sales Swetha’s Sales – The Truth May Shock You!

[Digital Universe]

Here is a nice article posted on NameBio.com by Michael Sumner the CEO of NameBio.com. He asked for Swetha's aka @DNGear username and password to log into her Afternic account to confirm the sales once and for all, read it all below or go to https://namebio.com/blog/swethas-sales-the-truth-may-shock-you/

Swetha’s Sales – The Truth May Shock You!​

Yesterday there was quite the stir on Twitter after Swetha reported another batch of jaw-dropping .xyz sales. User @jackdomainer did some research and found that an overwhelming majority of her sales were still not developed, which he thought was suspicious given the price tags. Theories started flying around, and even the Castello Brothers and Rick Schwartz chimed in with vague statements alluding to some grand conspiracy.

Grab some popcorn and read it for yourself here:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1596296988966154241

The low rate of development was the only “proof” provided so far. But why report fake sales? Well isn’t it obvious? To boost the value of her own assets so she can dump them on unsuspecting wholesalers, hoping to reproduce her incredible success, for inflated prices.


But ask yourself this… how many times have you seen Swetha wholesaling premium .xyz domains? I may have missed it, but I don’t recall seeing that.


For years I’ve been in the awkward position of publishing these sales reports. All I can go on is a screenshot, which she graciously provided for every single sale report since the day she started sharing. But screenshots can be faked relatively easily.


I could ask her to share her screen with me while she logs in to a marketplace, but even that could be faked with browser extensions that modify the page live. It’s more difficult than faking a screenshot, but not impossible. Not good enough.


To get a definitive answer, I reached out to Swetha and asked for the unthinkable. I asked if she would give me her username and password to her Afternic account, so I could log in myself and verify all the sales she has ever reported at this marketplace.





I felt bad even asking. Here she is sharing her valuable sales data with the community, all while being given endless grief about it. And now some stranger is asking to log in to her Afternic account. A lesser person would have just said “fuck it”, stopped reporting sales, and told me to go away. But you know what… she agreed! It was at this moment I knew it was all true and factual, but still, I’m going to “due diligence” the heck out of this.


So I quickly logged in to her Afternic account and visited this URL to get a dump of all the raw sales data. Then I started taking screenshots of her sales summary page. I logged out and let her know I was done so she could change her password. Then I started diving in.


One by one I checked the sales against what we have in our database. Every single one of them was perfect. Except I discovered something shocking. Quite a few of the sales were never reported. However good you think she’s doing based on what she has reported, she’s actually doing even better. That’s insane!


Now remember, Swetha has been reporting sales for quite a while now. All this time, she had no idea I would ever ask her to log in to any of her accounts, or which one(s) I would ask for. So if she was going to fabricate sales, she would have no way of knowing to always keep Afternic clean, as opposed to DAN or Escrow.com or whatever. Thus I now feel 100% confident in all her reports, not just the Afternic ones.


I also now feel confident in saying that Swetha is probably in the Top 100 of all domain investors who have ever lived, and she is probably in the Top 5 of all investors who aren’t part of the “old guard”. Maybe even #1 of the new generation.


But more than that, she is a kindhearted individual who is generously sharing what is working for her even though it makes new acquisitions more expensive for her. And even when the haters show up in droves, she stays the course. Thank you Swetha.


Is it possible that she’s a shill for the registry, and they’re creating hundreds of accounts across multiple marketplaces to buy the domains from her? I mean anything is possible. But it seems highly improbable that they would lock up funds and trust that she would always give them back, just to create the appearance of demand. They don’t benefit from the wholesale aftermarket, so it would just be for the sake of hand regs.


And then how do you explain the ones that are developed? And how do you explain other people getting large XYZ sales? Believe what you want, and skepticism is generally a healthy thing, but this theory seems so out there and lacking in any evidence that I have to think anyone who believes it is jealous (or loves conspiracy theories more than Rob Monster).


Here is the full screenshot I took of her sales summary page, with unreported sales blacked out for her privacy. Again, I took this screenshot myself while personally logged in to her Afternic account, it was not shared with me. I saw it with my own eyes.

Check out the screenshot of Swetha's sales at: https://namebio.com/assets/swetha-sales.jpg

Source: https://namebio.com/blog/swethas-sales-the-truth-may-shock-you/

 

[1Darko]

It's not about Swetha; you have to look at it from an investor's point of view. If she really does this type of successful business, we should be happy and there is a great lesson to be learned from her as investors!

Personally, I was a big fan of Swetha and by following her way I invested over 20k in the XYZ extension and acquired similar domains what she holds focused on Web3.

I could also succeed in selling 5 domains in low figures. Once I asked here in this forum why she is not selling domains via the Sedo platform, she reported some sales after a few days, and after a few days I was able to sell a domain name for $9777 and this domain is still not developed!

All other domains I sold at low prices developed and active online. I hope it's a coincidence that I can't make conspiracies!

As many have mentioned, we don't need jealousy on her because her sales will make a higher level probability of selling ours as well! But, unfortunately, the fact is that she only makes such sales even in this financial slowdown and others are not even lucky enough to dream of such sales in their lifetime of investing!

I think it's insignificant to own 20,000 domains out of 4,700,000 registrations to gain an incredible monopoly in the aftermarket of XYZ. Also, don't think her portfolio has such incredibly great keywords!

Therefore, I think something is a miracle happening here and we need to trace the secret behind such a miracle to get the benefit of all investors in the industry!

Like some good-hearted investors mentioned here, she shouldn't flag her sales in this forum like the other big guys do in the industry (if that's true!). That would be a good solution to prevent the false effect of running train on the issue! If they're bogus sales, they can't because they need advertising!

Also, we can't really believe the registrars and their strategy to promote their extensions using some of their agents!

I've some concerns over her sales getting wide publicity on this forum. The are;

1. It should not mislead emerging investors who lose their hard-earned money like I do now. Because people like me make a lot of investment decisions based on this forum's input.

2. The NP should not become a false information platform as it contributes a great deal to the industry.

3. The main purpose of this type of forum is to discuss impartial and relevant information about the industry, and not to keep the interests of the cartels at bay!

4. Simply reporting domain sales is not a way of going to the advantage of investors, they also need to give a bit of information about their sales strategy and experience. I must say that people like @twiki do great things in this direction!

If you think that succesful domain selling means that you can copy another domainers strategy you're wrong!
What did you buy for 20,000 bucks?
Why don't you copy Rick Schwartz, Mike Mann, Andrew Rosener, Frank Schilling, ... etc. Because you can't. To late to the game!
But you thought you can copy Swetha with 20,000 bucks invested in .xyz. Come on, be realistic - you can't - to late to the game! Sorry!
On that note - you still doubt in her sales even after she literally let everybody in her "bedroom" - shame on you!

Is this sale real or not ? - please tell us: https://www.namepros.com/threads/gaming-xyz-sold-for-123-984-squadhelp.1286501/page-2#post-8741092

And the best for the end - blame namepros for your misinvestments - just hilarious!

 

[keywordrichdomains]

If you think that succesful domain selling means that you can copy another domainers strategy you're wrong!
What did you buy for 20,000 bucks?
Why don't you copy Rick Schwartz, Mike Mann, Andrew Rosener, Frank Schilling, ... etc. Because you can't. To late to the game!
But you thought you can copy Swetha with 20,000 bucks invested in .xyz. Come on, be realistic - you can't - to late to the game! Sorry!
On that note - you still doubt in her sales even after she literally let everybody in her "bedroom" - shame on you!

Is this sale real or not ? - please tell us: https://www.namepros.com/threads/gaming-xyz-sold-for-123-984-squadhelp.1286501/page-2#post-8741092

And the best for the end - blame namepros for your misinvestments - just hilarious!

My friend, there is a fundamental difference between you and me on this subject. I mean the welfare of all investors, but you're only justifying Swetha! I stick to rational observation, but you're over the emotion!

This isn't about Swetha. My concern is misleading and useless information for investors. Maybe I'm missing the point on the game theory of the investment. But, one thing sure that many investors could be replicated Swetha's way after her big publicity on XYZ sales! Also, there would be a basic tendency to any investor to follow the path of successful investors based on their information which is correct or not! What I was going to say is that we have to validate that information if other people don't benefit as much!

Indicating another outlier case and justifying monopolistic market behavior of a single investor is really not a good thing. Also, it would be good to learn a little more about probability theories and statistical inference to understand some market behaviors! . In addition, we must understand the nexus and cartel behavior between registrars, after market platforms, auction platforms and some celebrity investors instead of taking everything innocently. This could keep your pocket safe!

Anyway, it's a good initiative by Michael Sumner, the CEO of NameBio.com to validate this information through his own logical pathway. Such initiatives would make this industry even better and stronger.

At the same time, we should all appreciate Swetha's great investment strategy, and we should request her to explain a bit about her successful strategy to other fellow investors without just reporting the sales! This would create a more positive vibe in this platform.

Let me stop here and say a big thank you to the NamePros platform for allowing us to discuss these industry-related issues impartially!

I wish all investors a good fortune as Swetha!!

 

[NickB]

This isn't about Swetha. My concern is misleading and useless information for investors. Maybe I'm missing the point on the game theory of the investment. But, one thing sure that many investors could be replicated Swetha's way after her big publicity on XYZ sales! Also, there would be a basic tendency to any investor to follow the path of successful investors based on their information which is correct or not! What I was going to say is that we have to validate that information if other people don't benefit as much!

Indicating another outlier case and justifying monopolistic market behavior of a single investor is really not a good thing. Also, it would be good to learn a little more about probability theories and statistical inference to understand some market behaviors! . In addition, we must understand the nexus and cartel behavior between registrars, after market platforms, auction platforms and some celebrity investors instead of taking everything innocently. This could keep your pocket safe!

Anyway, it's a good initiative by Michael Sumner, the CEO of NameBio.com to validate this information through his own logical pathway. Such initiatives would make this industry even better and stronger.

Really?

People can share as little or as much as they like - bare minimum on here is domain name | sales price

Additional info that is appreciated is purchase price, hold time and a screen shot of the sale.....

If you can't use that info as a springboard for further research then tough sh&t.......

This is a highly illiquid, high risk, secretive (borderline paranoid) investment niche where most don't share anything - be grateful for what little we do get.......

Imo it is not a good initiative and not logical asking someone for their login details to look at their sales - if it was me I would of said no........

 

[1Darko]

My friend, there is a fundamental difference between you and me on this subject. I mean the welfare of all investors, but you're only justifying Swetha! I stick to rational observation, but you're over the emotion!

This isn't about Swetha. My concern is misleading and useless information for investors. Maybe I'm missing the point on the game theory of the investment. But, one thing sure that many investors could be replicated Swetha's way after her big publicity on XYZ sales! Also, there would be a basic tendency to any investor to follow the path of successful investors based on their information which is correct or not! What I was going to say is that we have to validate that information if other people don't benefit as much!

Indicating another outlier case and justifying monopolistic market behavior of a single investor is really not a good thing. Also, it would be good to learn a little more about probability theories and statistical inference to understand some market behaviors! . In addition, we must understand the nexus and cartel behavior between registrars, after market platforms, auction platforms and some celebrity investors instead of taking everything innocently. This could keep your pocket safe!

Anyway, it's a good initiative by Michael Sumner, the CEO of NameBio.com to validate this information through his own logical pathway. Such initiatives would make this industry even better and stronger.

At the same time, we should all appreciate Swetha's great investment strategy, and we should request her to explain a bit about her successful strategy to other fellow investors without just reporting the sales! This would create a more positive vibe in this platform.

Let me stop here and say a big thank you to the NamePros platform for allowing us to discuss these industry-related issues impartially!

I wish all investors a good fortune as Swetha!!

Wow - this gets better and better.
You know, you are asking a lot of Swetha. But you can lead by example.
Please report your 6 .xyz sales in this thread and publish your 20,000 bucks investment in .xyz, so that we all can learn from your misinvestment.
Thanks in advance!

 

[keywordrichdomains]

Really?

People can share as little or as much as they like - bare minimum on here is domain name | sales price

Additional info that is appreciated is purchase price, hold time and a screen shot of the sale.....

If you can't use that info as a springboard for further research then tough sh&t.......

This is a highly illiquid, high risk, secretive (borderline paranoid) investment niche where most don't share anything - be grateful for what little we do get.......

Imo it is not a good initiative and not logical asking someone for their login details to look at their sales - if it was me I would of said no........

Good! But, you should not deceive others by giving your little info. This is a basic etiquette in any industry

 

[Lox]

Having a network is important. Her sales has nothing to do with "domain flippers box /networking." Don't sit on the couch and wait for it. Go connect/engage and be correct. Remember: Networking is not selling. Getting to know them (developers, industry sector, mindset) is the first step. Keeping in touch without any pitching is the key.

If you are going to calculate, all of this gross $XM sales is not enough to cover the base (working hours etc) and the amount needed to feed renewals.

Regards

 

[NickB]

Good! But, you should not deceive others by giving your little info. This is a basic etiquette in any industry

No - it's not basic etiquette - I don't share any specific info on my other investments - It's no one's business but mine......

Deceiving? Give me a break from the melodrama......Seems to me you have a sense of entitlement as to what you think should be shared instead of appreciating what is......

Edit - This applicable to anyone who shares or does not share their sales data - it's up to each individual to make that decision and we should be understanding if they choose to or not........

 

[Reddstagg]

If she was a more vociferous, white male, who had invested in DOTCOMs, would we even be having these conversations?

At one time I had the 2nd highest (now 3rd) recorded sale of .Holiday and I only had one .holiday domain name. Wow, that must be a conspiracy.

I have many hyphenated domain names as I took a risk in hand regging so many hoping with fingers crossed that some of them would sell. Now, if in 3 years time I start selling them regularly for 5 figures will the same people claim that I am part of some major conspiracy.

I am of the opinion now, that even if I do make further sales I probably will not report them as there is too much negativity from within this industry. Yeah, it may be helpful, but to whom?

I am your competitor as you are mine, and we are all trying to find an edge. I just believe that it was a rather magnificent business plan that was put into effect with flawless timing and execution. Don't hate the player...hate the game.

There are a few domainers who started out at about the same time as me and some of them are smashing it with many unrecorded sales. They have a system and it works for them. Would it work for me? Probably not. Am I bitter and twisted by their success? No. It gives me encouragement and reasons to believe that I too could be as successful.

In the UK, when I was growing up it was hard to show you're success without some idiot spoiling everything that you may have worked extremely hard for. If you had a nice car, more often than not it would be targeted and damaged. Instead of people not wanting their own success they would resent yours. It was easier.

Of the few sales that I have made my Return on Investment is 12.23%. Maybe, it's not great but if I can replicate that figure with more sales, then I am home and hosed and I will one day be in profit. It's not rocket science. That's the other fella!

Sometimes, it is better to say nothing at all.

Rgrds,

Redd

 

[VadimK]

Can anybody explain to me here why the difference between her Sale price and Payout amount on a screenshot we see is almost never exactly 20%?

All my sales on Afternic are exactly 20% (their commissions) difference between the two columns.

Regardless of the currency and Afternic's partners, when the deal is executed and price is set on Afternic backend in US Dollars, there should be 20% difference between sale and payout.

Am I missing something?

 

[1Darko]

Can anybody explain to me here why the difference between her Sale price and Payout amount on a screenshot we see is almost never exactly 20%?

All my sales on Afternic are exactly 20% (their commissions) difference between the two columns.

Regardless of the currency and Afternic's partners, when the deal is executed and price is set on Afternic backend in US Dollars, there should be 20% difference between sale and payout.

Am I missing something?

Sales commission

20% ($15 minimum)$0 to $5000$1,000 +15% of amount over $5k$5,001 to $25,000$4,000 +10% of amount over $25k$25,000 and over

 

[NickB]

If she was a more vociferous, white male, who had invested in DOTCOMs, would we even be having these conversations?

I personally have not seen any racist or sexist stereotyping - I have called it out a few times on here and would not hesitate to do so again if that was the case.......

 

[Lox]

Can anybody explain to me here why the difference between her Sale price and Payout amount on a screenshot we see is almost never exactly 20%?

All my sales on Afternic are exactly 20% (their commissions) difference between the two columns.

Regardless of the currency and Afternic's partners, when the deal is executed and price is set on Afternic backend in US Dollars, there should be 20% difference between sale and payout.

Am I missing something?

link

 

[rh2000]

If she was a more vociferous, white male, who had invested in DOTCOMs, would we even be having these conversations?

She could be purple and people we would question the sales if she was the only one selling them at the rate she sells xyz and everybody else is barley making one sale a month and she makes 20 sales every month. Anything out of the norm that happens on a consistent basis will get questioned.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I know she has a large portfolio or around 20K domains I think, but the .XYZ registry has around 4.7M total registrations.

Brad, I don't think that is the right way to look at it. By no means all of the 4.7M are for sale - some are in use, some are sitting for possible use, etc. It would be like saying BB have roughly 120,000 names from the entire set of 161 million registered .com, yet they have a disproportionate number of sales, and say something is wrong. They disproportionately sell names because their names are actively for sale and they are very selective regarding name quality.

We should only compare .xyz names that are listed for sale and have quality to merit a high asking price. There is no doubt that Swetha has a large proportion of the quality xyz names, assembled over years, and she also seems very efficient in getting her names BIN listed at Afternic and Dan.

If talking 5-figure sales, the comparable number is the number of .xyz names with a BIN asking price of at least $10k. I just had a look at that at Dan, and there are about 43,750. I think Swetha accounts for more than 30% of the Dan xyz at that price range. More importantly, she has many, not all, of the great names.

I don't see it as surprising that she accounts for a majority, not all, of the high-value sales.

I can't immediately find it, but somewhere on NamePros she posted 1000 of her best .xyz. A truly impressive list.

Has anyone else in history managed to accumulate so many of the great names in one extension? I know some of the pioneer investors accumulated great .com portfolios, but there were a number, so I suspect no one dominated .com the way she dominates .xyz, but I was not around domaining back in those days.

Swetha is truly an inspiration. She has shown that having a plan, discipline and patience, a belief in the quality of your names and pricing accordingly, scaling a portfolio, and getting almost everything priced BIN and effectively listed can pay off big time. She also has a keen sense of what makes a good brand term in the modern world.

Bob

 

[FolioTeam]

Can anybody explain to me here why the difference between her Sale price and Payout amount on a screenshot we see is almost never exactly 20%?

All my sales on Afternic are exactly 20% (their commissions) difference between the two columns.

Regardless of the currency and Afternic's partners, when the deal is executed and price is set on Afternic backend in US Dollars, there should be 20% difference between sale and payout.

Am I missing something?

Commission is 20% only if your domains are selling for 5k and below

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Hats off to @Michael – he does not write blog posts like this often, but this should go down as one of the greatest things written in our industry this year.

It took bravery to tackle the controversial subject, and to even ask Swetha for access to her Afternic account for a few hours.

This should absolutely refute any that still had doubt. Will the growth in .xyz continue? Who knows. Certainly the NFT and crypto issues will not be helpful. But there is no doubt that the reported sales are authentic.

I can't believe that people kept pushing if a name is not developed immediately that casts doubt on a sale. I have visited a lot of sites, or tried to, in the various analyses. Every extension there are many, many major sales that the name has no meaningful use, even names that sold for millions. Sometimes the DNS has not even changed. I am sure most investors have seen that with names they have sold. There are various reasons that names don't get developed.

Anyway, I mainly wanted to thank Michael and Swetha for, hopefully, finally, putting this to rest.

Bob

 

[Sjpals]

If she was a more vociferous, white male, who had invested in DOTCOMs, would we even be having these conversation

"A lesser person would have just said “fuck it”, stopped reporting sales, and told me to go away"

If she was a man, then no, we would not be having these conversations and a man would have said 'fuck it' and told them to go away.

 

[Sam1234]

.

 

[Eric Lyon]

Note: Using development as a factor after a sales report is a double-edged sword. There are a few different directions it can go.

Undeveloped Direction 1: Blank page, Under construction page, or asset does not resolve = This is more than likely someone that acquired an asset to eventually develop it as an end-user, but hasn't completed the development yet or is waiting for a development round of funding.

Undeveloped Direction 2: Parked Page or Affiliate campaign = This could go either way. It may be someone that acquired the asset to develop it, but awaiting more funding, or using monetization to gather development funding. It could also be a reseller trying to figure out how to cover the assets renewal costs before they find someone to resell it to for a profit. Unfortunately, it may also indicate a hyped sales report that fell through or never happened.

Undeveloped Direction 3: Sales Lander = This may or may not be a reseller or indication the sales report was not accurate (E.g. sale fell through or an attempt to pump hype to find a reseller to invest into it). Checking the assets history (waybackmachine and whois) can be an indicator if it ever changed hands or the sales lander company the DNS points to changed.

In conclusion: One can't conclusively knock a sales reports authenticity Soley based on current development progress. While there are those out there that fake sales reports to hype a domain or even an entire extension to generate sales for an individual or registry, we cannot lump everyone into the same unethical basket. It can sometimes take hours, days or even weeks (months) of research to positively identify intent to deceive and even then, it may not be all-inconclusive.

At the end of the day, lack of development could simply be a reseller that may or may not have paid way too much for an asset they will be left holding the bag for and never find an end-user that brings a profit to resell to. There's no unethical intent when it comes to bad investments (Unless they were blatantly deceived to spend that much). It's a buyer's responsibility to do their own due diligence prior to making a binding purchase offer or clicking the BUY NOW button.

I know I've bought domains in the past when I was too tired to see straight and regretted it the next day, but that was my fault, for not going in with a level head and doing my due diligence first. Impulse buys can sometimes be the biggest hard knocks learning experiences and mega losses we ever have.

To each their own.

We all do it differently.

That's just my opinion.

 

[jhm]

I personally suspect that Swetha's sales are mostly fake. The suspicion for me was never that she was posting fake sales to become "popular", but rather that she was involved in money laundering. Money laundering of course requires that the sales actually occur. So proving that you had sales doesn't prove you are not involved in money laundering. I don't think "enough is enough". If your sales seem suspicious then anyone who wants to can say so. The whole idea that this so-so TLD that is known to have tons of fake sales and seems to have their own marketing team gets tons of massive sales, mainly via a single otherwise no-name seller is suspicious IMO. My suspicions don't make her a money launderer, but the fact that so many professional sellers doubt the sales (which look inherently suspicious) should be justification enough for people to voice their doubts. I don't think anyone has to just "accept" that she is the greatest seller in the world.

I don't know any professionals in the forum (or outside the forum) even considering that kind of thing. They mind their own business, frankly. People can have an opinion, but if those going there have no concrete evidence, then it's simply slanderous (and offensive)