Some statistics

[InsanerDomainer]

From Sedo.com:

Number of domains in our database: 11,500,000
Number of domains sold per month: > 1,900

That means about one in 6053 domain names listed on Sedo sells each month. I'm curious what people's reactions are to this. Does it paint too negative a picture or too rosy a picture of the domain name market, and why?

 

[SpareDomains]

Large marketplaces like Sedo have no quality standards so an end user buyer has to sort through 11.5 million domains to find the 10% or less that are worth anything which is one reason having good search tools on the marketplace is important. For every domainer with a solid portfolio that will sell to end users there are probably 7-9 domainers that should just quit domaining and stop renewing domains that will never sell and only serve to make the registrars rich. I think a lot of domainers read some article about a big sale and then whip out the credit cards and go nuts as I have seen a lot of domainers portfolios over the years and some are very good but some others you sit there scratching your head wondering how they thought anyone would find any form of commercial appeal in any of the domains they picked. If you allow someone the opportunity to list their domain for sale for free the majority will be rubbish. Good domain names sell themselves. I barely advertise any domains and I get offers weekly from various parking page inquiry forms and other methods as well. I think it's a combo of a lot of those 11.5 million are junk and some categories may be loaded with domains where the demand is not there as well so it's a waiting game until someone comes along that needs that particular type of domain.

 

[Kate]

I think these stats are encouraging. There are only so many valuable domains that are valuable
When you think of it, the odds of selling a domain are much higher than winning the lottery. Lucks plays a part too, but most of the time it boils down to the quality of your domains.

 

[garptrader]

This does paint a poor picture of the demand for the average domainer's portfolio. On average only one of 500 domains will sell in a year's time. The average domain perhaps sells in the range of $1000 (some for more, many for less). Renewals are likely less than $10 on average (still several thousand dollars annually) but the average domain acquisition cost accumulated (backorder/auction plus renewals) is likely much higher. So when one domain sells for X, the average domainer's inventory cost is many many times the sale price. Parking revenue offsets these costs somewhat but parking revenue has been on the decline for some time and high-traffic domains are not easily acquired. That's why we have domainers seeking end users and developing minisites.