mention content, do all of your developed mini-sites do drop-shipping, or are some simply content information site, perhaps with monetization through ads.

Thanks for sharing your success here. I agree with your point that selling domains is getting more competitive and some of us will need to think of new approaches.

Bob

 

[lock]

Out bound means your selling discounted domains. No outbound ever got big money best of times.

 

[topdom]

How about this, making the price very low, like 50 or 100, and making corona the excuse for such sharp temporary discount. I think it would look very credible. (the problem in my case: people never respond to any email, as if my nonexisting brother reads and deletes emails on both sides).

 

[lock]

Want something to do? Host all your landing pages then visit trafficshopping and build back links with all the listed free resources. Build your domains into white label sites freewhitelabel.

 

[branding]

Arrogance or Common Sense? What do your think

Neither of the above. But would be bad timing. I dunno about most of the US but over here restaurants and car dealers are closed. I reckon people are not in a hurry to buy real estate at market value either.

They're bleeding money like crazy. I spoke to a local shop owner yesterday who had to close down 4 locations, loosing 20K of revenue a day... full on survival mode.

 

[BrandEntrance.com]

Endusers are at home.

But are they in the mood to buy now, or wait to see how this pans out?

I personally doubt that any person/executive is going to stick their neck out right now by making an unneccessary domain name investment when they don't even know if they are going to have a business when this is over (remember: businesses need customers and sometimes other businesses to operate).

It might even be landing on the table of someone who has a death in the family, is worrying about their own or some loved one's health and also their employees.

A person ringing up trying to sell a domain name now might just create a negative feeling. Why not wait until this is over?

 

[frostify]

Do you mean you acquire domain names, build website on them and sell them to end users? I have been trying to do something like this for a long time and it will be interesting to know your success rate.

How long do you wait before selling the websites?
Do you sell them immediately after building them?
What about traffic? Since you said Starter Sites, my understanding of starter sites are ones without traffic.

Your angle of approach is focused on dropshipping sites... is that the only sector you focus on?

What about building geo domain sites and flipping them as starter sites? Any success in there as well?

Thanks in anticipation.

I primarily focus drop shipping sites built with WordPress + WooCommerce.
Normal time to build a site is 2 to 3 days, turn around time is 7 days to sell, cost to make a site is about $30 to $40, normal sell price is about $150 to $200, total profit is about $120 to $170. It adds up if you keep the cycle going and continuously make sites. It does get repetitive but it just feels like a part-time job at a certain point.

They are starter sites so no traffic, I do not build geo sites, hopefully this answers some of your questions.

 

[frostify]

Thank you for the very complete answer, @frostify. I have learned much from your detailed response, or at least know what I need to learn , and i am sure that other readers have greatly benefited from the detail you provided as well.

This approach seems to me very wise....


Thanks so much! Best wishes for continued success.

Bob

My pleasure, as much as I want to keep my "secrets" to myself, I think it's important to giveback and share my successes with the community so that we can all benefit and grow.

- Julian P.