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GoldenApple

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Hi everyone,

For domains that are under 1k, what is an ideal price point that you notice gets more sales?

I am trying to find the right balance between not pricing too high but at the same time making decent profit.

For example, which is better:

Pricing domains low at $499 in hopes of getting more sales or something like $899 to make more profit.

Do you think there is an ideal price point where users tend to not think too much about the purchase and just buy the domain?

Thanks :xf.smile:
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Hi everyone,

For domains that are under 1k, what is an ideal price point that you notice gets more sales?

I am trying to find the right balance between not pricing too high but at the same time making decent profit.

Pricing domains low at $499 in hopes of getting more sales or something like $899 to make more profit.

Do you think there is an ideal price point where users tend to not think too much about the purchase and just buy the domain?

Thanks :xf.smile:


Balance is key. You do not want to price too high as this could result in alot less sales (and less profit, even if the sales price is higher). Pricing too low will result in more sales, but not necessarily more profit.
In the $100-$999 range, I think the sweet spot (for volume/passive selling) is $399-$699.
IMO (and this is just my opinion) you should split-test over a period of at least 6 weeks, at both ends of that range:

- 50% at $399
- 50% at $699

Compare the results of both mini-portoflios and optimise from there. But you need to stick to that pricing/test for the full 6-weeks without making changes.

IDEA: You can also have a $699 BIN with a "best offer" option (see BizData.eu) so, even if the BIN price is out of the buyers range, they can still make an offer at a lower price point (so you still get/recuperate those extra "lower" sales).
 
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HugeDomains, BuyDomains etc. base their primary business model on buying hundreds of thousands of registration fee .COM and selling a low % (usually 1-2%) each year 95% of the time in the $1500-$2500 range. 80% of Mike Mann's model is based on the same law of averages, although he also sells a very small % at higher numbers.

The math and profits checkout as the acquisition price is so low.

Ex.
Selling 1.5% of 1M "reg fee, $8" domains per year = 15,000 sales at $1750 BIN (sometimes it is a bit higher/lower) = $26,250,000. Minus registration/aquisition fees ($8M) = $18,250,000 - a large portion of that being profit.
Despite a % of the domains COULD have sold for high $xx,xxx (or even low 5 figures), this passive "reasonable BIN" model brings good, consistent profits.

This model can be replicated, if done carefully, on a small level: buying certain ccTLDs or other extensions at discount rates (promotions, €1-€3) and selling the domains passively in the €250-€750 range.

The key with being successful with this model is:

- knowing how to choose the right types of names
- keeping acquisition costs as low as possible (patiently acquiring at right prices)
- selling consistently in the sweet-spot "range"
 
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With .COM I agree.
However, with "average-good" quality ccTLDs and some other extensions (that is what I do), €299-€799 is an optimal range for profitable volume-selling. But you need to have many thousands for the model to work.

Buying a ccTLD for €2 and selling for €600 is the same as buying a .COM for $8 and selling for $2,400.
 
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One thing I observed in all businesses I've ever done (including domains):

When you have a large array of client values, low to high bidders (domaining included), focusing on the low-income clients is a losing game. Even if having loads of.

Focusing on high-rollers and money-to-burn clients is the winner game. Margin is always critical.

At this time everything I have is priced 3K or higher. Most domainers with a larger portfolio I have observed to price in a similar fashion. Lowering your price will not make up for the difference by numbers.

Rest assured, lowball offers will come in regardless. You won't lose those, except they're kind of recipe for failure. At least in my opinion.

The thing is, whoever truly NEEDS your domain will pay up if your price is market rate. Whoever will throw $100 at it on a whim ain't your bread-and-butter client.
 
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Here's a bit of what I posted elsewhere recently. But basically you really can't generalise when it comes to domains. Nobody can answer your question with any objectivity or accuracy in any way without knowing the specific domains.

.. sometimes the price difference won't make a difference and buyers will buy the domain at the same probability, whether it's $500 or $5000 .. but sometimes the price difference will make a HUGE difference in probability of sale. It depends on the specific domains and the prices .. there is no simple rule that covers all domains .. you really need to know your domains and who the potential end users are
Then you really should rethink if you want to invest in domaining at all. It takes lots of time, knowledge and research simply to not lose money in domaining .. much more even if you want to make a small profit. With the low sell-through rates and tight (portfolio level) margins, you're almost guaranteed to lose money if you're not optimising the pricing of your sales.
Yes pricing and volume do affect each other .. but not necessarily at a direct ratio .. if you lower the prices of your domains, it does not necessarily mean you will make up for it with volume. The opposite is also true .. if you overprice your domains, it doesn't mean that the very few big sales you do make will necessarily make up for the ones you lost.

Also take a look at this one in a different thread ...
The one thing that's important to know about domains is that it's a big numbers game. When you work with an increasing number of domains the overall randomness turns into relative stability thanks to stats and probabilities BASED ON THE QUALITY OF YOUR DOMAINS AND PRICING!

.. on the micro / individual domain level, you're almost always playing a guessing game. It's really frustrating and can most certainly have yourself second-guessing yourself a lot before you've made a handful of sales. Would the buyer have paid more for the domain?
YES .. Sometimes they would have *AND* NO .. Sometimes too high a price just scares people off

One huge thing you need to come to terms with in domaining is that some buyers have cash to burn .. while others have severe financial difficulties. There most certainly are some tools (Google, domainIQ, reverse email/IP searches) that can help you figure out who the potential buyer is and their probable price range .. but a lot of the time you just don't know, and as hard as it is .. you can't let things completely out of your control stress you out too much.

The one big positive about getting more and more sales, is that the variations in sales prices compared to expectation for each specific domain become less of an issue. It allows you to be a little more flexible .. knowing that sometimes you'll get more than you thought .. and other times less ... the real key is having a long term profit.

Hope those help .. check out those threads for more info .. and also try the forum's search feature .. there's tons of info out there .. but again .. don't take any advice 100% unless the person giving it knows the specific domains (and even then a lot of people get things wrong .. lol .. plus .. often it truly is a guessing game .. domains can be tricky)
 
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Hi everyone,

For domains that are under 1k, what is an ideal price point that you notice gets more sales?

I am trying to find the right balance between not pricing too high but at the same time making decent profit.

For example, which is better:

Pricing domains low at $499 in hopes of getting more sales or something like $899 to make more profit.

Do you think there is an ideal price point where users tend to not think too much about the purchase and just buy the domain?

Thanks :xf.smile:
Here is what I normally do, I try new pricing in every 30 days, for most of my names and I have seen that the lower pricing 299-499 almost all the time get bought compared to when I set more higher pricing. Of course, there are names I wont price them anything below high xxxx, so you would need to balance. Another thing is, if you have a large portfolio, 1000 or more names, you could make sales almost daily/monthly, with such pricing.
 
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I'm just starting this myself, but I think Epik gives full access to all their templates. The domain should just be registered with Epik, and if sold you pay some transaction fees, but the fees seem very low for all the service you get.

I kinda like the idea of using 8.... Like $488 $888... but I usually price my domains between 3 - 6k. For your strategy, maybe go 188, 288, 388, etc. 8 can be considered a lucky and rich number. Just a thought.
 
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That's exactly what I do. My domains are priced mostly at 3K with an minimal offer of $1K. It's the same sweet spot, with a bit of room to negotiate. Only 5% of my domains are priced above 3K.

Domains being sold under $500 are a completely different story, that's market rate (average is around $250).
I can understand where you analysis comes from and it's quite true for .com where one might want to renew a good % of their portfolio to take it to the next year.

However, with cctlds, the low sales range will be additionally justified with the fact that majority of the domains won't be renewed in a similar way as the .com.
 
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With .COM I agree.
However, with "average-good" quality ccTLDs and some other extensions (that is what I do), €299-€799 is an optimal range for profitable volume-selling. But you need to have many thousands for the model to work.

Buying a ccTLD for €2 and selling for €600 is the same as buying a .COM for $8 and selling for $2,400.

Indeed - I am a (mostly) .com domainer. This clears things a bit.

One note: There's nothing wrong with being a market domainer, e.g. selling .com's at $300. It is a functional model but you need to be very good at finding those domains. However you used the term long-term, and respective to .COMs, market selling is not long term but a short term strategy.

It depends on the domainer. Market price domainers focus on cashflow, being in profit right now and monthly, as you said. While long term domainers might be in the negative in the first year or two (it depends), as sales might not exceed regs+renewals; but they turn a bigger profit over the years. The latter requires more funds and the ability to have them locked in there for a while.
 
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I can understand where you analysis comes from and it's quite true for .com where one might want to renew a good % of their portfolio to take it to the next year.

However, with cctlds, the low sales range will be additionally justified with the fact that majority of the domains won't be renewed in a similar way as the .com.

Even with .coms, there is a churn. You don't renew everything.

So in the last part of the reg year you might want to drop price on your lower end, so you make room in your budget for other purchases. There's always something new and interesting coming up.
 
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Hi I have just seen your doxxed dot com page and I see you have kept bin price and also payment plan option. If I have domains at Epik , to use same template as yours , do I need to pay anything extra to use such template ? Please suggest!

Thanks,
Sumeeth
Hi there Sumeeth,

You need need to pay anything to get those templates. You can set them up by yourself in your marketplace. Simple :)
 
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Nobody can answer your question with any objectivity or accuracy in any way without knowing the specific domains.

Hi
that's true.

though, even if we knew the names, the replies would still be opinions.
however, such opinions might influence you to increase the ranges or for some names, reduce them

but, the question of which platform you are using was asked previously, and, depending on the domains you have, that can be the difference in whether your domains ever get seen by interested parties.

if you have domains that don't get type-in traffic and are listed on your own marketplace, then how will anybody find them?

so, if they aren't listed on sites like Sedo, Afternic/Godaddy, etc., where they have volumes of visitors, then your chances of making a sale are reduced.

if you've done that, and still want to price your names under $1k, then I think @Federer posted a good plan to follow.

Good Luck!

imo...
 
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Actually, selling a higher %, even at a 33% "discount", can bring in alot more profits long-term.

Ex.
Selling 1.1% (per year) of an average, but very large group (14,200-14,300) of domains at €600 would bring in €7.837 each month in sales.
However selling 2% of those domains at a reduced rate of €399, would produce €9.476 in monthly sales (+€1.500 each month of the year).
 
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Actually, selling a higher %, even at a 33% "discount", can bring in alot more profits long-term.

Ex.
Selling 1.1% (per year) of an average, but very large group (14,200-14,300) of domains at €600 would bring in €7.837 each month in sales.
However selling 2% of those domains at a reduced rate of €399, would produce €9.476 in monthly sales (+€1.500 each month of the year).

I can disagree with this, while it doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong, as there are domainers doing this. Math-wise, more or less yeah, but it's not just math; or to be precise not all variables can be factored in.

Your example is a market-level price example. I personally tried the market game, and it didn't work. I figured out quickly this is going to be a losing game. The big question is whether this reduction of price will indeed double the sales. From my experience, it didn't.

To be clear for whoever is new and doesn't know, there are two major types of domaining - retail or full price (where I stand) and market-price type. Give an example, if a domain is sold at $2-3k full price, it will be sold at $300 or so at market price. Most sales in this case are a low xxx figure.

I've personally found market-level sales not to be profitable, and much more risky.

This is why most domainers with a serious portfolio are long sellers, and don't mess with low xxx figure sales. Not worth their time, and on long-term this is most likely the winning strategy.
Not to mention it is a more passive investment strategy and leverages their time.

Holding domains for VERY long time (such as 5-10 years) instead of flipping them for low cash now is way more profitable = when you're going to sell them for high 4-5 figures or even more. Do the math again, but factor in the price increase over such many years and the higher sales fingerprint of still having those domains you haven't sold for cheap.

Edit: Additional note, most market sales are in the $200-$300 range or so. When someone sells a domain for $700, I'm looking at it at neither being a market sale nor a long sale, but someone who sold their valuable domain short and should have asked for a low xxxx price instead. It's not always the case but in most cases it is. A business who is serious and needs your domain can afford at least 1K, or else it ain't no business and I'll be waiting for the next one that is.
 
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I'm going to add an example to show how wrong lowering the price to sell it today is, as a strategy.

10 or so years ago I had about 50 LLLL .com domains. At that time you could not get more than $20 or so for one of them. And mine were meaningful, the sorts now used for larger organizations and firms etc. (I don't have them anymore but that's a different discussion, anyway)

By selling them quick and low price, I could have made $500 more - once.

By holding them for 10 years or so, they would be worth a few millions today.

That's the actual long term math.
 
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HugeDomains, BuyDomains etc. base their primary business model on buying hundreds of thousands of registration fee .COM and selling a low % (usually 1-2%) each year 95% of the time in the $1500-$2500 range.

That's exactly what I do. My domains are priced mostly at 3K with an minimal offer of $1K. It's the same sweet spot, with a bit of room to negotiate. Only 5% of my domains are priced above 3K.

Domains being sold under $500 are a completely different story, that's market rate (average is around $250).
 
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If it's registered with Epik, you can get instant transfers and (I believe) more payment options for the buyer. If Epik is holding the domain, they can immediately take it into their escrow-type system, which enables the buyer to instantly buy and take control of the domain on a payment plan.

Following up with a little empirical evidence on pricing with 8. Just sold a domain on Sedo BIN $4888... first time I sold a name with no negotiation.
 
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This really depends on your portfolio size and quality, how many names and what method do you currently use to make sales?
 
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At the moment I am not doing any outbound for sales, I just have them all using a for sale template with a bin price.

I'm just not sure what bin price I should set on these domains.

Should I put them all at $499 and hope to make more sales or more around the $700-800 range.

Since you work at Epik, when it comes to domains under 1k do you notice a particular price point sells better than others? (if you can share the exact price ending example: 799 vs 795 that would be great).

Thank you.
 
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What platform are you currently using to do this? Check out one of my parked pages (Doxxed dot com) which shows how I have had success in selling for higher numbers. It is why I asked for quality and quantity in your portfolio. Is there any reason why you insist on pricing under $1k?

I can only speak on the sales I have made personally, and it is very rare when I sell for under $1k. Perhaps twice in the past 6 months or less, and the sales were all randomly priced or according to the buyer's offer. Perhaps @Rob Monster can share some big picture data on BIN pricing at that level. But I encourage you to analyze your domains to get better yields.
 
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What platform are you currently using to do this? Check out one of my parked pages (Doxxed dot com) which shows how I have had success in selling for higher numbers. It is why I asked for quality and quantity in your portfolio. Is there any reason why you insist on pricing under $1k?

I can only speak on the sales I have made personally, and it is very rare when I sell for under $1k. Perhaps twice in the past 6 months or less, and the sales were all randomly priced or according to the buyer's offer. Perhaps @Rob Monster can share some big picture data on BIN pricing at that level. But I encourage you to analyze your domains to get better yields.
Hi I have just seen your doxxed dot com page and I see you have kept bin price and also payment plan option. If I have domains at Epik , to use same template as yours , do I need to pay anything extra to use such template ? Please suggest!

Thanks,
Sumeeth
 
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You have asked one of the most important questions in domaining @GoldenApple and it has generated superb answers from a number of domain investors with a long record of success so I will not add to what they have said other than to say that I think it really depends on each domain name. Some you just know are great and would bring value to the right end user and plan to keep them long term. On those, I would agree with those who say price higher. But it is true that for small businesses there is a sweet spot somewhere in the $$$ range that they won't hesitate too much over, and I would price some names in that range too.

I don't think that mention has been made of these posts which are relevant to the argument whether to price hight or not.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/yall-wanna-shoot-the-moon.1162085/

https://namebio.com/blog/dont-shoot-for-the-moon/

Related to your question is also whether one should use buy-it-now pricing at all, on which views differ as well.

You have asked good questions. Best wishes for success in domain investing.

Bob
 
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What platform are you currently using to do this? Check out one of my parked pages (Doxxed dot com) which shows how I have had success in selling for higher numbers. It is why I asked for quality and quantity in your portfolio. Is there any reason why you insist on pricing under $1k?

I can only speak on the sales I have made personally, and it is very rare when I sell for under $1k. Perhaps twice in the past 6 months or less, and the sales were all randomly priced or according to the buyer's offer. Perhaps @Rob Monster can share some big picture data on BIN pricing at that level. But I encourage you to analyze your domains to get better yields.
What kind of success have you had leasing names rather than selling them?
 
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I'm just starting this myself, but I think Epik gives full access to all their templates. The domain should just be registered with Epik, and if sold you pay some transaction fees, but the fees seem very low for all the service you get.

I kinda like the idea of using 8.... Like $488 $888... but I usually price my domains between 3 - 6k. For your strategy, maybe go 188, 288, 388, etc. 8 can be considered a lucky and rich number. Just a thought.
 
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