discuss Why hasn’t anyone found a way to sell to businesses?

[uglydork]

You would think after all these years that one of the huge brokerage companies would have developed the secret sauce.
How do you get companies and businesses to go to a single point website to buy domain names?
Yes, outbound works but it’s fractured- nobody has taken over a B2B clearing house to sell domains. We don’t have a dominant go to website for business to browse names for sale.
I think about it all the time but I am a little fish - I don’t have the resources to pull it off

I build a clearinghouse site to list names for businesses - it is well known like a Google or Apple - we pay to list our names on that site. Seems like a simple idea but our community has too many sites (undeveloped,Uniregistry,brockets,flippa,sedo,Afternic) they need to be aggregated into one monster site that is well publicized.

Damn I should be rich!

 

[businesses]

I list my names on Tumblr: CEOs.me

and will develop The-Businesses.com marketplace

 

[~ The 34 Year Buzz!!]

Why hasn’t anyone found a way to sell to businesses?
Some (many) businesses do not care about SEO, keyword density (aka. search engine Spam), etc. There is a hunger for effective eCommerce sites that function well. ~ What % of "domain scalpers" () are actually doing something to develop domains?

 

[branding]

the name was kid/messenger/com, if I am not mistaken.

Cheers. I won't further comment on this subject matter to keep from derailing the thread and I trust others will be as wise

 

[Recons.Com]

I may well have not thought about this deeply enough, but the idea that a company should pay more for a domain name if they are large and/or profitable seems wrong to me. I mean when companies buy technology or paper or real estate for that matter, they pay (at most) the going rate. Why should they pay more for a domain than some other company?

It seems to me if I am selling a domain name I set a price based on what it is worth in my opinion, my costs associated with it and my whole portfolio, and what amount is enough to make bothering with the sale worthwhile for me.

My simplified thinking.

Bob

I think of it different way. I put a fair price for the name that reflects the true potential of it for properly funded business. But then I am open to discount from there for "students", "mom-n-pops" etc.

That is more prudent way than having a price in mind and then just asking for multiples of it, because a big fish might be interested.

 

[lock]

I will tell you the secret and it isn't really a secret.
The buyer types in the exact name they want and sees the site for sale. They might type in a second choice if budget is enough. All the marketing with third fourth and fith choice domains aren't worth a brokers efforts. What a broker will do is just what you were to lazy to do they will search the keywords in engines and find sites paying for traffic offer them the first choice domain that they would have typed in anyway as their first choice and offer it. If they are moderatly successful then they will see the avantage of the domain.

What a broker does have is a do and don't of what to and what to never say. They will control conversations keeping the scripted pathline in order to gain commitment. They will invite the buyer to submit offer. Buying and selling are seperate art forms i watch skillful domain buyers give away domains and see others that can buy and retain margin. Start scripting your own my influence is based on car sale training and overcoming objectives of phone calls. You need to start scripting how to ask for offer how to reply to inbound email how to create urgency. When to pull out your aces eg: previous keyword sales history etc. As long as good domainers make a dollar the mugs will have a go to and also waterdown the marketplace. You just need to do the work and learn not to burn.

What there needs to be is a better solution to parking not just whitelabelled more advanced development with profit sharing.

 

[frank-germany]

I list my names on Tumblr: CEOs.me

Show attachment 107137

and will develop The-Businesses.com marketplace

put an index.php at your domain

Index of /
Name Last modified Size Description
cgi-bin/ 2018-12-03 08:14 -

 

[lock]

So true. End-user education has to improve. But the price reporting sites (such DNPric.es) are not helping at all. Say you purchase a great domain on auction for $40 because you saw value where other bidders did not. You get an offer and the buyer says "It sold for $40 on auction so my offer of $200 is a good deal". My time responding to your emails just ate up the $200. Hey, stop reporting these auction sales, DNPric.es, and other similar sites.

Actually we need end users to know nothing. The end user has set the keyword pricing allowing the high margins. If they knew they wouldn't see a high return they would pay a lot if end less. If domainers knew the end users profit they would develop.
If end users knew about domains then they would be registering more hand regs and buying less second hand.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

I am thinking of creating such a Domain-Marketplace as described by uglydork.

What could be the name (domain) for such a Marketplace, in order to reach out to the general public or to Business-customers ?


What do you think of the following Keywords (for the domain at which such a Marketplace is presented):
- Style
- B2B
- Cyb (Cyber)



Appreciate your input.

Larion....compared to other industries I've had experience with, the marketing piece of the domain industry is archaic, cumbersome and ripe for change.

uglydork is right when he states the typical "end user" has never heard of brokers like Sedo, Uniregistry or Afternic (despite Afternic is Go Daddy).

And while I don't know the actual stats, my guess is these three brokers sell 50% of the after market domains. Just because old timers in this industry say "this is the way it's done" doesn't mean there isn't a better way....what I've learned in life and business is there is ALWAYS a better way.

Finally...while I already have a lot on my plate developing a new game/sport called 9Time™, here are a few names that you can buy for $10 that could work for your marketplace;

BrandNameShowcase.com
and
DotComShowcase.com

While I'm sure there are better names I think either or both of these names could draw attention. Good Luck Larion!

 

[branding]

Just don't trash the guys sale please.
In most cases the business owner/company will think of a suitable name and try to get the matching address. If not they will think of some variations and check availability. They won't go to a website to look at thousands of domains that have no meaning to them.

True. Unless a brading agency is involved. I know of some who actually search through the mayor marketplaces to spot cool looking domains. Saves them the brainstorm for a cool 'millenial style' name

 

[MapleDots]

You are confusing me with someone else. I don't trash anyone's sale.

And I am fine putting bin on my prices, so couldn't care less if FB bought my names for $2K, if that was the price.

Did not mean you, was referring in general.
I know you well enough to understand you would not do that, you are a class act all the way

 

[Recons.Com]

Did not mean you, was referring in general.
I know you well enough to understand you would not do that, you are a class act all the way

Thank you! I appreciate your compliment!

 

[garptrader]

We still have the pervasive issue of end users uploading massive amounts of content to social media profiles to generate followers and potential leads but seeing no reason whatsoever to pay for an aftermarket domain.

 

[TCK]

We still have the pervasive issue of end users uploading massive amounts of content to social media profiles to generate followers and potential leads but seeing no reason whatsoever to pay for an aftermarket domain.

So true. End-user education has to improve. But the price reporting sites (such DNPric.es) are not helping at all. Say you purchase a great domain on auction for $40 because you saw value where other bidders did not. You get an offer and the buyer says "It sold for $40 on auction so my offer of $200 is a good deal". My time responding to your emails just ate up the $200. Hey, stop reporting these auction sales, DNPric.es, and other similar sites.

 

[xynames]

Closed comparable sales always shape market prices whether you like it or not.

But then so do asking prices on what is available.

You must always assume that potential buyers are going to look at what sold and what else is available before making a decision to buy.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

A lot of insights in this thread - thanks to all. It seems to me that we do have two MLS type (although incomplete, just like MLS for property) services being the Afternic network and Sedo MLS. If Undeveloped's DAN takes off it also would represent a single source with many listings from multiple sources.

As has been noted in this thread a few times, the issue is not so much that there are not sources with lots of domain listings, but rather that they have so many (and some search tool weaknesses) that finding what the person wants is challenging. While I do understand the wish to be more selective to make finding good domains easy, this is such an inexact science that it would be hard to separate out weak domains (not that some listed could not be eliminated I would think).

I think the big players (like HD) have found success because they have a one source shop with a lot of names and total control over the presentation. It is, I would argue, tougher to be successful as an individual investor these days because of the rise of the huge domain houses.

Buyers' brokers essentially provide a service navigating the sources and representing buyers in negotiations, and that is one method that works for some end users (mainly the high end).

The brandable sites offer another service that I think works well for most. If you want a brandable domain name you can search a site with only those. The price levels may not work for the tiniest (single person) startups, and most of them do not offer options other than .com, but they are efficient I would argue.

So do we possibly need more fragmentation. For example a source for just a specific country code (I know some exist), a source that only handles domains suitable for bloggers (i.e. low price end of market), a source geared to non-business identities that would be strong in .org, .ng./.ogn, .eco, and some of the new extensions, etc.

Undeveloped, in my opinion, seem to be the rising experts in customer response and great landers and technology that seems to work. Can they improve their search so they become even better source for end user navigation?

Re the key issue raised by the OP, I have mixed feelings re a monopoly that would be highly efficient for end users. Probably end users would be better served. But eventually monopolies are usually (always) bad. I admit when I buy most products I first go to Amazon, more times than not they have what I want at a great price, I trust them to efficiently deliver it, they make it fast for me to order, they show me lots of options with prices specs and reviews. I think many more domains would be sold if there was a single similar source for buying domain names.

Anyway, jmho in early morning musings.

Look forward to seeing some of you at NamesCon2019!

Bob

 

[uglydork]

you obviously need to go to godaddy/afternic for that

- no recommendation

Why is that obvious? I have the name on all platforms, but again, to the point of my email. Not everyone knows to go to any domain seller platform like we do. In fact, they may not know that want my name,maybe something similar and find mine? Maybe they hear about this new platform that sells major domain names to businesses?

 

[Larion]

if I understand correctly, you are looking for something like greatdomains.com was in the past ?
They only had listings of top-quality domains.

This website is gone, but here is an archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050223014314/http://www.greatdomains.com:80/

 

[Jason Baudendistel]

Would a company purchase a domain with a similar name for the purpose of brand protection? You could approach said company inquire about interest level. Just a thought.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Would a company purchase a domain with a similar name for the purpose of brand protection? You could approach said company inquire about interest level. Just a thought.

Sure they would, especially "if" the domain fell into a grey area where it could potentially have a negative impact on their brand? The "circumstances" could have a lot to do with it too? If you intentionally purchased your domain for nefarious reason you would have a problem, but it it were purchased for good reason, you're probably OK Good Luck!

 

[Larion]

A business wants to purchase incognito, the hired broker will claim poor student status when purchasing the domain. They will purchase a 150k domain for 15k and the person selling has no idea until the domain goes live. I see it again and again, including a sale to facebook which was discussed on the forum here. Everyone was ..... good sale, way to go. I was like huh!! seriously??? to facebook at that price??? Crap I would have slapped my head a few times had I sold it to facebook on the cheap like that.

We had a recent case in Canada and the last thing these billion dollar corporations want to do is go to a website and tell anyone they are looking. In most cases they are just like the rest of us, they want it on the cheap and one never really knows the company that is interested.

This has been a sticking point of mine for years and I always say if you know the end user you have more power over the negotiations.

So in my opinion the op's suggestion is pointless (so sorry, your opinion is always appreciated), a business knows exactly what domain they want and when they are ready to buy they sure as hell are not going to announce it. They are going on the sly to get it as cheap as possible. It is our responsibility as the domain owner to assure we know the end user. You make contact with me and I am very direct about it, no end user, no sale. It starts at the very first contact and ends with a bill of sale specifically outlining this. First contact form if you want an example is here: https://mapledots.ca/contact/

exactly because of this, platforms like e.g. @Sedo are senseless and counterproductive for a domain-seller.

issue 1: the seller does not know who the buyer is
issue 2: high brokerage commissions

there needs to be a new platform, which removes these issues.

 

[richasis]

Trust me if facebook comes knocking and I know its them I am adding a few hundred k to the price.

As a general rule (if you follow Rick Schwartz) a good domain name is worth a small percentage of the business value. Domains should, and do, sell for more to larger more profitable companies. Anyone that turns that away did not follow some of the bigger sales like daimler.com. It was priced for a large corporation and the owner was very smart. He could have sold it a number of times but he knew who the end user was going to be. His planning and patience paid off big time.

Both planning and patience (and some luck)... Amen.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

The fact is, no one other than domainers cares about domain names.

This is both largely true and something as a community that is important to change. I think it was helpful when Elon Musk talked about how important the right domain name was to him, and how long he took (and how much he spent) to get it. We need to have more excitement about domain names from those outside the domain community. But easier said than done.
Bob

 

[Name Trader]

It still all boils down to the merit of the domain. If you offered cars.com to the Janitor he is going to tell the ceo.

Maybe not if the company sells chicken poop

 

[biggie]

Hi

from my experience

those who have difficulty getting a sale, question the various sales platform the most

and those who are getting sales, rarely question the platforms where they get sales from.

most know how to add predicted commissions in price.
and to me, who the buyer was, is not as important as amount the domain sold for.
but if i wanted to know, it's not hard to find out.

imo...

 

[branding]

A business wants to purchase incognito, the hired broker will claim poor student status when purchasing the domain. They will purchase a 150k domain for 15k and the person selling has no idea until the domain goes live. I see it again and again, including a sale to facebook which was discussed on the forum here. Everyone was ..... good sale, way to go. I was like huh!! seriously??? to facebook at that price??? Crap I would have slapped my head a few times had I sold it to facebook on the cheap like that.
Show attachment 107210

Got a link? Somehow I missed that.