question Selling domains - personal experience

[yb1313]

I have purchased around 150 domains this year, and now it’s time to sell some of them. Having been on the reader’s side in domain discussions often, I thought I'd share my two cents on the selling process, and attach a link as well.

Most of my domains were purchased from Namecheap (some from GoDaddy and Google Domains). Domains I buy are often related to business ideas that cross my mind. Recently I have been looking for a simple option to list them for sale, tried Namecheap's marketplace but found it disappointing: Domains you list for sale there are only visible inside the site’s marketplace, and will not appear if one types the domain in the URL address bar (rather, a standard advertisement page will appear). That sucks! So I eventually put nearly all of them on DAN, which I found to be decent and useful (obviously it’s not getting too much exposure there alone either). Having to change the Nameservers in order to have your domain display a landing/selling page publicly is a burden, and I am therefore considering using GoDaddy for future domains, even though I dislike their greedy marketing (that’s a whole different discussion) - as they at least allow you to have list domains for sale and have a selling page by using the auctions option, without changing the Nameservers. It’s easier when you don’t have to deal with DNS.

Having provided some value with my analysis about selling options, I hope it's okay to post the link to my portfolio in the comments. IMHO I got some cool ones, about a dozen could be classified as "premium" (some were purchased on aftermarkets). Before the year-end, I would like to sell them even for huge discounts, these prices are flexible. Feel free to take a look. And while most of them are priced in the hundreds, if you're a domain investor or just understand domains in general you probably know well that they can be sold for thousands to the right buyer and some have a great value. If you see something you like, or just feel like sharing your experience on how to list domains for sale effectively and with little effort (no DNS changing etc,), let me know or enlighten us all!

 

[alcy]

do not worry for most of us domaing took countless hours of learning...lost money etc... experience is everything..so learn and never give up... if u do that then like everything at some there will come a time when you will answer all yer questions naturally ... and know instinctively what is a good domain with sale potential and what is not ... everything up to that point is just learning how to get to that point...

always remember that domaing is opposite of quick easy money. if u have this approach then yer screwed from start... gl

 

[gilescoley]

Welcome to NP

Having a quick look through the names, it looks like you have fallen into the reg frenzy trap that most new domainers fall into. 150 names in your first year is far too many, especially without any sales. Dont buy 100s of names thinking you will sell them all, it wont happen, buy 1-5 names and try and sell them, if you cant sell them, dont buy more, research and learn what you are doing wrong. Just remember if you sell a domain now for $1500, you havent made a profit if you add up your 2020 renewal costs.

Set smaller goals, invest say $500-$1k and buy a couple of decent names and then try and sell them for decent profit to end-users. If you do manage to sell them, reinvest that money into more names. If you dont have a good understanding of what makes a name valuable and how to find end-users, you will end up with a lot of names that wont sell. I would spend a few months reading this forum before buying any names. Check our Namebio.com and DNJournal.com to see what type of names sell.

Check and make sure you have a whole list of potential buyers before buying a name, its not use having a name with no buyers? Biggest mistake domainers make is thinking the buyers will come to them after buying an average domain. This wont happen unless you have really good names.

Don't hand register any names, email owners of decent names and find a bargain.
Don't buy names and then just park them or put up a landing page waiting for a buyer.
Email potential buyer individually and ask if they are interested.
Its always better to spend $100, $200 or $500 on 1 or 2 names that will at least sell, rather than 50 or 100 average names that will end up expiring. Quality of Quantity
Focus on a niche you are familiar with
Focus on getting the best .COM names in that niche
Stay away from the .info, .org, .biz, and those gtlds as well like .App Earh, Online, Company etc, most end-users have anever herd for them
Shorter is better in domains, most of the time anyway
Dont mix numbers and letters
Stay away from hyphens
Stay away from company names/Trademarks

Hope that helps
Good luck

 

[yb1313]

Thanks for the feedback.
Personally, my intent is not to actively pursue buyers ("outbound" method), but instead to find good domains to list and perhaps to develop. Sending emails to companies/individuals and "working" as a full time domainer is not for everyone, and I only do so only in certain cases with a clear potential. No doubt, one should buy (and develop if they know how to) names whose subject they understand/are passionate about!
So while I still haven't made profit with them, I respectfully disagree with some of the above tips. For me quantity is better, and by "hand registering" (buying available domains from the registrar) I found great names, 99% of my domains were bought this way and some are clearly valuable, and only cost $10.
Per the guidelines I will post the domains on a different thread

 

[DrJacoby]

Having to change the Nameservers in order to have your domain display a landing/selling page publicly is a burden

What a load of crap! It takes about 5 seconds to change the nameservers.

 

[yb1313]

What a load of crap! It takes about 5 seconds to change the nameservers.

Not true if you're working with hundreds of domains - updating the DNS between marketplaces, changing to a hosting platform, and keeping track of everything (so as to not "miss out" any domain) is a very time consuming process.