Josh Reason's Domain Name Wholesale Exchange DNWE Marketplace

[Lox]

The core concept is to move domain “liquidation” out of the forums and into a simple, easy to use platform with domain quality control and price control.

The platform is purposely exclusive to domain investors so that you can keep wholesale and retail prices completely separate at the same time. Example: Gamers (.co) Lander/Afternic - $20,000. DNWE - $1,285.

Sellers are charged 9% with all associated fees baked into the price.

Website: DNWE.com (Domain Name Wholesale Exchange)

NP @Josh R

 

[Josh R]

Hey Everyone -

I wanted to address a few things.

1) The 9% commission includes all Escrow fees. For now Escrow.com is the only transaction method while this concept is in the beta phase. Depending on how things progress we may actually facilitate smaller transactions and/or incorporate more payment options. With this commission structure including escrow fees we're certainly going to operate in the red for quite some time. I'm happy to do so if the platform continues to gain traction with the community.

2) I've already declined a hefty amount of submissions. While I want to include a wide range of domains, it's imperative that the quality is good and the prices are wholesale (otherwise the buyers will soon lose faith). If you've got a good domain publicly listed at $8,000, the expectation is that it's listed for significantly less on DNWE.

Example:

GolfDay {.com} $19,000 Public BIN
GolfDay {.com} $999 DNWE BIN
This domain is reg'd in 10 tlds, created 1996, clear commercial retail value, good comparable sales.. Think to yourself - Could this name sell for $1,000 at GD expired auctions?

If I decline your names It's not because I want to. It's because I have to so that we give this a chance of success. My advice is that you only submit names that you truly want to liquidate.

3) We are currently allowing 10 submissions per day. That is going to be changed to 5 shorty.

Why? As mentioned we've had some very low quality or highly priced submissions. I don't want to charge silly submission fees so hopefully by lowering the number of submissions per day people will be a little more selective on domains and pricing.

4) We already have roughly 200 sign ups from many very well known buyers in the industry so if you do want to move names there will be eyeballs.

5) All accounts are manually approved. We can't guarantee that an end-user won't somehow find us and slip through the cracks but all users are manually vetted before approval. We are requiring two domains to verify via whois so that we can associate the user with some kind of "domainer" status. The most important factor is that it's obviously a private platform so none of the domains will be indexed or shown in public. An end-user outside of our industry that wants to buy your name will not find it on DNWE.

6) We had email delivery issues which are solved for now (fingers crossed). Most of you that signed up have been approved (even if you didn't receive the approval email). You can now login to the platform and familiarize yourself with it. It's quite simple and basic for now but I have A LOT of product features in the pipeline and do intend to follow through with them if I continue to get the support from our great community.

7) When you list a domain you won't see it in the buy section of your portal because you are the seller. Know once you publish a domain IT IS listed for everyone else to see in the "buy" section. I'm looking to tweak this so that sellers can see their names listed in the buy section as well but just wanted to clarify that for everyone.

8) There are a few bugs but I'm all about releasing things early and often so that I can get feedback from the users. Like i said, I have a lot of things in the pipeline and intend for this to be a long term project that changes the way domain investors sell their domains in a wholesale environment.

Please remember, I'm a 1 man squad at the moment with limited time and a lot of demand. I am considering a partner at this point and have already had talks with 1 person in particular. We'll see how things progress from here but I'm pretty accessible and I appreciate the support and feedback.

 

[RJ]

Looking good @Josh R ! I just signed up to try it.

exclusive to domainers. good idea!

the owners of namepros should be ver very afraid. josh eat their lunch. the whole idea of using a forum to sell domains whole sale is silly. everything visible to google here but not at dnwe.

It's always good to have alternatives. NamePros still has 0% commission for reseller-to-reseller transactions and a trader-rating system that references over a decade of transactions. :justsayin:

 

[MediaCode]

As far as Estibot, I thought EVERYONE uses it to some extent as a go-to metric...

My success in domain investing mostly took off when I learned to ignore Estibot and GoDaddy valuations, especially when I sold domain names to end users for far more than the valuations spit out by algorithms. Ultimately, you have to go by your gut, your perceived price sensitivity of target buyers for each name. Mom and pop buyers are far more price sensitive than large, global corporation buyers. Names that appeal to different target buyers will have different gut valuations. A large, global corporation is dealing with profits in the billions USD. What's $100,000 to them? It's a rounding error. To mom and pop, it's mentally, if not financially, insurmountable. One is far more easy to get a deal done with.

When you focus on the 'highest and best use' of each domain name, you're typically looking at a well-funded start up and/or a large, global corporation as the target buyers and you're typically looking at a one-word or a brandable. Or, really strong two words in .com that have strong commercial appeal at a global level (i.e., simple English words that are easy to spell and have positive connotations for people all over the world). Something like OpenBank.com (just an example). Estibot says it's valued at only $56,000. If I owned it as an investor, I wouldn't accept anything less than six figures for it. Alas, it's moot point – an end user already owns and uses OpenBank.com so it's not for sale. But, my looking up the valuation at Estibot.com was a waste of a good 15 seconds of my time. That's true for most domain investors as well.

Get to a point where you can value domain names based on gut feel. Automated valuation tools simply pump out misinformation and can lead to malinvestment. You'll also save a lot of money because you will pass over far more domain names than you did in the past because you won't see those domain names as worth your time, effort, and scarce investment capital. Your gut will be telling you, 'why bother'?

 

[Nametree]

Domain investors used to dump expiring domains on NameLiquidate.

Now it's all going on DNWE it seems.

Oh it's been like that for a minute. It's worse than NameLiquidate in some ways, with NL at least there was some cap on pricing and everything was dutch auctions if I remember well. Can't really complain, I've made some decent deals on DNWE, both buying and selling - but it's still a bit of a shame to see the promise of curated value gone.

 

[GoKaizen]

I will not be renewing my subscription.

The Two Joshes don't care about the platform anymore.

 

[Nametree]

I had (and have) great hopes for DNWE as I believe the industry is in great need for solid liquidity options. I bought a name in the first couple of weeks, and I listed a couple for sale though none have sold. But most of the names I submit keep getting rejected — even though they are on the same level as, or better, than names listed.

Now, of course, how could I say that — quality is always higher in the eye of the holder, and evaluations are always subjective, right?

But let’s look at two recent examples:

I saw Kalliope (co) listed at $499. I think to myself, hey, that’s interesting, I own Calliope (co), which is the “correct” (or let’s say more common, as both are transcriptions from Greek) spelling of the Greek goddess, registered in quite a few more extensions, etc. I submit it for listing at a similar price — rejected.

I saw Maybe (co) listed at $1499. I own There (co), registered in a similar number of extensions, though significantly more domains have “there” in them than “maybe”. I submit it for a lower asking price, gets accepted at the minimum $299.

I don’t know what sort of valuation metrics are taken into account when approving/rejecting names or approving prices, but I have qualms with the fact that the owner(s) of the platform can choose what names are selected, what price they’re listed at, AND can be a buyer and seller on the platform.

Not accusing anyone of any wrongdoing here, just opening this up for fair discussion I suppose. I respect @Josh R and what he’s trying to do for the industry, but my experience so far has given me some doubt about the efficiency of the platform.

 

[EmpireNames.com]

i have submitted like 100+ names on DNWE. and approval rate is like 50% for me .
but i believe they only select name when they see the value in name as per price thats what the purpose of platform is.
i sold 9 names there from mid xxx to high xxxx range as well.
and i never ever mind if they reject my names because they made this platform purely for domain investors who need great prices.
Note : Just one thing i would like to address is to @Josh R that please if there are some front runners eliminate them. i am sure there are not but this is just one point where you have to be more strict in approving members.. make sure they have good history and they are trust worthy.
Thanks & Good Luck for more success

 

[Josh R]

After over 100 sales, we have now had 2 deals fall through. Both were the same buyer, and he has been banned permanently... We didn't ban him initially because of the market conditions and his excuses seemed valid. In reality I think he was probably just a shady front-runner.

I'd like to publicly apologize to @uzver for the inconvenience. I hope your next experience will be a great one at DNWE

Front-runners, non-payers, and people that try to make deals outside of our platform after seeing a domain for sale at DNWE are toxic and I hope you'll help us keep the bad apples out.

Thanks to everyone that supports our mission at DNWE.

 

[Josh R]

There don't seem to be enough names there to justify a bulk search. I don't know why the "quality control" is so stringent, albeit inconsistent- perhaps less is more, but there's not enough there to need to check on it much as a buyer and won't be floating any new names out as a seller. The tone and impersonalness of the form letter belie the size of the inventory, and a business that is building may regret not putting more effort into relationship building and appearing more welcoming, Ostensibly, most of us will be replenishing, with perhaps more desirable stock. It is possible to be both discriminating and inviting - or at least not dismissive. To have a more professional decision letter shouldn't take extra time. And I know this is the second time I'm saying it - it's opening the floodgates giving a reason for a turndown based on "quality" and not being worth $299. "Not what we're looking for," is sufficient. Sedo has a pretty good wording of what they look for, as I recall. It's specific but avoids seeming judgemental. I'm sure DNWE works for some and maybe will better serve the community as a whole as it gains traction. One good thing - you weren't kept in suspense long - even during the weekend. The decisions were quick - maybe too quick .

When a user submits a name that we believe has a wholesale value below $299 then our message is the following:

Thanks for your submission. Unfortunately, this domain does not meet our quality requirements. We don't feel it has a current liquid value of at least $299.
​

Unfortunately "Not what we're looking" doesn't suffice because people want to know why. I know this because our decline message was very similar to what you said when we initially launched and people wanted to know why..

I wish we could be more personal with 1000+ users and over 100 submissions per day but that's impossible as well. I guess we could charge for submissions but I'm assuming nobody wants that.

I want to make sure it's clear that we are 100% "judging" domain submissions so if it comes across as judgemental, I can understand why, but It's nothing personal.

I also want to make sure it's clear that we are NOT always right. Sometimes we decline names that are borderline. Sometimes we accept names that are borderline. Sometimes we price names too high. Sometimes we price names too low... At the end of the day, the user has the choice of whether they want to publish the domain or not.

DNWE is just a resource for investors. The best thing about an additional resource like DNWE is that you don't have to use it if you don't want to.

@MediaCode has bought and sold DOZENS of domains with us. We often decline his names. We also reprice his names frequently and if he doesn't like the pricing then he doesn't publish them. That's fine.

Again if we don't think your domain has liquid value of at least $299 it's not personal. We have a highly curated platform that has shown significant value to serious investors. If you don't think myself of @jstenn13 have the knowledge/experience to curate a wholesale marketplace then you definitely won't like DNWE.

If you want to have success on DNWE then you HAVE to know the wholesale market and you can't be blinded by love for your own domain names ( we are all guilty of this from time to time).

If you don't follow the wholesale market then it might be difficult to comprehend some of our decisions - Especially if you're using tools like Estibot to determine value..

Finally - If you don't like the idea of a highly curated wholesale marketplace for investors then DNWE is not the place for you.

 

[Nametree]

Disappointed, but not surprised. I wonder what their average monthly active subscribers was, can’t imagine more than a couple hundred. Maybe if it’s more profitable now they’ll spend more time curating names and developing the platform - I’ve mostly ignored it as a buyer because it feels like dumpster diving.

I’ve been subscribing on and off when I have needed to liquidate names, and I’ve made sufficient sales to keep coming back (certainly a much faster, easier, and more pleasant process than trying to liquidate here). I’ll probably continue to use it as such, but I do wish they spent more time curating (and not just selecting featured names, but maybe going back to the original model of not allowing everything to be listed.)

 

[Doron Vermaat]

Great initiative from Joshua. I've signed up, looked around and submitted a few domains. Other than the application being a little slow at times it looks well executed and easy to navigate.

The main challenges with a marketplace like this will be:

Hand curation: currently, all submissions are being manually reviewed. When the marketplace grows and more sellers will submit more names this will become a major bottleneck as we've seen with BrandBucket and most of the other marketplaces where some sort of manual approval en valuation process is in place.

Cheats: as the marketplace caters to domainers only you will soon find that buyers will try and bypass the marketplace and email the owner of a domain name directly to avoid the 9% commission.

Good luck Josh!

 

[ddfenton]

I've also seen some clinkers - some obscure scientific .nets and retired company names (a couple still alive with international extensions, and one seems trademark vulnerable), a 19 letter three word .com (dropped or deleted name) with the Estibot value "Very Long: Domains longer than 15 characters are not as memorable" greyed out, domains held by or procured by Drop Catch, some specialized, foreign location names, a few generic .coms with all the extensions available, and the list goes on.

This wouldn't be a big deal if this was a comprehensive offering but this narrow and perhaps undeservedly elitist selection serves neither seller nor buyer.

I noticed a Dan listed name at over $4k listed at $299, demonstrating that prices are what someone will pay. I submitted a couple of old one-word dictionary names I was surprised to see "weren't worth $299." The rejection letter should be reworded, especially for a such subjective call.

I am disappointed because I thought this was an opportunity for wholesalers to sell to wholesalers but the curated element seems exclusionary, too limited, and the metrics (if any) make no sense. It keeps everything the same old, same old.

The rotation moves slowly. I've not observed more than a couple of the 150 names (give or take) sell. The inventory can still be selective at 300 - 400 or up.

As an aside – what's the allure of paying more at a drop catch or a registry auction than directly to a seller on, say, NamePros or Epic? If this industry doesn't support the "little guy," everyone is going to lose – IMHO.

 

[wot]

Sold another name via DNWE.com and Epik Escrow. 10% of those submitted have been sold.

Today sold two names that were rejected as having value as under $299 a few weeks ago, sold each for $1400.
Had previously sold another rejected name for lowish $xxx so something is wrong with the selection process-thank goodness.

 

[creataweb]

DNWE is better anyway, that other name is kinda long

 

[Abdullah Abdullah]

Registration will be open to every country/region soon.

Try to provide more payments options like Payoneer, I mean payout for sellers. Escrow.com is limiting its services to certain countries and they closed my account without even informing me and I found out suddenly when I wanted to check some old transactions and also had an agreement to use for a new sale. So providing many options is pretty good.

 

[ddfenton]

There don't seem to be enough names there to justify a bulk search. I don't know why the "quality control" is so stringent, albeit inconsistent- perhaps less is more, but there's not enough there to need to check on it much as a buyer and won't be floating any new names out as a seller. The tone and impersonalness of the form letter belie the size of the inventory, and a business that is building may regret not putting more effort into relationship building and appearing more welcoming, Ostensibly, most of us will be replenishing, with perhaps more desirable stock. It is possible to be both discriminating and inviting - or at least not dismissive. To have a more professional decision letter shouldn't take extra time. And I know this is the second time I'm saying it - it's opening the floodgates giving a reason for a turndown based on "quality" and not being worth $299. "Not what we're looking for," is sufficient. Sedo has a pretty good wording of what they look for, as I recall. It's specific but avoids seeming judgemental. I'm sure DNWE works for some and maybe will better serve the community as a whole as it gains traction. One good thing - you weren't kept in suspense long - even during the weekend. The decisions were quick - maybe too quick .

 

[Charybdis]

@jstenn13 please consider returning to the commission only model. I stopped using DNWE, but I would use it again without the fixed monthly fee. Just use the old commission-based model, that was better.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I bought a year subscription that I let end. There definitely are sales happening, and it is another place to buy and to sell. I sold 6 domain names there over the year of my subscription. 1 .com, 1 .org, 1 .cloud and 3 .vc.

I debated signing up for another year, but decided not to invest the money in the subscription. I am pretty frugal about subscriptions in general. I wanted to mainly focus on retail sales, and when I want to sell wholesale found I had other alternatives, including here on NamePros.

The DNWE integration with Dan for payment and payout worked very smoothly. Pretty well always names transfer and you get paid within 24 hr.

One feature I liked with DNWE is that names you buy or sell are not reported. That is good for wholesale, and you can keep names listed on retail marketplaces while they are on DNWE. DNWE allow search by various metrics, like age or GD appraisal value. In the latter months I had a subscription it seemed to designate only a few names for the curated collection, mainly .com. I would have preferred more curated names.

The GD valuation number had a glitch, and often gave $0 when that was not right, especially for non-legacy extensions. Not sure if that had an impact on names searched, as some use that as a filter.

If I was doing much wholesale buying and selling I would have kept a subscription.

Bob

 

[Charybdis]

I've just bought a great two-word, brandable .com domain for 99 USD on DNWE. The transaction was closed in 2 days (it is fast, because the transaction was during the Easter holiday and the seller is located in a completely different timezone).

When you buy a domain, you will be redirected to the Dan.com platform where you can finalize the purchase. It is a nice thing that you will get a tax invoice automatically. The fixed price was 99 USD. There is no payment processing fee, so paying by credit card or PayPal adds 0% surcharge to the total price. The seller pays the 12% commission.

But the site still needs more buyers and sellers.

 

[GoKaizen]

Domain investors used to dump expiring domains on NameLiquidate.

Now it's all going on DNWE it seems.

I do wish they spent more time curating (and not just selecting featured names, but maybe going back to the original model of not allowing everything to be listed.)

 

[Josh R]

Have you considered allowing an option of less than $99 ending price on Dutch Auction names? I think there would be a market that came closer to what used to be offered at NameLiquidate.

Or is the $99 limit imposed by the Dan integration, and can't be less unless a different payment provider to close the deals is invoked?

Anyway, just a suggestion.

It is nice the occasional posts/emails highlighting names, and I suspect also you will get more traffic with Shane now covering some DNWE listings in DSAD newsletter.

-Bob

Hi Bob!

Spot on. I wish we could offer a way for dutch auctions to go below $99 as I completely understand that it's a major segment of the wholesale market.. Unfortunately we are unable to do this with the DAN integration.
To be honest I don't blame them at all because with everything that goes into fulfilling a transaction (payment, transfer, fraud etc) the juice just isn't worth the squeeze on deals that small. Even at $99 it doesn't really make much sense.

I'm happy to be advertising with DSAD though. Hoping that will add some eyeballs in 2024.

We did over $60k in volume in January so there is a decent amount of sales taking place on the platform.

 

[karmaco]

By the language of “only accepting investor quality” domains I believe alot of people will be disappointed when their names aren’t accepted. They are looking for really good names you are willing to sell cheap.

Good names are somewhat subjective as is the term wholesale pricing. Good idea but I believe there will be kinks.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for the clear answers to many questions from the community @Josh R and best wishes for the initiative.

I apologize if this was clearly said before or in signup (I have not tried to sign up) but are you personally making all acceptance decisions on each submission re quality/price or is it some group decision? I see your comment re one-man but perhaps expanding. I see, particularly for acceptance, some virtue in it being not in any one person's hands.

I am glad that you are at least considering down the road options other than Escrow.com. While many, perhaps most, transactions may be best dealt with through that service, clearly there are choices which are not. For example if two domain investors both have the majority of their domain names on Epik, who is also the registrar and can confirm both the two in the transaction and the status of the domain name, and want to do a transaction there, it seems that should be allowed. But the main reason that Escrow.com should not be the only choice is that there are dozens of countries, some very active in domain investing, where such payouts are not supported. The list is here, but for example it includes Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan and many other countries that are not supported, including much of the Middle East. Also domainers from the US state of Alabama are eliminated!

I wish you every success with this initiative, and clearly it has been well thought out. 200 sign ups already is very impressive, and I have seen on Twitter many major names in the world of domaining who are already signed up.

Best wishes, and thank you for sharing the answers here on NamePros.

Bob

 

[Kassey Lee]

The idea is excellent if Josh can curate the domains and make the prices truly wholesale. I really hope you'll succeed and therefore disrupt the industry. I just joined and was approved but could not get in because of no Escrow account. I'd like to see Epik as additional option. All the best.