discuss Topic for discussion Are domain sales reports really real?

[bahaba]

I wrote this same text as a comment on one of the posts, but later I thought why not write a special topic about this thing and see that I suffer from this thing alone, or are there people like me who have the same problem? So I write here with a separate topic in the same idea with some modifications to the text. I hope you will share your opinion, advice or feeling with me.

I want to talk about us as sellers or investors in the domain, They cracked our heads with the xxxxxx domain sales reports, and I believed that, but through my experiences and expertise, I doubted all these things and reports.
I am not speaking out of envy, I am speaking in order to make the online community more honest and useful.

I don't know why I was disappointed in selling the domain and why I feel that these sales are fake and are just advertising for domain registration companies!
Look at our situation. We sellers buy from each other, and there is no final customer, but a seller who buys from a seller!
To confirm my suspicions, I researched the domain sales reports. Most of the domains that were sold at fantastic prices are not available online, or when you try to access them, you get a warning through an anti-virus program.
I began to suspect that most of these reports are being bought by the domain registry companies themselves as propaganda and to spread the spirit of hope that there are people who buy domains with XXXXX

I will tell you my experiences i will talk about my self!
I have more than 800 domains since 2 years I have not sold any of them! 800x10=8000 $
You may ask me why I bought all these domains? i will tell you why:
When I see xxxxxx sales reports Everywhere, my eyes pOp OuT Then my hand crawls over to the domain registrar then this sentence runs in my head ( Money Money i need money) For a while, I think that by investing in the domain, I will become Elon Musk and i will buy Twitter.
Then i start buy more and more domains, with every domain i buy i hoping to see XXXXXX luck smiling to me! But I did not see XXXXX, nor her cousin XXXX, nor even her aunt xxx or her grandmother xx. But once I got lucky once and I sold my domain through Dynadot User Action for $1 so i see x. In fact, I didn't see the full x because Dynadot took a 10% commission so I got 0.90 x. any way...

I think we sellers are just fuel for domain registration companies.
They play with our weakness, our need for money. They put out huge sales reports and we fall into the trap of greed. The result is that we lose more money, and domain registration companies earn more of our money!
In this case, the companies are the sellers and we are the buyers.

Maybe someone will jump off the screen and tell me look at the car.com domain sold for XXXXXXX.....Million dollars!
Ok do do you think that you can get a car.com domain name for $10?
All good domains are already registered my friend, don't think they will let any good domain fall and let you buy it with $10 so dont wait.

They tell us to buy more Domains, when you buy more Domains, your chances of selling will increase!!!
Yes, two years ago, until now, I paid $8000 and i won -$8000 and I'm still buying more every day when i see any X report and I'm still falling into the trap every day hoping luck smiles on me.

After that, exaggerated fictional reports begin to appear! Thousands of dollars and xxxxx again.
and again my eyes pOp OuT and I buy more and more, then i put them with domain parking companies.
The result is two years until now. I have earned 2.5 dollars from the investment. I'm talking about 800 domains, I'm talking about 8000 dollars.

Yes, I am a pessimist and I want to speak and express my feelings! Because I did not see anyone criticizing here, but all the topics are positive and sales reports, am I the only one thinking in this way?

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

Good advice, thank you for sharing your opinion and experience. Yes, I learned the lesson, and this is the reason I wrote this post just to spread awareness and not get new members to be drawn into this trap.

Your message is a very important one. There are many new members signing on to this forum, here to learn. You know that it is easy to get enticed into buying domains by seeing the reports of high revenues from flipping domains. Even if their reports are true, their experience is not necessarily applicable to an individual.

Thank you, again, for the posting.

 

[Bean]

I think you may be going about it wrong, from your post it seems your sole motivation for investing in domains is the allure of hitting the jackpot with high-value sales. At this point it does not even matter whether the reported sales are real or not, the very crux of your logic/reasoning is questionable.
That would be akin to me reading about how Warren Buffett amassed billions from stock investment and deciding that I'll become a billionaire too by replicating his success.
Money is for the most part only a byproduct of passion. When you're truly passionate about something, it is the actual time and effort you dedicate to that passion that has the potential to translate into earnings and even then there is no guarantee.

Now, I'll be honest with you, I'm not saying that you're lying but I do feel like the following excerpt from your text has got to be an exaggeration:

I will tell you my experiences i will talk about my self!
I have more than 800 domains since 2 years I have not sold any of them! 800x10=8000 $
You may ask me why I bought all these domains? i will tell you why:
When I see xxxxxx sales reports Everywhere, my eyes pOp OuT Then my hand crawls over to the domain registrar then this sentence runs in my head ( Money Money i need money) For a while, I think that by investing in the domain, I will become Elon Musk and i will buy Twitter.
Then i start buy more and more domains, with every domain i buy i hoping to see XXXXXX luck smiling to me! But I did not see XXXXX, nor her cousin XXXX, nor even her aunt xxx or her grandmother xx. But once I got lucky once and I sold my domain through Dynadot User Action for $1 so i see x. In fact, I didn't see the full x because Dynadot took a 10% commission so I got 0.90 x. any way...

Granted you didn't start with 800 domains but achieved this number gradually over a 2-year period, still it absolutely boggles my mind that you only managed a $1 sale in all that time. I can almost hear the very foundation of mathematics and probability creaking under the weight of this revelation haha .
Seriously though, this just seems so highly improbable to me, especially since you don't appear to have been twiddling your thumbs when it comes to trying to get sales (I'm referring to the Dynadot auction). Perhaps you could elaborate a little more on what you've tried so far? How many marketplaces are your domains listed on?
It seems like you only have a small portion of your domains listed on Dan (BTW I've gone through your domains on Dan and while I have to agree with others that you'll probably have a hard time selling the vast majority of those, there are still a few that have some potential)
That said I would totally understand if you're only exaggerating to stress the frustration you feel with your low ROI versus your anticipated ROI.

Finally, I would strongly suggest that you experiment with adding a BIN price to your domains. Over the years, I've found that priced domains generally tend to sell better than make offer domains. When you have a budget and something you want has a price tag, it's easier to make a decision on the spot. For a lot of people the prospect of having to contact a seller and haggle over the price can be a hassle/turn off.

Anyways, wish you better luck with your domaining in 2023!

 

[bahaba]

I think you may be going about it wrong, from your post it seems your sole motivation for investing in domains is the allure of hitting the jackpot with high-value sales. At this point it does not even matter whether the reported sales are real or not, the very crux of your logic/reasoning is questionable.

First of all, thanks for your comment. Yes, I agree with you, maybe I'm going wrong about it, and also there are a lot here who are going down the same path, and that's what pushed me to write my post.
Just to correct the vision through discussion and sharing useful information, And yes, my motivation from selling domains is to get money.

But I don't agree with you that the reported sales don't matter if they're true or not!
There are a lot of people who don't have experience and because they need money they may be dragged into the trap of unreal sales reports, and lose their money on things that are not worth any value.

What is the reason for the existence of online communities with multiple disciplines? Isn't it for the exchange of experiences, discussion and development of the individual in a specific field? Isn't this our goal of being here, you, me, and other members and visitors in this online community? This is the logic of my thinking that you doubt.

Money is for the most part only a byproduct of passion. When you're truly passionate about something, it is the actual time and effort you dedicate to that passion that has the potential to translate into earnings and even then there is no guarantee.

Yes, I agree with you that money is a byproduct of passion. But my passion is money itself because I need it! Lots of ideas I have but I don't have the budget to implement them! So i fall into the trap of temptations pay now x and you will win xxxxxx later.

Now, I'll be honest with you, I'm not saying that you're lying but I do feel like the following excerpt from your text has got to be an exaggeration:

Honestly I am not lying and there is nothing make me lie! I wrote a real personal bayonet without exaggeration.

Granted you didn't start with 800 domains but achieved this number gradually over a 2-year period, still it absolutely boggles my mind that you only managed a $1 sale in all that time. I can almost hear the very foundation of mathematics and probability creaking under the weight of this revelation haha .
Seriously though, this just seems so highly improbable to me, especially since you don't appear to have been twiddling your thumbs when it comes to trying to get sales (I'm referring to the Dynadot auction). Perhaps you could elaborate a little more on what you've tried so far? How many marketplaces are your domains listed on?

I already have almost 800 domains now and two years ago I had more. I have more than one domain portfolio
i have 2 on dan and one on sedo and one on afternic.
I'm not saying that all my domains are good! And yes at first I thought the old domains I bought were good but later it turned out that they were not.
At one point I bought a lot of three-letter dot-info domains. and I made a lot of mistakes with my evaluation of the domain. I do not deny that I have learned a lot and that my choice of domains now has improved a lot. But until now I have not seen the desired result.

Finally, I would strongly suggest that you experiment with adding a BIN price to your domains. Over the years, I've found that priced domains generally tend to sell better than make offer domains. When you have a budget and something you want has a price tag, it's easier to make a decision on the spot. For a lot of people the prospect of having to contact a seller and haggle over the price can be a hassle/turn off.

Thank you for your advice I will try to work with it soon when I know the real value my domains deserve. Because of the many large sales reports, I became confused about finding the real value of my Domains.
There are a lot of overpriced selling reports. Honestly if I saw a domain available to buy from some reports I wouldn't think about buying it and paying $10 and I'd pass it. But maybe I'll regret it later when I see the sales report xxxxx

Anyways, wish you better luck with your domaining in 2023!

I wish you the same. Thank you very much for your comment and discussion

 

[blogspotter]

You are not alone brother.
Keep the faith.

There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you.

Some people have been borrowing funds to buy thousands of names.

At first I thought I was inspiring others by sharing my sales. In fact I know at least 2 people who are doing very well now just by getting inspiration from my sales.

But It appears that there are are hundreds who are like you for every one who made it.

Which is exactly why I have slowed down sharing my sales.

But I see from your replies that you are the kind who do not take criticism lightly and only want to hear what you want to hear, so I have nothing to add.

Just that you are right in your assessment that many newbies are trapped in this industries, but not for the lack of information or help.

If you want to start a web development business, the one advice i would give would be to jump head on and learn as you build the the site.

But you can't jump into domaining head on, like you did by buying and learning as you buy, but it is what most people do.

Well, even I registered a bunch of crap when I started.. I just dropped 3 two letter .FYIs, I registered about 200 .realty you know what I am saying. But everybody learns.

25 names that I sold in the last 6 months have been developed.

With regards to why people buy names and don't develop, many people think buying a domain name is most important part of a business. The domain name echo chamber also doesn't help. I think more than 70% of buyers of domainers under 5K are wanterpreneurs.

Buying a name is as simple as pulling out a credit card.

Starting a business on the website is a lot of dots to connect, lots of moving parts. Leave alone starting a full fledged web application or a database website, people drag their feet to even start a blog, and 90% blogs don't go beyond hello world

So don't read too much into it.

You are still arguing the merits of your names despite being told repeated in as so many words that those are names that do not sell.

How will you learn?

Think of what a Payment processing company will name themselves, think of what a fitness apparel company selling fitness apparels via instagram/tiktok would nae themselves, think of what a logistics provider will name themselves, think of what a regional insurance broker will name themselves, think of what a small saas providing invoicing service will call themselves, think of what a flower delivery service will call themsleves, think of what a essay writing marketplace will call themselves, think of a blockchain venture investor will name themselves, think of what a ready to eat food company will name themselves, and you need to know thousands of such businesses that will conduct their primary business online. Not a hobby blog, not a local restaurant, or hyper local business (For this, geo outbound works) and if you want to sell brandable or more premium names, you will need to think of regional or national player of that local service business. And know all these businesses in your mind.

And then go through expired list of .coms and buy name that matches one these business that you have in your mind.
WHy .com, because .coms sells the most names. The data doesn't lie.

Now it is easier to find obvious names. Strong Keywords, Strong brandables, etc. The better the name, the easier it is to recognize those names.

But it also means lots of people will want the name. if you can afford it, nothing like it. It will be lower ROI, but they will sell surely and fast depending on how you price.

The worse the name, the more difficult it is to find them. But that is the only way those who missed the hand reg train in early 2000's can make it here. We have to be better. Whining doesn't help.

You have to find names that fit one of the businesses but not so good that it will have many domainers courting her hand.

It takes skills, it takes time to scroll through thousands of names.

It is easier to spot good SLDs in bad TLDs which is why you have all those names that never sell.

You have to learn to find "OKayish" SLDs in .com

But for that you need an open mind

That's all.

I also started 2 years back with about a $1500 every month that I took from my savings to learn this domaining racket.
In October 2020, I was hand registering .realty, and keyword .cos, 4 L .org and such.

I spent around $15000 out of pocket in total, and I am sure I wasted around 10K in junk names initially. And now I have sold over 400K till now. So there is that.

I don't care if registrar companies are buying my names as long as I am getting the money in my bank account lol lol

 

[bahaba]

You are not alone brother.
Keep the faith.

There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you.

Some people have been borrowing funds to buy thousands of names.

At first I thought I was inspiring others by sharing my sales. In fact I know at least 2 people who are doing very well now just by getting inspiration from my sales.

But It appears that there are are hundreds who are like you for every one who made it.

Which is exactly why I have slowed down sharing my sales.

But I see from your replies that you are the kind who do not take criticism lightly and only want to hear what you want to hear, so I have nothing to add.

Just that you are right in your assessment that many newbies are trapped in this industries, but not for the lack of information or help.

If you want to start a web development business, the one advice i would give would be to jump head on and learn as you build the the site.

But you can't jump into domaining head on, like you did by buying and learning as you buy, but it is what most people do.

Well, even I registered a bunch of crap when I started.. I just dropped 3 two letter .FYIs, I registered about 200 .realty you know what I am saying. But everybody learns.

25 names that I sold in the last 6 months have been developed.

With regards to why people buy names and don't develop, many people think buying a domain name is most important part of a business. The domain name echo chamber also doesn't help. I think more than 70% of buyers of domainers under 5K are wanterpreneurs.

Buying a name is as simple as pulling out a credit card.

Starting a business on the website is a lot of dots to connect, lots of moving parts. Leave alone starting a full fledged web application or a database website, people drag their feet to even start a blog, and 90% blogs don't go beyond hello world

So don't read too much into it.

You are still arguing the merits of your names despite being told repeated in as so many words that those are names that do not sell.

How will you learn?

Think of what a Payment processing company will name themselves, think of what a fitness apparel company selling fitness apparels via instagram/tiktok would nae themselves, think of what a logistics provider will name themselves, think of what a regional insurance broker will name themselves, think of what a small saas providing invoicing service will call themselves, think of what a flower delivery service will call themsleves, think of what a essay writing marketplace will call themselves, think of a blockchain venture investor will name themselves, think of what a ready to eat food company will name themselves, and you need to know thousands of such businesses that will conduct their primary business online. Not a hobby blog, not a local restaurant, or hyper local business (For this, geo outbound works) and if you want to sell brandable or more premium names, you will need to think of regional or national player of that local service business. And know all these businesses in your mind.

And then go through expired list of .coms and buy name that matches one these business that you have in your mind.
WHy .com, because .coms sells the most names. The data doesn't lie.

Now it is easier to find obvious names. Strong Keywords, Strong brandables, etc. The better the name, the easier it is to recognize those names.

But it also means lots of people will want the name. if you can afford it, nothing like it. It will be lower ROI, but they will sell surely and fast depending on how you price.

The worse the name, the more difficult it is to find them. But that is the only way those who missed the hand reg train in early 2000's can make it here. We have to be better. Whining doesn't help.

You have to find names that fit one of the businesses but not so good that it will have many domainers courting her hand.

It takes skills, it takes time to scroll through thousands of names.

It is easier to spot good SLDs in bad TLDs which is why you have all those names that never sell.

You have to learn to find "OKayish" SLDs in .com

But for that you need an open mind

That's all.

I also started 2 years back with about a $1500 every month that I took from my savings to learn this domaining racket.
In October 2020, I was hand registering .realty, and keyword .cos, 4 L .org and such.

I spent around $15000 out of pocket in total, and I am sure I wasted around 10K in junk names initially. And now I have sold over 400K till now. So there is that.

I don't care if registrar companies are buying my names as long as I am getting the money in my bank account lol lol

Yes man yes this is what I wanted to read, I thank you for this fat comment with important information and advices.
But I don't know why you thought I didn't accept criticism! I am a person who accepts criticism and likes discussion and exchange of ideas but I accept constructive criticism and not personalization and insults!
Go back to my replies in the posts and you will notice that I thanked those who criticized constructive criticism and some of the replies I liked and benefited me too and expressed this in my replies.

But I was a bit harsh with people whose responses were insulting and personal and that didn't give benefit.
I did not write this post so that some people start evaluating my personality and take the role of psychiatrist and behavior analyst.

Another thing I would like to add is that I didn't say that all sales reports are false. I have said that some of these reports are fake but not all.

I like to share experience and learn good things and useful ideas so I tell you that I liked your comment and that I will take your advice when I want to buy a domain I will think about what you said and I will think about what name a company can choose as its brand.

Everything you mentioned in this comment was good and you deserve thanks for sharing this information, so thank you very much.

 

[blogspotter]

Good Luck Mate..

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

You are not alone brother.
Keep the faith.

There are a lot of people who are a lot worse off than you.

Some people have been borrowing funds to buy thousands of names.

At first I thought I was inspiring others by sharing my sales. In fact I know at least 2 people who are doing very well now just by getting inspiration from my sales.

But It appears that there are are hundreds who are like you for every one who made it.

And the reality, with this economy, is that it may get much worse. So thank you for providing the cautionary note.

 

[Broth Investing]

I have about 200 names but had 4 sales last year. Name quality matters but also market demand. All you can control is having a good portfolio and making it as visible as possible.

 

[lock]

I have had a domain that i bought reported for less. I would think market it is actually higher with tax dodger's vs launderers.

 

[StartupNames]

if you get emotional in this job you are going to lose.. every single time.

Agree