Why is it so hard to sell domains ?

[doridori]

i find it is very difficult to sell domains. any suggestions ?

also smart remarks like "get a better domain" are not necessary here. i find liquidity is a problem here, so need to find alternatives to sedo and etc.

 

[akcampbell]

On the other hand you are here giving people advice

I don't agree. I said "I'm not suggesting people go and invest in .pro domains." You say I'm giving advice. I said "$2,000 is nothing in the context of my $80,000 investment" You say I should be open about my losses.

If I invest in a start up company I get no dividends and there is no market to sell the shares on. I would therefore be making a loss in your eyes. If I start a business selling lemonade, I have to buy the lemons and the cups, again I am making a loss based on your definition. The reality is I'm not making a loss on my shares or lemons until I sell them at a loss.

Whether or not I get it right early on depends on how long the cake takes to bake and my expectations. If I don't sell my lemonade fast, my lemons will go off, my stock will have to be written off and I have lost money. I will sell lemonade faster and reduce the risk of that if I accept a lower margin. With shares, I could hold them for 10-20 years but provided the size of the cake I have a slice of keeps growing, I'm doing OK.

Alternative extensions are like shares in a startup company, they are illiquid and don't pay dividends. They may or may not gain or lose value over time but that process is gradual. You do not know "fairly early" if you will make money. If I buy a .com and I'm looking to make a 20% return on my investment I may know fairly early but if I buy a .pro and I'm looking to make a 1,000%+ return as I did with Switch.pro, it's going to take a while. To achieve my goal, I need seismic shifts in the market for .pro, I got one in September 2008, and hopefully there are more to come.

In March 2010 the .pro registry have to renew their management contract with ICANN and my view is that after 5 years off losses the new contract will have to be more commercially viable. I believe this will involve removing or relaxing the current restrictions, that will lead to more registrar take up, more price competition on reg fees, more awareness, and better times ahead for .pro registrants.

 

[snoop]

I don't agree. I said "I'm not suggesting people go and invest in .pro domains." You say I'm giving advice. I said "$2,000 is nothing in the context of my $80,000 investment" You say I should be open about my losses.

The rest of the sentence is obviously advice.

all I'm saying is if you didn't have the luxury of regging .coms in the mid to late 90s, you need to find a niche and be one of the key players in that niche. Secondly, if you can find a niche where there is potential for goal post shifting; in registration eligibility, pricing, registrar take up, mindset penetration, value appreciation etc, that will further improve your odds of selling.

The important thing is to know your market and offer value. My market is the extension savvy developer who wants a blockbuster single keyword for branding purposes but only wants to pay a small fraction of the .com, .net, or .org cost. I'm offering France.pro for sale at $4,500 on another NP thread with that logic in mind. France in any other gTLD would cost alot more than $4,500 so it's a cheap way to get the stellar keyword, a credible domain extension, and SEO geo-neutrality. Paris.pro sold for $2,888 in 2006 so even compared to similar keyword sales it offers good value, especially when you factor in the sixfold rise in .pro registrations since then.

If I invest in a start up company I get no dividends and there is no market to sell the shares on. I would therefore be making a loss in your eyes.

If I start a business selling lemonade, I have to buy the lemons and the cups, again I am making a loss based on your definition. The reality is I'm not making a loss on my shares or lemons until I sell them at a loss.

No, A loss is when you buy an item that reduces in value over time without receiving revenue to cover it, ie spending money on registration fees with no or low sales.

Alternative extensions are like shares in a startup company, they are illiquid and don't pay dividends.

I think they are more like then lemons personally, esp reg fee names. When you say they are illiquid, all domains are liquid, what varies is the price. If the name doesn't sell the obvious reason for that is the price.

You do not know "fairly early" if you will make money.

Of course the people spending the money "don't know" that. If they did they wouldn't keep renewing. I'm just saying what I have seen, if people don't make money the first year they usually never do, they just keep hoping.

If I buy a .com and I'm looking to make a 20% return on my investment I may know fairly early but if I buy a .pro and I'm looking to make a 1,000%+ return as I did with Switch.pro, it's going to take a while.

$80,000 in, $2000 out, that is not a 1000%+ return. Don't kid yourself on this.

To achieve my goal, I need seismic shifts in the market for .pro, I got one in September 2008, and hopefully there are more to come.

As I suggested above rarely does that happen, unless the model works today it is very unlikely to work tomorrow. People get regged fee'd out waiting for "seismic shifts".

 

[MicroGuy]

Why does every discussion that akcampbell enters become a .PRO promotional thread? Oh well, I guess he picked a good one this time as .PRO domains certainly are hard to sell.

 

[akcampbell]

The rest of the sentence is obviously advice.

I advised the OP to pick a niche and be one of the key players, I didn't advise them to register .pro, I expressly said that I wasn't suggesting they did. There is a very big difference.

No, A loss is when you buy an item that reduces in value over time without receiving revenue to cover it, ie spending money on registration fees with no or low sales.

That's not the case with my .pros, they have gained in value. I know that objectively by how much I have to pay on SnapNames now for premium .pros versus how much I could pick them up for on SnapNames this time last year versus how much I had to pay when I started buying .pros in 2007. The trend is up. Go to the .pro thread and ask how much they would pay for Play.pro, Gadget.pro, Piano.pro, Expert.pro, Digital.pro, London.pro at, then we can compare it to how much I paid.

I think they are more like then lemons personally, esp reg fee names. When you say they are illiquid, all domains are liquid, what varies is the price. If the name doesn't sell the obvious reason for that is the price.

I disagree, liquidity is about being able to sell something for fair value not being able to sell it full stop. If what you are saying is true there would be no such thing as an illiquid market because virtually everything can be sold if you sell it cheap enough. Since people talk in terms of liquid and illiquid markets, there is some distinction going on independent of pricing. I held shares in several venture capital trusts, I had to sell them at a discount to net asset value because the market in the shares in illiquid, the net asset value of the underlying assets was fair value, the discount was the price I paid for the illiquid market.

Of course the people spending the money "don't know" that. If they did they wouldn't keep renewing. I'm just saying what I have seen, if people don't make money the first year they usually never do, they just keep hoping.

If I buy a share today for $1, next year turns out to be $1, and in 10 years time it is $100, I need to hold for 10 year to make the money.

$80,000 in, $2000 out, that is not a 1000%+ return. Don't kid yourself on this.

I'm not kidding myself about anything. I have sold 1 .pro for a 1,000%+ return, I hold alot of .pros that would be worth a similar multiple of my acquisition cost. If I my 350 .pros gradually dropped, they would sell on SnapNames for alot more than $78,000, I'm in the money not out of it. I choose not to sell my .pros at the first opportunity I get because I feel the value appreciation across my portfolio year on year justifies the reg fees. Have you ever heard of the concept of an unrealised profit?

As I suggested above rarely does that happen, unless the model works today it is very unlikely to work tomorrow. People get regged fee'd out waiting for "seismic shifts".

The model works today for .pro. I regged heavily at 6,500 .pros and $99 reg fees, there are now 40,000 .pros and reg fees are $19.99. That has increased the value of .pro. Join some of the .pros auctions on SnapNames and see for yourself what these dropping domains go for. For example, I'm currently bidding on Deal.pro along with 7 other bidders, Deal.pro was registered in September 06 at $99, the following year it would have cost another $99 to renew, then $20 in 08, then finally $20 in 09. That makes $240 in total, the current high bid is mine at $360, the next highest bid is $335. $335 minus $240 reg fees cumulatively is $95 profit. That $95 margin is likely to rise before the auction finishes, add on $99 because I regged from 2007 onwards so I had one less year of high reg fees and if the average quality of my 260 hand regged and drop caught .pros are on average the same as Deal.pro, I'm making 260 x the current $195 margin. If we assume Deal.pro sells for the current price, remove my bid, and assume my 260 hand regged or low priced Snapnames drop caught .pro domains are on average the same quality as Deal.pro which isn't unreasonable, I'm still up about $50,000 in unrealised profit. Theoretically, my unrealised profits go up $26,000 for each $100 extra somebody else bids for Deal.pro if we use that domain to extrapolate from. Then there are profits I'm making on .pros I bought cheap on the aftermarket in 2007 and 2008 which are now worth more because of the September 08 .pro rule and reg fees changes. My assumptions can take a battering before I end up making a paper loss and I haven't included the possibility for selling a .pro to an end user who will pay far more than the price it would realise at SnapNames like I did with Switch.pro.

Why does every discussion that akcampbell enters become a .PRO promotional thread? Oh well, I guess he picked a good one this time as .PRO domains certainly are hard to sell.

Because whenever I draw on my experience of .pro to discuss a general point about domaining the same 3-4 people on NP, including youself, who hate alternative extensions, try to put me in my place. Very kindly, they are willing to invest hours of their valuable time sparring with me. As I pointed out on another thread last week according to DNJournal you had a 1 in 13,000 chance of selling a .pro, statistically those are better odds than you would have of selling one of the 110m .coms, .nets, .orgs, .biz and .infos registered. Considering that at this juncture only 10% of people can register a .pro and only 10% of registrars sell them, that's pretty good.

 

[snoop]

I'm not kidding myself about anything. I have sold 1 .pro for a 1,000%+ return, I hold alot of .pros that would be worth a similar multiple of my acquisition cost.

People claim the same thing in other extensions. They sell one name out of 500 for 100 times reg fee then claim that is a profit, it isn't, it is a loss. The cost of that sale was 500 X reg fee, not 1 X reg fee. These types of domainer don't survive in the industry because despite however they justify it it doesn't make sense. You can say all your other names are worth similiar amounts but the reality is that is very unlikely, otherwise you'd have sold more than one name. Switch.pro at $2000 sounds like an enduser price rather than being reflective of what you can sell all your names at.

If I my 350 .pros gradually dropped, they would sell on SnapNames for alot more than $78,000, I'm in the money not out of it. I choose not to sell my .pros at the first opportunity I get because I feel the value appreciation across my portfolio year on year justifies the reg fees. Have you ever heard of the concept of an unrealised profit?

Try and actually sell your names for the prices you ae talking about and tell me how you go. Not much point saying "if my names dropped", "if I were snapnames".

 

[akcampbell]

Switch.pro at $2000 sounds like an enduser price rather than being reflective of what you can sell all your names at.

"...and I haven't included the possibility for selling a .pro to an end user who will pay far more than the price it would realise at SnapNames like I did with Switch.pro"

I don't think I can spell it out any more clearly than that so not sure why you made the comment.

Try and actually sell your names for the prices you ae talking about and tell me how you go. Not much point saying "if my names dropped", "if I were snapnames".

I don't want to sell my domains, that's the point. I think they will be worth more than the extra future reg fees plus the current reseller price at some point in the future. Therefore to gauge whether I am making unrealised profits or losses I use Snapnames as the best available proxy for reseller prices. That is not unreasonable.

To justify my domaining strategy to you, I would need to be turning over domains for a profit regularly to prove my stock was rising in value. However, my stock could be rising in value even if I don't make a sale.

My optimum sales strategy is to sell my .pros over time at the point where the discounted future sales price less purchase price or reg fee less accumulated discounted future rewewal fees is maximised. In simple terms, if my average .pro is rising in value by more than the $19.99 renewal fee each year and the surplus over $19.99 is a decent return on the capital tied up, I should continue to hold. At the moment, that is what is happening with .pro, I am making more from value appreciation than I am spending on reg fees.

I take your point about domainer hubris, I'm fully aware that what I'm doing might not work. However, this is a hobby not a day job. I don't need to make any money out of it. However, don't assume just because this is .pro, not .com, that I don't do my homework or that I kid myself about how difficult it is to make money from alternative extensions.

I acquired Truck.pro yesterday for $59, Truck.com sold for $101,000 in Jan 04, Truck.ws sold for $1,250 in May 09, and Truck.us sold for $3,150 in Aug 07. Can you appreciate why somebody might want to use Truck and Pro in a truck related brand?

 

[snoop]

I don't want to sell my domains, that's the point. I think they will be worth more than the extra future reg fees plus the current reseller price at some point in the future. Therefore to gauge whether I am making unrealised profits or losses I use Snapnames as the best available proxy for reseller prices. That is not unreasonable.

All this argument is "fuzzy logic" in my view rather than being based on real revenue. You lecture us on .pro in any thread you can but in reality you have spent $80,000, with $2000 revenue. You tell us about expiring prices but that isn't a market you can sell into. Then you tell us how much .pro prices have risen but on the other hand you bought truck.pro for $59.

 

[mjbenterprises]

I kind of agree with the last statement.... If Truck.pro sold for only $59, that isn't a good indicator for the future of .pro...

 

[akcampbell]

All this argument is "fuzzy logic" in my view rather than being based on real revenue.

Investing in alternative extensions is like investing in art by little known or unknown artists. You buy the art cheap but sometimes still have to pay a premium to the existing market price to persuade the seller to sell. You then hold the art, you don't sell it after year 1 or year 2 because an artist isn't going to go from being unknown to well known in that time.

There is no "real revenue" in this business model at the outset because you don't sell anything. You could, but you may have to accept slightly less or only get slightly more than you paid originally because your artist is still relatively unknown. The economic logic for holding is that the value appreciation is greater than the cost of tying the capital up and renewals, at least you hope so, the only way to gauge that is other sales in the market. In a thin market, it's difficult to be sure about that.

One day you will turn down an offer of $4,500 for Offshore.pro, the next you will spend $5,000 to buy a masterpiece by your chosen artist like Game.pro, the next you will sell Switch.pro to an end user for $2,000, the next you will buy Truck.pro for $59 because whoever bought it initially for $350 didn't pay.

Most artists stay little known, but some slowly gain a following and over time become more recognised and appreciated. .pro might not be the next Van Gogh and the lifespan of the DNS system might not be hundreds of years but .pro is a geo-neutral gTLD, it sounds good, is commercially oriented, and very brandable so I'm relaxed about having no "real revenue" in return for potential value appreciation over time. Total registrations are up sixfold in the last year and I'm satisfied with the progress .pro is making.

 

[Kate]

To get back to the original topic: I think domains are tough to sell because end users are uneducated... but the fact remains that only a tiny portion of the domain supply has any value. The zone files are stuffed with junk IMO.
In this game it's all about quality and not quantity :talk:
Plus, you've got to be patient.

 

[MicroGuy]

I kind of agree with the last statement.... If Truck.pro sold for only $59, that isn't a good indicator for the future of .pro...

Exactly. Looks like all the .PRO pumping is for naught.

 

[akcampbell]

I kind of agree with the last statement.... If Truck.pro sold for only $59, that isn't a good indicator for the future of .pro...

I take your point but you have to look at all .pro sales to get a rounded view, not just the one I managed to pick up 2-3 months after a Snapnames auction has ended at $350 with the buyer not paying. In fairness,I bid $330 for Truck.pro and today I bought Airplane.pro for $485 so it's not everyday you pick up something like Truck.pro for $59. I put in hours and hours of effort to pick up .pros cheap. For example, one time I bought a watch with a vibrating alarm from a website for deaf people, I got up at 5:00AM four mornings in a row without waking my wife, and on the final morning I caught Play.pro when it dropped, this was before Snapnames covered .pro.

If you look on dnsaleprice, the last 10 .pro sales have an average sale price of $2,800. Another fact that might interest you, not one of the previous 10 .pros sold for less than $1,000. If you check, not even .com, .net, and .org can't match that. Yes, it's due to timing, it doesn't happen every month, but it shows that .pro often sells for $X,XXX+. Also, check the keyword quality of the last 10 .pros sold, only one of the keywords is what I would describe as blockbuster from a domaining angle.

The underlying reason for this trend is that .pros are tightly held by a handful of people who don't need to sell and coveted by people who have more money than the average domainer because they are qualified professionals. If somebody bought Truck.com on Snapnames for $10,000, it would be high fives all round, nobody would say that reflected badly on .com, we are in a very difficult market for domains so there are bargains to be had in every extension. I was very tempted to bid for the UK equivalent of Truck.com, Lorry.com, it sold on Snapnames about 3 months ago for under $10,000, a complete steal considering how much the average lorry costs and how much money there is in leasing, maintenance, and so on but these are the times were live in.

One thing to bear in mind with any .pro sale is that only a tiny number of people have heard of .pro, the vast majority of people aren't eligible to register them, and very few big registrars offer them, it's really only Network Solutions. So to bang out 10 $1,000+ sales in a row in the last 5-6 weeks with only 40,000 domains registered, .pro is doing wonderfully well. The reason for this success in spite of the uncommercial restrictions, lack of registrars and absence of registry marketing is down to one inescapable fact, .pro has a wow factor, it sounds impressive. Pro branding is pervasive in business as demonstrated by the 15,000+ US trademarks with Pro in.

 

[barefoottech]

Easy to sell anything, even domains
2 things are needed
DESIRABLE name and Affordable Price.
Most names being offered for sale have NEITHER characteristic.

 

[JAugusto]

Go IDN. Domaining like if we were on the 90's.

50% of the IDNs for sale, sale. In here? 5%?

 

[bgmv]

The days of hand registering domains and flipping them for a profit are over.

So far from true - there are many of us on this board that flip handregs for 1000% profit everyday - I am one of them.

Its not as hard as one would think you just have to be diligent and read a lot. It requires a lot of patience and perseverance, dont get discouraged. Start reading DN Journal and realize what makes a good domain, there is a trend. Also start taking a look at Namebio.com and see what kind of domains are selling - once you have an idea start scanning expired domain lists and flip to end users. I have flipped regfee domains with every extension, .com, .net, org, info, us, biz, tv, hyphenated dot nets, 27 character .com - there are people out there that will buy, just be smart about it and dont be greedy.

 

[namemarket]

The big problem with .pro is they would get basically zero natural traffic and even if they appear on search results may not get hits because of a lack of recognition and possible seo negativity by the SEs (but far from sure on that aspect).

I believe only .com and .org normally get good natural traffic but possible with other ext too but much less likely.

Truck.pro for $59 says a lot about the values.

 

[akcampbell]

The big problem with .pro is they would get basically zero natural traffic

Alternative extensions get very little natural traffic. I have top .infos like Rates.info, Prices.info, Savings.info, and Coupons.info, and they get very few clicks. Only .coms get type in traffic and even then only a small % of .coms get type in traffic as a % of the 81m registered.

and even if they appear on search results may not get hits because of a lack of recognition and possible seo negativity by the SEs (but far from sure on that aspect).

Google doesn't give ranking preference to any gTLD. Ranking is a factor of backlinks, content, SEO and domain age. The least important of those is domain age but it is a factor. If you think otherwise, please quote some SEO books, author, year published that says otherwise.

I can code in PHP and HTML and develop websites, I have read many SEO books and that's what they say. Here's one of the many books I have read on the subject. David Viney is one of the most respected SEO experts in the UK.

Get to the Top on Google: Tips and Techniques to Get Your Site to the Top of Google and Stay There: Amazon.co.uk: David Viney: Books

Here's another specialist SEO tips website that specifically and very categorically addresses this question.

Do Domain Extensions Matter? - SEO Web Tips blog

.pro offers gTLD geo-neutrality which is critical if you want to want to get a website ranked in local Google websites.

Truck.pro for $59 says a lot about the values.

The last 10 reported .pro sales on dnsaleprice have an average price of $2,800. Each sale is over $1,000, this is no matched by the last 10 reported sales in .com, .net, and .org. What does that say about .pro prices?

 

[mulligan]

Ok, so I skipped through the long winded posts and replies >> Trouble selling (or getting offers?) = a shitty / no demand domain .. Not talking about earning revenue / or some foolhardy attempt at development here, even the 'shittiest' domain can make good $$

 

[ebatcave]

"Why is it so hard to sell domains?" That's an interesting question. I've been investing for two years now, and like many others before and after me, had to learn the hard way and find a niche that works in order to survive. I've come to the conclusion that randomly hand registering domains and/or buying domains in the reseller market is a very high gamble unless you have domains that are fairly liquid to other resellers. Most domainers are looking for the quick flip because they don't want to tie up their cash for long. The one's I've found to be liquid? High quality 4Ls and 3Ls .coms - CVCV's, premium letters, pronounceables, etc. Many domainers hate 'em, but there is a good following of ones that love 'em. Seems like it's one extreme or the other with domainers, LOL! Yes, there are thousands of bad quality ones (I know, because I used to buy them!), but quality ones seem to have a fairly easy way to convert to cash in Sedo or even domainer threads. But again, these are 99% to resellers only, and there's still a high risk of making any money with them. In today's market, however, you can't find these for reasonable prices for a quick flip, unfortunately. I'm sitting on about 1,500 of those "gems" and quite frankly, I don't know if they'll go up much in value or not -- time will tell.

I've had some end user sales, but I don't market domains at all, so these come strictly by chance - end users who check whois and diligently seek out my domains. Other than the usual spam e-mails, I get serious offers from time to time. I would have to go back and check my spreadsheet, but I think I cleared around $25,000 this year - not much in the scheme of things and certainly not enough to make a living...

So bottom line is, after spending thousands of hours reading threads over the past two years, I don't see any straight forward way to making money with domains directly. I'm sure there are some unique ways to do it, especially if you have several million to invest at any time on highly desired generics. But I'm fairly confident in making this statement: If there is truly a way to do it, you can bet the ones that are successful aren't going to share their secrets because it probably took them years of trial and error to perfect their process.

To end this long winded message, I will say that I finally did find my niche with good success, and that is with traffic domains. I make enough (well into mid $xxx,xxx annually after expenses) to be somewhat successful and have basically mastered the process. So selling domains on their own merits, I'm not so good at, but traffic domains is another story

I'll keep monitoring this thread and maybe a wealthy domainer will drop a bread crumb of wisdom off their dinner table and share with us peons how to make money selling domains!

 

[snoop]

the next you will buy Truck.pro for $59 because whoever bought it initially for $350 didn't pay.

If the person bidding against you is a shill that doesn't make it worth $350. It sounds to me that when that bidder was taken out $59 is where the auction was at.

---------- Post added at 04:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:22 PM ----------

The last 10 reported .pro sales on dnsaleprice have an average price of $2,800. Each sale is over $1,000, this is no matched by the last 10 reported sales in .com, .net, and .org. What does that say about .pro prices?

It probably says they are pulling their data mostly from dnjournal who don't report sales under $1000.