Why do people insist that 99% of domain investors are losing money?

Many people often repeat this here, and I don't understand why.
Sure, maybe they are just exaggerating, but even 80 to 90% seems high. Most of you have probably seen these threads:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/are-you-making-money-losing-money-dont-know.945592/
https://www.namepros.com/threads/how-much-do-you-earn-from-domaining-per-month.958903/

which show that maybe 50 to 70% are making money. These results are probably skewed by non-response and some people not doing their numbers right, but at least there is some evidence there.

Where is the evidence that 99% of people are losing money?
If you are looking at namepros auctions and thinking "people who own that junk cannot be making money," well that is why they are selling it here at $1 start. To get rid of it.
I think people are trying to give newcomers realistic expectations, but they are going to an extreme. They continue to say things like "most people do not make money in the first few years" when nobody could actually know that.

 

I assume you haven't taken a look at the appraisal section here, have you? Most of the names being registered are junk. And the auction section here, even for some of the better names, in most cases, they are still selling it for a low amount...likely less than what they've paid for it over the years.

 

Well if we want a completely honest conversation,

1) No one knows, not speculation but knows how many domainers there are on this third stone from the sun.

2) There has never been any credible poll that utilized real names and a full scale assessment of domainer portfolios.

3) Everyone throws out numbers that are fictional, that they think makes them look smart or that will get them likes on a forum.

"This is domaining, when the legend becomes fact, PRINT the legend"

 

If the time and competence of the domain investor was considered, they would make far more money in almost any other profession, so domain investors are making a huge loss.
In India I am not allowed to work offline , because large corporates have bribed powerful officials to ensure that I do not make a penny offline
In 2016, in goa, allegedly due to corporate espionage of google, tata I am making far less than what I was making as an engineer 16 years ago , so I am making a loss

 

Only people who hand registered dictionary or short domain names in 90s are making money. If you got in this business starting 10 years ago you are not only losing but also wasting your life.

 

It will certainly be that high IMO, most of the domainers who aren't making money would not even have posted/voted on those threads. Its mainly the people making money that would post, most people dont want to admit that they own all these names and dont want to admit that they havent made any sales

A lot of domainers dont believe they have lost money because they still own the names which they might think are worth a lot of money, which is mostly not the case. I look it at it like this, if you have bought 10 names and haven't sold any, you have lost money in domaining. When you register 10 names (at $10 a pop) and then sell one for $200, then you are ahead..thats my way of looking at it anyway.

Only people who hand registered dictionary or short domain names in 90s are making money. If you got in this business starting 10 years ago you are not only losing but also wasting your life.

This is not true at all, I know a lot of people who have made money in domaining that certainly didn't start in the 90's, a couple of them started in the last year or two.

 

@Doron Vermaat
@Zandibot
@Shane Bellone

and at least another 100 members would disagree.

P.S. Frank Schilling was not even domaining in the 90's. Neither was Morgan Linton or Elliot Silver. Last time I checked they all make money in domaining.

 

it is due to lack of knowledge for buying domain which has no more values.

 

Wrong person.

 

Because 99% is more readable and memorable than 99.9%.

Want numbers?

1)
Look at the total pool of domain registrations.
Subtract those actively used for sites or forwarding to sites.
Subtract those defensively held by companies.
Guess that 80% to 95% of the remaining domains are held by speculators
Estimate annual renewal costs.
Add known costs of sales to speculators on dropcatch platforms.
= total annual speculator spend

2)
Total known public aftermarket sales figures for a year
Multiply that by figure for known privacy rate - Sedo say 80% of sales are private.
Estimate parking income at close to zero, maybe $.00000001 USD/domain
= total annual speculator income

3)
Subtract 1) from 2) to get speculator profit or loss

 

Delete

 

I agree with nlandu, in India , major single female domain investors who actually pay the domain renewal expenses are making a loss, wasting their life, and are not allowed to work offline also,

In India female single domain investors are ruthlessly exploited by ntro officials (ntro is the indian equivalent of nsa), security, intelligence agency, cbi officials, to enjoy free lifetime sex, get lucrative intelligence jobs for their mediocre lazy fraud inexperienced relatives and friends with fake resumes, fake investment (of the domain investor) , so they find it difficult to make any money

In other countries . the government officials may not be wasting tax payer money to harass, cheat, exploit, torture domain investors, so they may make a profit, however in India, and in goa in particular it is the harsh reality, that when the opportunity cost is considered domain investors in India are making a huge loss

When I was working in a large company , I was consided to be very good at my work,most of my ex colleagues, classmates, who were not as good as me than are making far more money than me, because of the extremely vicious campaign of google, tata as I am link seller competing with google adwords
now cbi, intelligence and security agency officials allegedly on the payroll of google, tata are making it very difficult to make any money online or offline, wasting $18000 a month of indian tax payer money, for more than 6 years . My retirement savings of twenty years have also been stolen by indian government officials without a court order.

 

This answer can also be affected by how much you value your time...

If you invested 10 hours of your time in the researching of the names and outbound marketing etc than you could look at it as working for 10 bucks an hour which is pretty bad and that's if you only spent 10 hours. Factor in any renewals and your hourly rate is dropping. Having said that, if that scenario was mine I too would say I was in profit lol.

This is the root and main cause of people losing money in domaining. Registering names with zero value. 99 percent of the names in the appraisal section and the new reg section are money down the drain. I think I've only ever seen one name that I would have paid reg fee for.

 

I disagree. I know plenty of people who didn't start in the 90's and are now making good money with domaining. This includes myself as well.

 

I don't really factor this in when people are just domaining as a hobby

 

Unfortunately, the only thing people do more than fail in this industry is lie.

 

My thoughts:

I think that the vast majority of domainers are losing money. 99% is a high figure but probably closer to the truth...
Of course, many if not most will make some sale here and there but this is not enough to sustain a portfolio of hundreds of domains. Even a small portfolio of hundreds of domains easily runs into the thousands in renewal fees alone. The renewals eat your profits.
So the math is easy, you need to make thousands in sales just to break even...
We always focus on the good news and the reported sales, but they don't tell the whole story. In spite of making sales you could still be in the red.

Also, domainers tend to overestimate the size of the market. It's not as big as we want it to be. Demand for aftermarket domains is limited unless of course you own uberpremium domains, then you'll decline offers every week and it's just a waiting game.
But typical domainer portfolios are not made of uberpremium domains.

It is commonly accepted that turnover in this industry is low, 2%/year is considered normal. Again, do the math...

Absolutely right. Domainers don't value their time like they should. The amount of time devoted to domaining could be directed toward more productive work. Even flipping burgers

In my view domaining is a hobby most of the time. Seldom an investment let alone a full-time occupation.

 

If not 99% then definitely 9x%. There's a joke about gambling here in Vegas "not counting our losses, we're ahead!"

Domainers, are we just the online version of beanie baby investors?
(1990s speculation in small plush figures akin to the Dutch tulip bubble)

 

This is the buying process of many "domain investors"

"I saw gdgfgboon.com sold for $5000, let me check if gregrgboon.com (and 150 other veriations) plus the .net. mobi .co is available, great, by sheer luck its available, $1300 bucks is nothing for all these names, even if one sells for $5000 I made my money back"

The sad thing is that a percentage of people reading this no, cannot understand what is wrong with what I just said. After all, you never know.

There is no reasoning with smokers, slot machine addicts and so called domain investors.

 

Pro domaining, serious like, is hard business like any other. Success stems from know how, experience, market intelligence and the right tools for the job. Problem is, most newcomers think it's easy money. Just like riding a bicycle, comes naturally, nothing to it. Then they proceed to register a ton of domains. What could possibly go wrong?

Non-franchise brick and mortar business failure rate oscillates in the 80% range. And that's serious business, not domaining, rarely considered by most of the uninitiated even a serious sideline, let alone a business venture! Once again: what can possibly go wrong?

 

Try to guess an exact percentage is pointless. But its obvious in markets like these when the cost of entry is very very low it will attract a lot of people with no relevant education and/or experience to understand whats going on and how to profit from it. Some who don't will learn and grow whats needed but most wont, ever. No matter what industry they are in.

 

NP is one big happy family of encouragement. People pump each other up to buy domains. Who cares if we win or lose when we having fun! Lets buy new gtlds and some chinese crap. Its all good!

 

Some of you mentioned that domain investing is a hobby for a lot of people. (ok, you wouldn't call it investing because some people's domains are so bad, and maybe you don't want to be lumped in with them)
But is it really true? I had this argument with some other people before, and they were saying that a hobby is something that you would continue to do even if there was no chance of making money.

In the sense that many domainers know they are losing money but continue on anyway, I guess it's a hobby. (but I think most continue because they hope they will win the "lottery" or finally learn some "secret" to winning). But if one day they were told there was no way they would ever be allowed to make money, would they still buy and collect domains? Probably not, because most of the domains they buy are meant to sell to end users. They aren't just hobby collecting.

If it's not a hobby and they are mostly just hand registering or buying cheap domains on the aftermarket that are unlikely to sell, then is it gambling or just really, really bad investment? Is namepros enabling a kind of gambling addiction by creating a false sense of professionalism combined with hope?
Through long discussions, appraisals, blogs, Business Accounts, legal discussion, tax discussion,.. 4 to 5 figure reported sales by people who simply bought at godaddy closeouts or hand registered..

If you are right that most people are wasting tons of time and money, this is all just a huge joke that we are perpetuating. Maybe most here should find a new "hobby" that is more fulfilling?

 

I forgot to mention the coupon threads and your reg of the day thread haha.
There are probably lots of other things..