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/

 

[DealMaker1]

Hmmm. Probability and business model plays a big part in this. She had a lot of money to invest or she had an investor. Don't know exactly how many .xyz she bought, but this was a calculated risk and it seems she won. The model was to buy every good one word .xyz and then let probability runs its course. Dont get me wrong. All the power to her and her investors.

For example, psychic.xyz is on sale for $180000. Who can do this? I'm not sure psychic.com would sell for that. .com is obviously the better choice but what is the marketing? So this is exponential advertising. Great that that worked but it really is not so often this happens. No one could know .xyz would catch on. But kudos for that risk.

But please don't make a futuristic model out of that. A lot things have to fall into place for that to happen. You have to have a couple of large sales to happen in the beginning (from good connections) and then the success sells. It is short lived. I wish her the best to make as much profit as possible in the next year. But that advertising of .xyz will most likely fade.

There is no unseating of .com. Time and time again, it is proven in every industry, the really novel idea wins out. That is .com, PayPal, Amazon etc., whatever.

But, I respect their business model. They struck while the iron was hot. Kudos to them. Hope it lasts.

 

[Andreas B.]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1614060241041096705

bull.xyz sold for $199,888 - not developed or resolving

1.xyz for $181,796 - not developed or resolving

9.xyz for $175,666 - forwarding to gen.xyz - the .xyz official site (why do they need this domain, and why do they pay almost $200k for it - without having any use for it?)

wrap.xyz for $110,000 - still has dan nameserver pointing on 'sold page' ... sold a year ago; not developed

profile.xyz for $104,000 - not developed or resolving

sportsbet.xyz for $103,910 is being blocked by my phishing/spam detector... (in this price range, developers know exactly what to do to not let that happen).

bolt.xyz for $78,888, not developed or resolving

aso.

anonymous dislikes for this facts do not count.

If, make it public. And assure me, that it is not, the way I described it.

Thank you

 

[MadAboutDomains]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1614060241041096705

bull.xyz sold for $199,888 - not developed or resolving

1.xyz for $858,796 - not developed or resolving

9.xyz for $175,666 - forwarding to gen.xyz - the .xyz official site

wrap.xyz for $110,000 - still has dan nameserver pointing on 'sold page' ... sold a year ago; not developed

profile.xyz for $104,000 - not developed or resolving

sportsbet.xyz for $103,910 is being blocked by my phishing/spam detector... (in this price range, developers know exactly what to do to not let that happen).

bolt.xyz for $78,888, not developed or resolving

aso.

Show attachment 230374

anonymous dislikes for this facts do not count.

If, make it public. And assure me, that it is not, the way I described it.

Thank you

What are you asserting?

Anyone can use safenames as a registrar btw.

Cheers

 

[Andreas B.]

What are you asserting?

Anyone can use safenames as a registrar btw.

Cheers

no, I don't care about the registrar.
(this is not my twitter account, btw).

I just focused on:
"The domain name does not resolve to a website...."

which I found more than strange.

nothing else.

More people are dropping .xyz names by now...
at least this is what I see on a regular basis on twitter; people complaining about not being able to sell .xyz names, or lowering the prices to $100, to sell at least some names.
#fact

 

[MadAboutDomains]

no, I don't care about the registrar.
(this is not my twitter account, btw).

I just focused on:
"The domain name does not resolve to a website...."

which I found more than strange.

nothing else.

Ok. What does that mean? I've sold loads of domains that don't resolve.

How does making the owners details public make the websites get developed?

 

[Andreas B.]

Ok. What does that mean? I've sold loads of domains that don't resolve.

How does making the owners details public make the websites get developed?

Its not about owners details, I did not say that.


Names, being bought for $100k to almost $200k, and then being abandoned, raise suspicion.

I am sorry for that.

 

[frank-germany]

I have sold domains at a decent price level
that even have been dropped later on

I guess a few of my fellow domainers might have re-registered these kinds of domains

so all this arguing is meaningless

just because a few Gurus think they know it all
they should shut up - and be ashamed as much as they cry to have missed out


the best for the community would be to close this discussion

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Its not about owners details, I did not say that.


Names, being bought for $100k to almost $200k, and then being abandoned, raise suspicion.

I am sorry for that.

If, make it public. And assure me, that it is not, the way I described it.

Make what public then if not the owner details?

 

[Andreas B.]

I have sold domains at a decent price level
that even have been dropped later on

I guess a few of my fellow domainers might have re-registered these kinds of domains

so all this arguing is meaningless

just because a few Gurus think they know it all
they should shut up - and be ashamed as much as they cry to have missed out


the best for the community would be to close this discussion

yeah, if the top 7 domain sales of a particular tld were sold for $100k to $200k, and then not developed / or strangewise used (without any logic),

I would say the same...
not.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

yeah, if the top 7 domain sales of a particular tld were sold for $100k to $200k, and then not developed / or strangewise used (without any logic),

I would say the same...
not.

Some people have lots of money

 

[frank-germany]

yeah, if the top 7 domain sales of a particular tld were sold for $100k to $200k, and then not developed / or strangewise used (without any logic),

I would say the same...
not.

I guess all is said by now
time to close the tread

you doubt it - she is counting the cash
deal with it

 

[Andreas B.]

Some people have lots of money

I used to think alike.

But in all honestly, I don't let this arguments count anymore.

This all sounds 'a little' too strange to me...

 

[Andreas B.]

I guess all is said by now
time to close the tread

you doubt it - she is counting the cash
deal with it

NO thread like this shall ever be closed.

Thank you.


And yes, for sure she made some good cash.

Question is just however,

a) are there any sales from swetha that may have been faked?

b) what about the buyers - why they spend that amount of money, and then are even too lazy to switch nameservers for their $110k domain...?

c) what about the other sales / sellers?

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I used to think alike.

But in all honestly, I don't let this arguments count anymore.

This all sounds 'a little' too strange to me...

Yeah I was going to say I'm sure you used to be on the xyz/Swetha obsequiousness train. What happened to you lad?

 

[Andreas B.]

Yeah I was going to say I'm sure you used to be on the xyz/Swetha obsequiousness train. What happened to you lad?

no man, I never was.

I was just liking her sales in the .xyz thread, like so many others do...

Just, as I began to re-check a little, I didn't find it that celebrating any more.

If you got something like this:

bull.xyz sold for $199,888 - not developed or resolving

1.xyz for $181,720 - not developed or resolving

9.xyz for $175,666 - forwarding to gen.xyz - the .xyz official site (why do they need this domain, and why do they pay almost $200k for it - without having any use for it?)

wrap.xyz for $110,000 - still has dan nameserver pointing on 'sold page' ... sold a year ago; not developed

profile.xyz for $104,000 - not developed or resolving

sportsbet.xyz for $103,910 is being blocked by my phishing/spam detector... (in this price range, developers know exactly what to do to not let that happen).

bolt.xyz for $78,888, not developed or resolving

aso.

Show attachment 230374

it ain't that funny anymore, in all honesty.

 

[Altetra]

All this "big sales" even in COM and other TLDs are for generating handregs.
The question is why?
Because if you do a simple math equation, take the total number of registered domains in one TLD and multiply it by average renewal price, you will get the TOTAL answer of the equation.
The more handregs the bigger is the income of the registrars, some of this active guys here work at registrars and Google, they are their promoters, this is how they make money.
The only way to profit from domains is to have a registrar or to become a reseller, then create this "big sales" appear everywhere and you got your profitable corner in this industry.

 

[phaethon]

All this "big sales" even in COM and other TLDs are for generating handregs.
The question is why?
Because if you do a simple math equation, take the total number of registered domains in one TLD and multiply it by average renewal price, you will get the TOTAL answer of the equation.
The more handregs the bigger is the income of the registrars, some of this active guys here work at registrars and Google, they are their promoters, this is how they make money.
The only way to profit from domains is to have a registrar or to become a reseller, then create this "big sales" appear everywhere and you got your profitable corner in this industry.

Indeed, but I'm wondering how many actually renew their 1 buck xyz registrations? Probably 1%.
There will always be high registrations, because they are given away for free.
You can see what worthless XYZs people register on the relevant thread.
And even those that renew probably drop 80% of their XYZs.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Many domain names do not get developed immediately for various reasons:

• The name was purchased for a vague future plan.
• The name was purchased for defensive purposes.
• Plans change for a variety of reasons, business or personal.
• Expected funding for the project fell through.
• Etc.

In all extensions, and in a variety of selling prices, many names are not developed. For example,

• I looked at 2021 .com sales of $25,000 and up, visiting, or trying to visit, 369 sites. 41% were developed, 5% were used in redirection, the rest either for sale again or not operational.
• I looked at the all-time million dollar sales, almost all .com. I found that 63.5% were developed to some degree, and another 11.5% were redirected, but almost one-quarter, even of these elite sales were not in use.
• If you go to the various analyses in different types of names and different TLDs you can see other data. For example, the recent analysis for .tv showed an even lower rate of development: just 29% developed, 3% coming soon and 4% in redirection use.

In the two studies I did for .XYZ, I used the same methodology of visiting, or trying to visit, each site in order to determine status. For example, my article from about a year ago: Past 12 Months of XYZ, A Look At The Data, when I looked at all sales $1000 and up there was a lower rate of development, 27% developed and 2% in redirection use. However, if one looks at the more significant sales, more likely to be retail, amongst sales of $20,000 and up, the 46% are developed.

One would expect high-value .com to be more likely to be quickly developed, since many of these sales are upgrades for well-established businesses. Not all, but many, of the .xyz retail sales are to Web3 startups. While some of these have secured investment, in many cases they are early-stage with essentially an idea and a white paper and little or even no funding.

Cherry picking a few sales, and trying to suggest something is wrong, is not analysis or responsible commentary, in my opinion.

As mentioned by others, anyone who has been in domaining for any length of time will know that many names never get developed, often not even have their DNS changed. This is nothing unique to one TLD. It tends to be less in high-value sales, but even with 7-figures a number of names don't get used.

-Bob

 

[DealMaker1]

NO thread like this shall ever be closed.

Thank you.


And yes, for sure she made some good cash.

Question is just however,

a) are there any sales from swetha that may have been faked?

b) what about the buyers - why they spend that amount of money, and then are even too lazy to switch nameservers for their $110k domain...?

c) what about the other sales / sellers?

NO thread like this shall ever be closed.

Thank you.


And yes, for sure she made some good cash.

Question is just however,

a) are there any sales from swetha that may have been faked?

b) what about the buyers - why they spend that amount of money, and then are even too lazy to switch nameservers for their $110k domain...?

c) what about the other sales / sellers?

NO thread like this shall ever be closed.

Thank you.


And yes, for sure she made some good cash.

Question is just however,

a) are there any sales from swetha that may have been faked?

b) what about the buyers - why they spend that amount of money, and then are even too lazy to switch nameservers for their $110k domain...?

c) what about the other sales / sellers?

a) No doubt.

b) When sales are claimed on Namebio or DNJournal, it should be mandatory to state the form of payment. If it wasn't fiat, it should be claimed the alternative type of payment ie I don't care if you paid $25000 with useless Dogecoin for a domain. It is not a real sale. It's a fake sale because Dogecoin is worthless. If the sale was done with Bitcoin or ethereum, I can stomach that. Making payment method transparent would help a lot with the false sales pandemic and the "trying to sell success for more success" and "fake it til you make it" syndromes which are so easy to perpetuate behind the shield of the computer screen and impulses of electrical energy. If your fake it til you make it plot doesn't work out, you stand to hurt a lot of people, so keep that in mind when you are plotting. If you lie about a sale, you are hurting the domain industry as a whole and those who are trying to make purchases based on solid data.

c) Hiding behind the computer has made fraud so easy. It will eventually destroy a lot of online enterprises including the domain industry.


It wouldn't surprise me if some of those large .xyz sales were paid for with worthless cryptos and claimed as fiat sales. Then maybe there will be more fiat sales as "success sells success". Not claiming to know this to be true, but wouldn't be surprised.

I would be more interested in knowing exactly what Swetha took in compensation for the domains. It's not that interesting that someone goes into the account and just sees if the domains were sold and transferred. I want to see exactly WHAT they were traded for.

 

[Surya Giri Kurniawan]

Many domain names do not get developed immediately for various reasons:

• The name was purchased for a vague future plan.
• The name was purchased for defensive purposes.
• Plans change for a variety of reasons, business or personal.
• Expected funding for the project fell through.
• Etc.

In all extensions, and in a variety of selling prices, many names are not developed. For example,

• I looked at 2021 .com sales of $25,000 and up, visiting, or trying to visit, 369 sites. 41% were developed, 5% were used in redirection, the rest either for sale again or not operational.
• I looked at the all-time million dollar sales, almost all .com. I found that 63.5% were developed to some degree, and another 11.5% were redirected, but almost one-quarter, even of these elite sales were not in use.
• If you go to the various analyses in different types of names and different TLDs you can see other data. For example, the recent analysis for .tv showed an even lower rate of development: just 29% developed, 3% coming soon and 4% in redirection use.

In the two studies I did for .XYZ, I used the same methodology of visiting, or trying to visit, each site in order to determine status. For example, my article from about a year ago: Past 12 Months of XYZ, A Look At The Data, when I looked at all sales $1000 and up there was a lower rate of development, 27% developed and 2% in redirection use. However, if one looks at the more significant sales, more likely to be retail, amongst sales of $20,000 and up, the 46% are developed.

One would expect high-value .com to be more likely to be quickly developed, since many of these sales are upgrades for longterm businesses. Not all, but many, of the .xyz retail sales are to Web3 startups. While some of these have secured investment, in many cases they are early-stage with essentially an idea and a white paper and little or even no funding.

Cherry picking a few sales, and trying to suggest something is wrong, is not analysis or responsible commentary, in my opinion.

As mentioned, anyone who has been in domaining for any length of time will know that many names never get developed, often not even have their DNS changed. This is nothing unique to one TLD. It tends to be less in high-value sales, but even in 7-figures a number of names don't get used.

-Bob

Agree with Bob. Because of cheap registration and cheap renewal, .xyz has been developed in many websites, more than high price and high renewal fee NTLDs. But not all buyers are end user, some are domain resellers, some are buy for future project because find out good domains with good price. I see some Premium .xyz sold cheap in Ebay and SAV, because the owner think the renewal fee is too high. Mostly these owner are not end users but domain investors. 300$ a year or more for a domain sitting without revenue is crazy, unless big company hold this Premium renewal .xyz, they will drop it.

Sweetha main success strategy is the same as Rick Schwartz strategy. Buying good non premium renewal domain when they are still available, hold it for a view years, and sell them with high price after rare. It works with .xyz and .com because their cheap renewal fee. That's why Sweetha always stated that her .xyz are regular renewal fee domains. Premium Renewal fee domains or high renewal fee TLDs will not survive long. Not worthy to hold Premium renewal fee domains if not giving revenue from real use, so high renewal fee domains are not worthy investing items.