discuss Using your own auction site to list names for sale

[Kuffy]

I've been looking at various way to list names for sale, and to solicit offers. I've come to the conclusion that the best way (for me) is to create an auction site using the free WeBid CMS, and to list my names as separate threads. That lets me do a bit of linking and stats posting if I want to. I won't open it to any other parties, but just use it for my own names.

What do you think of the idea?

It probably won't get much traffic, and it could take a year or more to sell a name, so how does one price the names? If you think a name is worth $250, where would you start it - $100, $250, $500, $1,000 or more? I'm not in a rush to sell names, so I don't care if it takes several years to sell a decent name. Those that I want to clear could start at $1 of course.

 

[disaac81]

Auctioning really will only work using the big sites, and not worth it using your own site tbh, no where near the traffic you need.

Great names sell regardless of where they are, I think we all tend to worry too much about this, that and the other. Something I am learning too, that it does not really matter.

 

[Kuffy]

I agree, but back-linking names to your own auction site can generate some traffic, and thus a bit of advertising revenue. Also, you never know - it might give somebody an idea for a name purchase.

I'm a bit fed up with holding names that generate no revenue, so I thought I'd set up a few listing sites which will hopefully cover the cost of registration. That would give me a nice investment prtfolio without any holding costs.

 

[disaac81]

No doubt, if you have the time it is always a good thing to have your own site, as you say over time you may see some benefits. Just as a word of caution, do not expect instant results etc.

Have it as an extra, rather than an 'everything' if you know what I mean.

Good luck with it.

 

[sanel1412]

Idea is good but only if you plan to do so on long term ...I mean it is not worth to build website and promote it if you don't plan to maintain on long term...I list my domains on Flippa and some other well known sites since I have mostly 20-30 domains for sell and like most people I would like to sell them as fast as I can...but on long term ...it is different story

 

[biggie]

I've been looking at various way to list names for sale, and to solicit offers.
I don't care if it takes several years to sell a decent name.

Hi

if you think you have decent names, then at least list them on sedo with "make an offer" and wait... since you don't care if it takes several years.



in the meantime, you can work on getting your own portfolio site up.

Good Luck!

imo...

 

[Pierre Barnard]

Great thread, thanks.

 

[DanBingham]

Great idea that we also considered, but decided against it in the end. Would involve quite a bit of time and effort for little results. The better domains now form part of our portfolio which are listed through the Sedo, and Flippa marketplace 'under offer'. We are also working on a portfolio site.

 

[Kuffy]

I use a freehoster. It took under 2 minutes to install. I can add names as I feel like it. It's taking a bit longer to sort out the SEO stuff, and I managed to disable the login process by installing Google analytics ( my bad programming - not Google's ). It's quite good for me to try to get back up to speed on SEO. It's changed in the last 5 years.

I'm playing with another CMS called SEO toaster, and I don't even know what a toaster is in SEO terms. It's an e-commerce script, and I toyed with using that for selling domain names. In the end I decided to use it for listing second-hand DVDs. I won't make much from selling them, but there is some great potential for adding text to promote other mini-sites I own.

 

[Jackie]

The way I accept offers for my domain names is a personalized landing page that automatically sends offers to my email.

Everyone, non-domainers included, know how to visit a URL to check if it might be available, but not everyone knows how to look up the WHOIS record. Of course, to increase chances of a sale, you should also encourage people to contact you using spare fields of the WHOIS record (e.g. organization or address 2).

 

[Kuffy]

The way I accept offers for my domain names is a personalized landing page that automatically sends offers to my email.

Everyone, non-domainers included, know how to visit a URL to check if it might be available, but not everyone knows how to look up the WHOIS record. Of course, to increase chances of a sale, you should also encourage people to contact you using spare fields of the WHOIS record (e.g. organization or address 2).

I used to do that when I had around 1,500 names. I even registered make-me-an-offer.com to try to pick up potential buyers. Unfortunately, I got so much spam that I ended up bulk deleting mail, and I missed some offers. I like the idea of the landing page, and there is some free software to run a support ticket system. I might try that as an alternative to email.

 

[Jackie]

The way to avoid offers falling into the spam box is by properly verifying your SMTP server with SPF/DKIM DNS records in your domain, and using a third-party SMTP service like SendGrid. You can also whitelist the email address you send notifications from, in addition to setting up a filter in Gmail to label all "domain offers" as such.

 

[Kuffy]

Thanks Jackie. I decided that one way to handle enquiries is to install some help desk software. I've just done this, and it opens up a whole load of possibilities. I realised I can use this to accept advertising enquiries on domains I am hosting. I can accept complaints as well as sales enquiries, and a few other things, as I can customise the drop-down menu.

I'm also thinking about using Google Hangouts for video conferencing to discuss domain sales live.