Selling brandables II: journey report May 2018 - APril 2020

[HDmarketing]

Hi all, I hope each one of you and your loved ones are safe during these strange times.

I thought I’d post a quick update on my journey with brandables since my last post on this subject has two years now! You can find it here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/how-i-made-8k-selling-brandables-and-how-much-it-cost-me.1073976/

It shows my results with brandables from end of 2015 to may 2018 and how I netted about $6.2k on Brandroot and lost about $1.8k with my Afternic / Direct Offer strategy.


Disclaimer: I know that since the domains listed on the different platforms are not the same and it’s hard to compare sales, but I sincerely think they are of similar quality for at least 80% of the inventory. I don't claim perfection in the following comparisons.

My sales results for the past two years have been the following.


1) Brandroot / Brandbucket: 6 sold of about 140 listed (2% of portfolio / year)

May - December 2018: 3 domains

• oo/wap: $1,795 = $1,115 after commission. Held 2 years 1 month. Handreged because is a nice “double o” + suffix from my list.
• Life/rr: $2,985 = $1,890 after commission. Held 2 years 10 months. Handreged because is a hack on life / lifer.
• Zen/Days: $2,485 = $1,480 after commission. Held 2 years 6 months. Handreged because is the association of two power words from my lists.

2019

• Lib/pay: $2,500 = $1,650 after commission. Held 4 years 4 months. Handreged because is a 6L containing keyword Pay. Probably sold because of Libra trend. One of the few names I received direct offers for, between $50 and $500.

(Brandroot bought by Brandbucket, so from now on, the names sold through BB. Not sure I can disclose the names so I hide some characters)

• ***/Data: $2,975 = $1880 after commission. Held 4 years 2 months. Handreged because is a power keyword + prefix from my list.

Jan – April 2020

• Weav/**: $2,775 = $1740 after commission. Held 4 years 10 months. Handreged because is a 6 letters hack on “weave”.

Past 24 months results

• Sold 6 names on Brandroot/Brandbucket for $9,755
• Paid in registrations + listing fees + renewals : $3,097
• I netted about $6.7k ($6,658)

2) Afternic or through my own landers: 4 sold of about 230 listed (<1% of portfolio / year)

Note that all my domains not listed at BR/BB are listed with the same BIN at Afternic, Sedo, Unireg, Flippa, Domain Agents and redirect to my own lander with Escrow BIN button and Make Offer form.

May - December 2018: 0 domains

2019: 2 domains

• Nice/Trade: $1,500 = $1,200 after commission. Held 2 years 1 month. Bought low $xxx on GD expired auctions because is the association of keyword Trade with a prefix from my list.
  Was listed $2,495, the offer was non-negotiable. I chose to accept it.
• Sahu/ra: $1,975 = $1,580 after commission. Held 9 months. Handreged because tagged as previously sold on Brandroot.

Jan – April 2020: 2 domains

• i/Joker: $2,975 = $2,365 after commission. Held 2 years 6 months. Bought mid $xxx on GD expired auctions because is the form “i“ + word. Sold at the time of the “Joker” movie.
• Tele/med/a: $3,225 = $2,840 after SEDO commission. Held 3 years 11 months. Handreged because used to be listed at Namerific and Telemed is a future trend. Sold because with the pandemics, the future is getting closer

This one has a special story associated to it: the buyer contacted me using the form on my own lander that has an Escrow.com BIN button and a “Make an offer” form. We agreed on a price, but the buyer didn’t want to proceed through Escrow.com and saw the domain was listed on SEDO, a marketplace he is used to. He insisted to go through it. I had him as far as creating an account at Escrow.com but still preferred to go through SEDO and pay the higher fees associated.

Conclusion: Established Brand reputation is real.

Past 24 months results

• Sold 4 names through Afternic/Own Landers for $8,255
• Paid in registrations + renewals : $2,450
• I netted about $5.8k ($5,805)

Let's summarize including the sales from December 2015 to April 2018

Brandroot / Brandbucket	Afternic / Own Landers
Ki/to/no	Mo/ko/no
Va/ma/za	Proof/us
Exo/Code
Traver/ce
Trade/Viser
Data/Math
Moto/fi
oo/wap	Nice/Trade
Life/rr	Sahu/ra
Zen/Days	i/Joker
Lib/pay	Tele/med/a
***/Data
Weav/**
Dec 2016 – April 2018	Dec 2016 – April 2018
Sold 7 names for $9,769	Sold 2 names for $1,679
Sell Through Rate around 2%	Sell Through Rate around 0.5%
Paid in registrations + listing fees + renewals $3,515	Paid in registrations + listing fees + renewals $3,449
I netted about $6k ($6,254)	I lost about $1,8k ($1,770)
May 2018 – April 2020	May 2018 – April 2020
Sold 6 names for $9,755	Sold 4 names for $8,255
Sell Through Rate around 2%	Sell Through Rate around 1%
Paid in registrations + listing fees + renewals: $3,097	Paid in registrations + renewals : $2,450
I netted about $6.7k ($6,658)	I netted about $5.8k ($5,805)
TOTAL: Dec 2015 – April 2020	TOTAL: Dec 2015 – April 2020
Sold 13 names for $19,524	Sold 6 names for $9,934
Sell Through Rate around 2%	Sell Through Rate around 0.8%
Paid in registrations + listing fees + renewals: $6,612	Paid in registrations + listing fees + renewals: $5,899
I netted about $13k ($12,912)	I netted about $4k ($4,035)

3) Conclusion: the brandable platforms wins, but...

The clear conclusion from the table above is that the brandable platform does a better job than me at selling my brandables.

But when I separate results for phase 1 and phase 2 of my journey, I consider there are good results in phase two with Afternic/Own Landers: I netted nearly the same with 4 names sold through these than BR/BB with 6.

Also note that my STR with Afternic/Own Landers doubled from a very low 0.4-0.5% to around 1%, which shows me that my efforts to better my portfolio are giving some results (more on that below).


4) What now?

Here is what I’m doing right now.

4.1) Dropping more names

Letting go the low end of my inventory, about 90 names so far in two years. Some of them I can’t recall why I registered in the first place (some of you may know this feeling ).


4.2) Appraising my inventory with BB

I now systematically submit my brandables to Brandbucket. I happily pay the $1 fee and (less hapily) wait for 45 days to get their appraisal.

• Some of the names they value high (for me, "high" means mid/high $x,xxx / low $xx,xxx). I list those without hesitation because I think they will do a better job than me at selling them and I’ll be happy with my share.
• Some they value too low in my opinion. Those I list with Afternic and the other marketplaces (6 in total) and direct to my own lander without hesitation.
• Some are valued about what I’d price them so my share after commission will be quite small if they ever sell. I still think they might sell more easily on BB than through the other channel. So I list those reluctantly. I think I will wait one or two more years to see if any of them sell. If not I may resell them to other BB sellers or liquidate/drop.

4.3) Reviewing my price strategy
In short, I increased my prices, which has been especially good to me for the name I sold with my own lander. I Think two years from now, I would have sold it for less and paid more commission on it since I didn’t have landers back then.


4.4) More research

• Research what sold on the brandable marketplaces
• Building lists of names listed and dropped
• Researching those available for handreg, pending delete etc...

4.5) Raising the quality of my portfolio

• More 5Ls - Less 6Ls
• More short names hacks/play on words - Less invented. (USfee rather than
  qenqe)
• More Two Worders with at least one “power word” - Less 7+Ls purely invented brandables (like Electromni). (By "power word" I mean strong keyword in niches I like. The ones I stick with are “Data”, “Trade”, “Crypto”, “Pay” and a few more…)
• More 1word.io (like Xanadu .io)

Hard to do, especially when it comes to dropping the "bad" names. Admitting failure is tough... Some say it's the road to success!


I buy mostly on the drop or handreg names that come up available after researching the lists in 4.4). I try to avoid auctions because I loose my temper too easily and can get caught in auction fights. I bought a one word .net once for low $x,xxx and I didn’t even had the money on my main account at that time. Lesson learned! Now when I bid on something I tend to put my proxy bid and leave my desk…

I have about 80 “saved searches” on ExpiredDomains.net monitoring the pending delete lists for

• 5L and 6L with certain patterns
• “Power” keywords I like or I have sold domains with in the past.
• 1 word in other extensions

5) Some tools

Here are some tools I use daily / weekly

Expired names
ExpiredDomains.net - Just incredibly useful tool for FREE. Plus the developer Marco is really nice.

Bulk check for available names
Namebright bulk (5k batches)
Rankz.io bulk checker (20k batches, $10/month)

Appraisal
Nameworth

I know that appraisal tools are despised by a lot of people but I really like Nameworth for it's high valuations.

1) I use it to weed out the worst names (the tool gives high valuations, so if it's low for a given domain maybe I should consider twice before buying/bidding high).

2) When I find a domain with a high appraisal, I search more about it. If I end up buying it, I divide the appraisal by some factor (2, 3, 4...) when I set the BIN for it.


6) One last word

Hope you enjoyed that long read as much as I enjoyed writing it. Any comments and questions are welcome.

Stay safe and good luck to you all in your ventures.

 

[Rhinnnn]

Great post and useful details, thank you.

It does make sense for brandable marketplaces to perform better with brandable domains. Their commissions are high, indeed, so it also makes sense not to list underpriced domains with them.

I'm curious if you've tried SquadHelp until now. From what I'm seeing, SH tends to underprice many names but their sell-through rate seems to be higher than anywhere else.

Regarding Nameworth appraisals - they're often too high, yes. Example: I have a domain appraised at $7,450 but I don't think I'd hesitate to sell it for around $2K.

 

[satyadeep singh]

how can you choose brandable domains

 

[HDmarketing]

I'm curious if you've tried SquadHelp until now. From what I'm seeing, SH tends to underprice many names but their sell-through rate seems to be higher than anywhere else.

Not yet!
After reading many threads comparing the brandable marketplaces at the end of summer I chose to open a Brandpa account. Mainly because I'm trying to make larger sales now. Maybe I should list the second tier of my inventory on SH?

About Brandpa, I applied for an account in september and was accepted in... Mid-March. I had by then decided to move my inventory to BB. Had already submitted about 70 names and listed more than half of them.
Now I see that BP has no delay to list but a high fee ($8), so I'll stick with BB for now with whom my average listing price is $2.

Regarding Nameworth appraisals - they're often too high, yes. Example: I have a domain appraised at $7,450 but I don't think I'd hesitate to sell it for around $2K.

Yes, you need to have your own formula on top of theirs. Mine is roughly that one:

NW appraisal	Action	Pricing
<= $3,450	Pass on the name. If I own it, I might drop it
$4,450 <= $7,450	I might buy if I am completing a portfolio in a niche (ex "Data" names)	$1,475-$2,975
$7,450 <= $14,450	will probably buy	$1,975-$3,975 or $2,475-$4,975
$14,450 <	will probably buy	$2,475-$4,975 or $4,975-$9,975

how can you choose brandable domains

My strategy is detailed a bit in my first post here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/how-i-made-8k-selling-brandables-and-how-much-it-cost-me.1073976/

I advise you to not by any brandable before having read and analysed at least 20 hours about the subject here on Namepros.

 

[HDmarketing]

Quick update.
Finally made domaining profitable for me after about 7 years in the space.

Strategy

- I trimmed down the fat: liquidating a lot of domains: listing at $199 and auctioning them on NameLiquidate.
- I stopped outbound, had no success with it.

- I was lucky enough to study crypto in 2018-2019. I built a small portfolio and sold some names in 2020-2021.

2020

9 sales - $24k income - 100% brandable

4 on BrandBucket (45%) - 30% of income
3 on Afternic (33%) - 43% of income
2 on Sedo (22%) - 27% of income

Of these, there were 2 crypto names (22%) - 35% of income

4 names owned for less than two years

2021

29 sales - $58k sales - 75% brandables

11 on BrandBucket (38%) - 60% of income
4 direct sales (own landing page) (14%) - 25% of income
13 on Afternic (45%) - 10% of income (lots of liquidation sales, low income)
1 Sedo (3%) - 5% of income

Notable sales: a 4L.com sold for $20k on BB that I had bought in my first year of domaining for about $700. Listed at about $5k-7k for years without success. Sold to a crypto company. Held 6.5 years.

My landing pages brought me nice sales: these domains were listed on Afternic and Sedo (but not on BB as you can't list elsewhere when listed on BB).

6 crypto names (20%) - 50% of income

2022

8 sales so far and about $10k of income...

 

[Recons.Com]

Quick update.
Finally made domaining profitable for me after about 7 years in the space.

Strategy

- I trimmed down the fat: liquidating a lot of domains: listing at $199 and auctioning them on NameLiquidate.
- I stopped outbound, had no success with it.

- I was lucky enough to study crypto in 2018-2019. I built a small portfolio and sold some names in 2020-2021.

2020

9 sales - $24k income - 100% brandable

4 on BrandBucket (45%) - 30% of income
3 on Afternic (33%) - 43% of income
2 on Sedo (22%) - 27% of income

Of these, there were 2 crypto names (22%) - 35% of income

4 names owned for less than two years

2021

29 sales - $58k sales - 75% brandables

11 on BrandBucket (38%) - 60% of income
4 direct sales (own landing page) (14%) - 25% of income
13 on Afternic (45%) - 10% of income (lots of liquidation sales, low income)
1 Sedo (3%) - 5% of income

Notable sales: a 4L.com sold for $20k on BB that I had bought in my first year of domaining for about $700. Listed at about $5k-7k for years without success. Sold to a crypto company. Held 6.5 years.

My landing pages brought me nice sales: these domains were listed on Afternic and Sedo (but not on BB as you can't list elsewhere when listed on BB).

6 crypto names (20%) - 50% of income

2022

8 sales so far and about $10k of income...

Thanks for the informative analysis. Congrats on the great 2021. Could you also provide the weighted portfolio size for the years (or, as a proxy, the mid year portfolio size)?

2022 result seems way below your 2021, even factoring in one large outlier sale in 2021. Did something else changed in how you conducted the business besides the consensus downturn for domain sales this year compared to 2021?

 

[Recons.Com]

Quick update.
Finally made domaining profitable for me after about 7 years in the space.

Strategy

- I trimmed down the fat: liquidating a lot of domains: listing at $199 and auctioning them on NameLiquidate.
- I stopped outbound, had no success with it.

- I was lucky enough to study crypto in 2018-2019. I built a small portfolio and sold some names in 2020-2021.

2020

9 sales - $24k income - 100% brandable

4 on BrandBucket (45%) - 30% of income
3 on Afternic (33%) - 43% of income
2 on Sedo (22%) - 27% of income

Of these, there were 2 crypto names (22%) - 35% of income

4 names owned for less than two years

2021

29 sales - $58k sales - 75% brandables

11 on BrandBucket (38%) - 60% of income
4 direct sales (own landing page) (14%) - 25% of income
13 on Afternic (45%) - 10% of income (lots of liquidation sales, low income)
1 Sedo (3%) - 5% of income

Notable sales: a 4L.com sold for $20k on BB that I had bought in my first year of domaining for about $700. Listed at about $5k-7k for years without success. Sold to a crypto company. Held 6.5 years.

My landing pages brought me nice sales: these domains were listed on Afternic and Sedo (but not on BB as you can't list elsewhere when listed on BB).

6 crypto names (20%) - 50% of income

2022

8 sales so far and about $10k of income...

Thanks for the informative analysis. Congrats on the great 2021. Could you also provide the weighted portfolio size for the years (or, as a proxy, the mid year portfolio size)?

2022 result seems way below your 2021, even factoring in one large outlier sale in 2021. Did something else changed in how you conducted the business besides the consensus downturn for domain sales this year compared to 2021?

 

[HDmarketing]

Thanks for the informative analysis. Congrats on the great 2021. Could you also provide the weighted portfolio size for the years (or, as a proxy, the mid year portfolio size)?

2022 result seems way below your 2021, even factoring in one large outlier sale in 2021. Did something else changed in how you conducted the business besides the consensus downturn for domain sales this year compared to 2021?

I'd say I had about

2020:1000-1200 domains
2021: 900 - 1000 domains
2022: 700 domains as of today.

I have 40 domains set to expire and 80 more I intend to barter with other BB users. These I will renew if there are no takers.

Give or take I aim to get at 600 domains next year.
I still buy domains at auction / handreg, maybe about 50-100 last year, so it's more about improving the quality of my portfolio or building my crypto one to be ready for next wave.

--------

As for the 2022 results, I think there is much less money flowing in everything (very clear for crypto vertical at least).
As for what I've done personally, I've concentrated on domains priced a bit higher by Brandbucket and raised my prices across the board, so I have less domains priced around $2000 - $3500. I may loose sales, but I'm getting to my endgoal which is:

- 300 "good" domains with $10k renewal fees, "good" meaning I can price them $4k - $6k. With 10% of inventory at $10k-50k. (at my pace that will be in 2026).
- 2% sales per year.
- Let run with little investment / effort on my side.

- Depending on my motivation/energy/capital, expand portfolio in the niches I know well (crypto as of now).

 

[satyadeep singh]

nice

 

[Recons.Com]

I'd say I had about

2020:1000-1200 domains
2021: 900 - 1000 domains
2022: 700 domains as of today.

I have 40 domains set to expire and 80 more I intend to barter with other BB users. These I will renew if there are no takers.

Give or take I aim to get at 600 domains next year.
I still buy domains at auction / handreg, maybe about 50-100 last year, so it's more about improving the quality of my portfolio or building my crypto one to be ready for next wave.

--------

As for the 2022 results, I think there is much less money flowing in everything (very clear for crypto vertical at least).
As for what I've done personally, I've concentrated on domains priced a bit higher by Brandbucket and raised my prices across the board, so I have less domains priced around $2000 - $3500. I may loose sales, but I'm getting to my endgoal which is:

- 300 "good" domains with $10k renewal fees, "good" meaning I can price them $4k - $6k. With 10% of inventory at $10k-50k. (at my pace that will be in 2026).
- 2% sales per year.
- Let run with little investment / effort on my side.

- Depending on my motivation/energy/capital, expand portfolio in the niches I know well (crypto as of now).

I find it counterintuitive.

1. You had a great year in 2021, but you decided to downsize in 2022.

2. Most of your sales were low $xxxx, but you are abandoning that category

3. While abandoning that category, your sales don't show that you are achieving higher average. On the contrary, from 28 sales $48k or around $1.7k per sale (removing the 20k outlier), you have moved to 8 sales and $10k or around $1.3k per sale.

Sorry to say this, but I think you are making wrong conclusions from the results you are getting and changing the vector in the wrong direction.

I also believe that tying your business in a considerable way beyond experimental to the marketplaces like BB, SH etc. is a dead-end. To give you an example, I had over 350 domains with BB in 2021 and they sold just 1 name for me during the year. After I removed the name, in less than a year I have sold 7-8 of those names at higher prices and 20% or lower commission.

 

[HDmarketing]

I find it counterintuitive.

1. You had a great year in 2021, but you decided to downsize in 2022.

2. Most of your sales were low $xxxx, but you are abandoning that category

3. While abandoning that category, your sales don't show that you are achieving higher average. On the contrary, from 28 sales $48k or around $1.7k per sale (removing the 20k outlier), you have moved to 8 sales and $10k or around $1.3k per sale.

Sorry to say this, but I think you are making wrong conclusions from the results you are getting and changing the vector in the wrong direction.

I also believe that tying your business in a considerable way beyond experimental to the marketplaces like BB, SH etc. is a dead-end. To give you an example, I had over 350 domains with BB in 2021 and they sold just 1 name for me during the year. After I removed the name, in less than a year I have sold 7-8 of those names at higher prices and 20% or lower commission.

First of all, let me thank you for your detailed analysis, it's good to have an exchange with someone who spends time reading and understanding the data!

I understand your surprise and it's perfectly justified, let me explain my reasons. At first I wanted to mention them in the post above, but I thought it would be too negative. I'll do it here though.

My conclusion of the 7 years journey is that domaining is not for me and that I probably made the most significant mistake of my investing life in 2015 when I had two paths to choose from. I had a budget of $20k and picked domaining against crypto.
I think I put in an easy 3000 hours of work and research in my first 2 years and made every mistake in the book. (I bought thousands of 5n / 6n in .info and other $1 extensions. Handregged crappy 2/3 words .com. Tried to make money on parking, lost my time exploring french domains niche and .fr extension... etc etc...)

There is a good reason for all these mistakes, I was coming from a nearly passive income background and I pushed hard to make domains work the same. I made a lot of money (mid 6 fig in 2 years) quick in media space (in short, buying cheap ad banners and making money on affiliate offers. I developed a way to automate it and the profit was huge, until it was not anymore).

I attacked domaining hoping I could reproduce my technique there. Basically I thought I would

1. Research the field.
2. Develop a sure shot way of automatically choosing "good domains".
3. List and earn passive income through parking.
4. Sell some for profits.

I know some people manage to do that successfully but I just wasn't able to.

Instead I now find myself with a large portfolio of one of the most illiquid asset in the digital space. Yearly renewals hurt me and selling only 2-3% of my inventory (a good figure in that space) hurts too. Even if I make several times my renewal fees on average, it is still not satisfying for me.

I'm tired and feel at the end of my domaining journey. But I've never sold so many domains. So why stop now or make questionable strategy choices? Well, I've finally jumped into crypto seriously in 2018 and much more in 2020. The gains are just not comparable. My crypto gains of the last two years are about 10-15 fold those of my 7 years of domaining. What's more, crypto assets can be as crappy as bad domains, but at least when you invest in a shitcoin, you take your loss but you don't have renewal fees

Now let's review each of your points and I'll give you my honest answer.
First let me state that from a purely logical point of view, they are perfectly sound and make sense.

1. You had a great year in 2021, but you decided to downsize in 2022.

Yes, it looks great, but 50% of my revenue came from 6 crypto names. In the meantime I made MUCH MUCH MORE directly investing in crypto. I now think of the domain sales as a small side business in a specific crypto niche.

The decisive question here is why I should spend even 2 hours a week in domaining instead of crypto? I'm downsizing because I want to reach the point where I can leave the portfolio be and pay the renewal fees without thinking too much about them.

2. Most of your sales were low $xxxx, but you are abandoning that category

True, counter intuitive, but the inventory size is what matters for me there.
I found that selling one or two $6-10k from a little portfolio is much more sustainable (for me) than 3 times more $2-3k domains. Because I'd need a larger portfolio of average $2-3k names to achieve those numbers.

3. While abandoning that category, your sales don't show that you are achieving higher average. On the contrary, from 28 sales $48k or around $1.7k per sale (removing the 20k outlier), you have moved to 8 sales and $10k or around $1.3k per sale.

I don't really want to achieve higher averages. I'm just reluctant to leave the space completely now that I have a better portfolio and make more than breakeven with minimal effort. The ideal situation for me would be to have domains I'm confortable renewing for 10 years and just wait. I have about 50 such domains for the moment (out of 700). They're priced by BB between $8k and $50k. I'm slowly but surely switching to the strategy of buying 5-10 high $xxx - low $xxxx domains a year on the second market because these will probably not loose value and shall I decide to quit the space entirely I will be able to liquidate.
I hope my motives are better understood now. I'm already 95% - 5% domains. I intend to reduce the domain part even more.

About the last of your comments: "I also believe that tying your business in a considerable way beyond experimental to the marketplaces like BB, SH etc. is a dead-end...". I have a completely different experience: they sometime price domains way higher than I would have. That way they already made me back a lot more than their commission cost me. (e.g. I would have priced some at $2,5-$3,5k and BB sold them for $6-7k...)

As a side note, I don't want this to be discouraging to anyone, that's why I didn't post that part initially. I am sure (and there are many examples here) that you can make a lot of money with domains. But the amount of work required in order to do so is just too much for me. I prefer spending my time looking for arbitrageable situations where there are plenty. It's just what did it for me in the past and does it now in crypto. (NOT an advice to invest money in crypto...)

Hope that explains a bit?

 

[TopBrandsForSale]

Hi again @HDmarketing !

can you please explain to me how you do this?

thanks!

4.4) More research

• Research what sold on the brandable marketplaces
• Building lists of names listed and dropped
• Researching those available for handreg, pending delete etc..

 

[HDmarketing]

Hi again @HDmarketing !

can you please explain to me how you do this?

thanks!

You have many tools to do that!

Check out the threads here on "tools" or "usefulr essources".

For example I build filters with expireddomains.net with which I checked pending delete names daily.

It's harder to find data about BB sales, but you can always check what they have online any time.

 

[TopBrandsForSale]

You have many tools to do that!

Check out the threads here on "tools" or "usefulr essources".

For example I build filters with expireddomains.net with which I checked pending delete names daily.

It's harder to find data about BB sales, but you can always check what they have online any time.

Hi, thanks again!

Yes, I use expired domains, I was mainly referring to checking the sales of brandables marketplaces since I can't find any reports about that, except in this forum.

Thank you anyway I really appreciate your help!

Btw I sent you a DM, could you please check?

 

[HDmarketing]

Hi, thanks again!

Yes, I use expired domains, I was mainly referring to checking the sales of brandables marketplaces since I can't find any reports about that, except in this forum.

Thank you anyway I really appreciate your help!

Btw I sent you a DM, could you please check?

These you have to do by hand, gather reported sales etc...
You can also check BB reported sales channel in their Slack channel.
And last but not least, monitor their whole portfolio and follow the names that disappear from there!

 

[Sperry8]

I'd say I had about

2020:1000-1200 domains
2021: 900 - 1000 domains
2022: 700 domains as of today.

I have 40 domains set to expire and 80 more I intend to barter with other BB users. These I will renew if there are no takers.

Give or take I aim to get at 600 domains next year.
I still buy domains at auction / handreg, maybe about 50-100 last year, so it's more about improving the quality of my portfolio or building my crypto one to be ready for next wave.

--------

As for the 2022 results, I think there is much less money flowing in everything (very clear for crypto vertical at least).
As for what I've done personally, I've concentrated on domains priced a bit higher by Brandbucket and raised my prices across the board, so I have less domains priced around $2000 - $3500. I may loose sales, but I'm getting to my endgoal which is:

- 300 "good" domains with $10k renewal fees, "good" meaning I can price them $4k - $6k. With 10% of inventory at $10k-50k. (at my pace that will be in 2026).
- 2% sales per year.
- Let run with little investment / effort on my side.

- Depending on my motivation/energy/capital, expand portfolio in the niches I know well (crypto as of now).

Excellent posts. You have learned the same thing I did. Less domains, higher quality. Your initial portfolio of >1,000 names was too big to carry and not enough quality. I had the exact same experience. My domain portfolio now ranges +/- 200 names - and I cull the worst 10-20% annually. The reality is - we fall in love with some of our names, but most are unworthy. For fun, I checked what happened to many of the domains I dropped years ago... they are all still listed for sale by HugeDomains, BuyDomains, etc and 3x the prices I listed them for. No one bought them since. It irks me that someday perhaps someone will buy one of them... but the reality is, it's been another 5-6 years and no one has. Keep your portfolio small - and your list high quality and this can be a fun little side business.

 

[HDmarketing]

Excellent posts. You have learned the same thing I did. Less domains, higher quality. Your initial portfolio of >1,000 names was too big to carry and not enough quality. I had the exact same experience. My domain portfolio now ranges +/- 200 names - and I cull the worst 10-20% annually. The reality is - we fall in love with some of our names, but most are unworthy. For fun, I checked what happened to many of the domains I dropped years ago... they are all still listed for sale by HugeDomains, BuyDomains, etc and 3x the prices I listed them for. No one bought them since. It irks me that someday perhaps someone will buy one of them... but the reality is, it's been another 5-6 years and no one has. Keep your portfolio small - and your list high quality and this can be a fun little side business.

Funny you should write this today, as I just spent three hours tagging 200 domains for liquidation/bartering/drop from the 560 I have left.

I have also given a "2 year notice" to 80% of my crypto portfolio: the domains will have to sell during this cycle or will have to go :D

That should get me to 360 domains in 2025 and 280 in 2026. Some more trimming of the $3k-6k names at Brandbucket can probably get me under 200...

2023 has been a nice year for the return, but not an exciting one with only 6 BIN sales and 6 liquidations at about $200.

The six sales were 5 .io, 1 .com, and 3 sales were in the crypto niche.

****Wallet.io
Game***.io => low 5 figures, this one saved my year.
Wallet*.io
Bitcoin****.io
Beast**.io
Tana**.com

By comparison, crypto airdrops (tokens given to you for little to no work) made me multiple times the profit I made from domains. (Not financial advice to jump into crypto though, there is a learning curve).

 

[Sperry8]

Funny you should write this today, as I just spent three hours tagging 200 domains for liquidation/bartering/drop from the 560 I have left.

I have also given a "2 year notice" to 80% of my crypto portfolio: the domains will have to sell during this cycle or will have to go :D

That should get me to 360 domains in 2025 and 280 in 2026. Some more trimming of the $3k-6k names at Brandbucket can probably get me under 200...

2023 has been a nice year for the return, but not an exciting one with only 6 BIN sales and 6 liquidations at about $200.

The six sales were 5 .io, 1 .com, and 3 sales were in the crypto niche.

****Wallet.io
Game***.io => low 5 figures, this one saved my year.
Wallet*.io
Bitcoin****.io
Beast**.io
Tana**.com

By comparison, crypto airdrops (tokens given to you for little to no work) made me multiple times the profit I made from domains. (Not financial advice to jump into crypto though, there is a learning curve).

It takes a lot of effort to move names via wholesale rather than let them go. There is a wholesale market for BB on their Slack channel (in case you were unaware). SquadHelp has one too for their names. Of course it may be easier to just auction em at GD at cost(plus) to liquidate (or even post here on NP although I liquidate very little this way except for $1 starting auctions). 360 still feels a little large to me, but I haven't seen your names and it may be what remains is high(er) quality. Cool that you found a .io and crypto niche - sometimes targeting a niche like that can save the year. Perhaps in your specific case, less .com's and more of those two niche's can be of benefit.

btw - in addition to BB, do you market via SquadHelp or Brandpa?

 

[HDmarketing]

It takes a lot of effort to move names via wholesale rather than let them go. There is a wholesale market for BB on their Slack channel (in case you were unaware). SquadHelp has one too for their names. Of course it may be easier to just auction em at GD at cost(plus) to liquidate (or even post here on NP although I liquidate very little this way except for $1 starting auctions). 360 still feels a little large to me, but I haven't seen your names and it may be what remains is high(er) quality. Cool that you found a .io and crypto niche - sometimes targeting a niche like that can save the year. Perhaps in your specific case, less .com's and more of those two niche's can be of benefit.

btw - in addition to BB, do you market via SquadHelp or Brandpa?

Oh yeah, you're absolutely right. When I say "liquidation/barter/drop" I mean the following tasks which are mostly set and forget:

- Liquidation = $495 then $199 BIN on afternic. If they don't sell, they drop. I sell about 6% of the drops (6/104 dropped in 2023).

- Barter = sell on BB Slack, if they don't sell, liquidate at BB re-buy price.

The 360 names I'll keep 2 more years are : 260 listed at BB, 100 at Afternic/Sedo : 60 crypto, 20 3L/4L/2kw .io non-crypto, 20 other (.com/.net)

I'll probably get rid of 60 names priced < $4k on BB and if I get no sales on the .io that's 20 more to go. I'll probably be below 200 in 2026 among which 40 names priced above $10k by BB and 160 names between $5k and $10k