discuss Thinking of removing names from brandable market places

[Poordaisy]

Has anyone removed their names from Brandable market places? Having done so, after the 1 month waiting period I would be interested to know your success in selling any of those same names on your own.

We are considering pulling about 40 of our name's after 3 years of no sales and no inquiries. We've been able to sell brandables, rejected by the markets, for decent prices (though lower than what online brand stores would sell them for) . So in decision mode about moving on and finding new ways to sell...

 

[Recons.Com]

40 names in 3 years should have given you 3-6 sales. Which market place was it?

 

[Poordaisy]

BB and BR. I think as new names come on, old ones go to the bottom of the list. When a customer does a search, old names dont show. In fact I wonder whether after a year, chances of a sale drop dramatically.

 

[Recons.Com]

Do you care to share some names just to get an idea?

 

[Rick Ace]

I haven't sold on BB or BR. But I can tell you what end users are often saying- overpriced. BB prices domains high enough to scare away many potential sales. As a result, I suspect you'd be waiting longer.

 

[Poordaisy]

I think you might be right about the pricing. But also, the shear quantity available means that the cheaper ones are more sellable.

 

[Recons.Com]

I would disagree on this. Sheer number also means more leads. More choice is not necessarily bad either.

 

[DNScholar]

If no sale in brandable marketplace than I think available options are

1) Come down on price
2) Pull out names
3) Maybe new strategy but what it would be....

 

[Poordaisy]

I would disagree on this. Sheer number also means more leads. More choice is not necessarily bad either.

You're correct but if the older names are at the bottom of the search list, customers may not go through all the names. There are are 1000's of names between these companies. Older more expensive names are at a disadvantage.

The option for us is to wait for inquiries; at least we got sales that way. We can't do that if we commit to exclusivity.

 

[DNScholar]

How many name BB or BR sells in a month? any data?

 

[Hypersot]

I haven't sold on BB or BR. But I can tell you what end users are often saying- overpriced. BB prices domains high enough to scare away many potential sales. As a result, I suspect you'd be waiting longer.

where do you base this on? not that I don't believe you ofc but I'm curious where did you find what end users are saying. Has anyone interested for your names contacted you directly... or something else?
thanks

 

[Domain Lead Finder]

BB and BR risk nothing, they just give you a "buy now" page and hope somebody will stumble upon the domain name. Kind of like Sedo and other market places. You would be better served to make your own page and put up a "make an offer" kind of form.

Also with all the new TLDs the end user has other options. The brandable name has to be really good in order to sell for $xxxx if you have really really good names then by all means keep them. But if not then try to move them for realistic prices.

 

[Poordaisy]

We've sold a handful of ok names for about 30%-50% less than if it was listed. These were customers who looked up the whois or saw it on Sedo.

BTW, BR does have a policy I believe, that if you pay a fee, your name can be bumped forward.

 

[Recons.Com]

Rather than taking them off, you could list them on NP for sale at $30-50 range per name and then just buy other names for $15-25 range.

 

[Domain Lead Finder]

BTW, BR does have a policy I believe, that if you pay a fee, your name can be bumped forward.

End users do not know about BB or BR or Sedo. Ask any of your friends who are not domain investors where they would go about buying a domain. 10% will say "godaddy" not because they know about godaddy auctions but because they think that's where you can register something. The other 90% will not have a clue and ask a web designer or something.

So you are basically paying to advertise mostly to other investors on Sedo if you pay for premium listing, and say 10% end users who did their due diligence and found out about the domain after market, and what specific after market is reputable.

I can not say that places like Sedo do not have end users, but my sales over the years on those platforms tell me there are very few.

 

[garptrader]

It would be interesting to see a Domain Sherpa show where several end users who bought brandable aftermarket domains were interviewed and to understand their domain selection process. However, I believe that generally speaking they do not choose their domain names based on what is available in a brandable domain aftermarket. End users come up with some weird domains at times which domainers will often question. Then they check to see if it is available and they may add a word or a few letters because most end users go with reg fee domains. Most end users don't place much value on branding or see the logic of spending more than $XX on a domain name. So you have 125 million .COMs but many of the best domains are held by domainers.

On occasion however a company willing to spend some money on a domain will choose a name and type it in to see if it is available. I would suspect that merely redirecting your brandables to a portfolio site will lead to occasional inquiries.

However, I have noticed that in the last couple years brandable .COM domains are not selling at the same rate as five years ago. Developers have many more TLD options and newbie domainers are buying new TLDs and numerics with $1 registrations like mad. A lot of very speculative acquisitions are being made that are diverting funds away from .COM - in the short term. Put yourself in the shoes of an end user who might have considered an alt TLD or new TLD. If those $1 regs result in all the halfway decent keywords being taken even in lowly TLDs, then what is an end user going to do? Pay $XXXX for a keyword .XYZ or .TOP when there are brandable .COMs available for less? I seriously doubt it.

 

[Rick Ace]

where do you base this on? not that I don't believe you ofc but I'm curious where did you find what end users are saying. Has anyone interested for your names contacted you directly... or something else?
thanks

I haven't listed on BB. But I've sold brandable domains, where multiple people have told me that BB domains are listed for more than what people would normally pay. On the bright side, it has helped domainers by showing the public how much domains could be potentially worth. On the other hand, there are seasoned sellers that are having trouble with BB.

I don't have statistical data- just an experience of ongoing negative commentary on BB's prices.I still think BB is here to stay for the long run. And its pricing will make more sense in the future, as demand goes up and supply goes down.

 

[Recons.Com]

I actually have decided to give BB proper try and assess how it works. I am planning to grow my portfolio with them to 100-300 names and then test for myself how well names sell based on quality, length, pricing, logo quality etc.