New Domain Sales Site?

[Stockford Dev.]

I have a name which would fit very nicely within the domain selling niche, is there any reason to build a new marketplace? I am envisioning a Kijiji style classifieds where people only pay for premium listing features (stick at tops, etc...) Or do the experts (all you wonderful folk who respond) think that it's a bad idea and the marketplace is too saturated for this type site right now? Or would another marketplace be a reasonable idea for development of a name that very much lends itself too it?

 

[Eric Lyon]

Personally, I'd say that unless you have a lot of capital to invest backing you into development / marketing / advertising / etc.. that it's a bad idea. It's way to saturated with fly by night marketplaces.

If you don't have at least a nest egg of $50k to $100k (minimum) to dump into it the first year, leave it alone. And even then you may need to float it for 1 to 3 more years after the first year, so you'll want some investment capital for that as well (just in case).

Just my thoughts anyways,

Eric Lyon

 

[DnEbook]

Yep a hard task …..tried by many, without much success

 

[AEProgram]

you are better off doing a site where you hand pick good names from the mega amount of names for sale and simply make money as an affiliate, many here visit a few blogs and twitters a day that feature hand picked names at auction / dropping, there can never be enough hand pickers as there are so many names coming on the market daily.

The key is to only list truly good stuff even if it means 5-10 a day

 

[paddypaul]

Have to agree with all the above. I looked into doing something similar but ended up doing what AEProgram suggested and started to create daily Domain Pick lists over at DomainSquared.

 

[RazorNF]

I echo the others here. You will need substantial resources to make a go of it, and you would need to somehow differentiate yourself from the other marketplaces.

People would need a compelling reason to pay you for a featured listing over other sites like Sedo or GD which already has the traffic that you wouldn't as a startup.

 

[domainbartender]

I would like to see such a site, and I've tried my hand at creating such a site several times, but it's really hard to get people to sign up. You could have a brilliant site with all kinds of features, but still not make it. I still see potential in Bido, I just wish people would be more active on there. Bido is the best example of a domain marketplace that is different than the rest.

 

[Stockford Dev.]

you are better off doing a site where you hand pick good names from the mega amount of names for sale and simply make money as an affiliate, many here visit a few blogs and twitters a day that feature hand picked names at auction / dropping, there can never be enough hand pickers as there are so many names coming on the market daily.

The key is to only list truly good stuff even if it means 5-10 a day

I'm sorry but I don't understand, are you telling me to go through the expired sites and take all the half decent names to be hand regged and just use the site as a domain sales marketplace for those names? Whose affiliate would I be? Like go daddy or something? Why would they let me list there names for sale. Sorry I just feel like you are probably giving really good advice and I don't understand it, I would very much like to

 

[Joseph Green]

I'm sorry but I don't understand, are you telling me to go through the expired sites and take all the half decent names to be hand regged and just use the site as a domain sales marketplace for those names? Whose affiliate would I be? Like go daddy or something? Why would they let me list there names for sale. Sorry I just feel like you are probably giving really good advice and I don't understand it, I would very much like to

Shane Cultra does it almost every day on his "SHANE’S BIG LIST" posts. Check out DomainShane.com to see an example of what people have suggested.

 

[paddypaul]

If you are going to go down the Daily List route then you'll need to be quickly able to scan very long lists of domains and pick out the decent ones. And all of this takes time which you need to allocate every day if you want people to come back to your lists on a regular basis.
I create my own Daily Lists and I scan lists from both GoDaddy & Namejet on a daily basis. I put a small comment on each domain I select so that takes even more time.
Other domainers provide long lists without any comments so if you do plan to create domain lists then you'll need to decide what to include in your list and how much time you are prepared to spend on a regular basis putting it together.

 

[tradingdavid]

I do the list thing and get a shortlist of 50 or so and take about 2-3 thinking of posting list to blog or something for content. Someone else may see value in them and it seems like a waste not to pass a nice edited list around.

 

[equity78]

The whole key is do you have the time and money, and then you need traffic. Domainers don't need another site that says list here, there are plenty of them, if they don't traffic and more importantly buyers than its not needed.

The juice will not be worth the squeeze.

 

[SpareDomains]

Building your own portfolio site makes sense as majority of my own sales come that way which helps as then inquiries aren't anonymous.

Building a site for other users to list can work but lot of work to avoid being millions of garbage listings that clutter the gems. Also without a massive budget for advertising most wouldn't list their inventory as too much work for not enough eyeballs, hard to compete with GoDaddy, Sedo etc... Niche site would be best, brandables, premium gems etc... as a normal site would get cluttered with only 1 out of 20 listed actually having a good chance to sell.