reviews Your biggest FLOPS - Let's talk the other side too.

[vickyhunter]

There are two sides of a coin. It's amazing to discuss the FLIPS, but there will also be a few FLOPS in our lifetime. This thread is not to discourage - far from it - but to be aware of what kind of domains did not do well over the period of time - and what not to do when selling them - and so on. There is a lesson to be learnt from everything, even from the flops.

So, go ahead. Share your biggest FLOP over the time and add a small comment why that happened and share your advice with the fellow domainers.

Cheers !
- Vicky

 

[kconan]

Since I would classify myself a "serious dabbler" domainer/websiter and not hardcore, I've not had a doomsday scenario with domains or websites. My worst was picking up a domain for a somewhat popular bodybuilding forum for about 300 bucks off GoDaddy auctions, and my sole intention was directing that decent amount of traffic to another fitness/bodybuilding forum which I was planning to build from scratch. Only days later my boss told me to move back to my company's home office and so I didn't have time to work on the new forum.

I've still got the domain, but the traffic obviously died down so much from being redirected to a placeholder page that it isn't worth anywhere near my initial investment.

 

[garptrader]

Every day one can see a huge list of flops by reviewing the expiring domains lists - thousands of domains which someone once thought were valuable which eventually they realized were not so valuable.

 

[alexdon82]

I sold one nnnnn.com on namepros for $30 but forgot to remove it from 4.cn.
One month later got 15 000 RMB(~$2500) offer there, but name was not mine anymore...

 

[JyotiG]

I bought a bunch of expensive 1 word .asia domains (costing close to a thousand) when it first came out thinking I'm gonna land myself a big payday when I resell them. What I found myself landed on was huge renewal fees for domains that were doing nothing and eventually dropped all of them...

I registered a .ninja domain which I thought was really cool. Guess what its not! We all learn from our mistakes.

 

[RogueWriter]

Early into my domaining hobby, I registered a bunch of .bz domains, figuring people would naturally buy these domains for their 'business'. Which always leads me warn new domainers to take their time, don't register a bunch of names until you have a few sales under your belt and have read through np extensively.

 

[cocaseco]

I have lots of flops, but I don't usually spent big money so the losses are small. Of course the potential gains are smaller with less risk, but my "sweet" spot is in the middle to middle-low market.

 

[James Rodman]

So, basically, it's not a flop.

lol no. my point is flops will happen . you can't become rich without taking risks unless you win the lottery which you paid $5 for the winning ticket lol.

 

[GoWebnames.com]

My biggest flop was buying B.bike domain at $650 with $250 annual renewal.
Bought it thinking it's a single letter name and would fetch around $1500 at least. Big mistake.
Realized it was a loser, I let it go @ $115 few days before expiry. Was happy, I could recoup at least $115.
Ah, the new gTLDs !!

 

[humbug1s1k]

Never had huge losses, more having to let domains drop which havent sold due to financial constraints at the time of renewal......I've let a domain drop before and then seen it sell for high xxx months later, also let my own name drop and lost it to another guy when I went back to reg it a few months later....

 

[SirDrago]

The feeling of buying a "premium" domain name then realising that it's not a "L"etter O but a "N"umber zero in the name.
Needless to say I should've showed more patience instead my greed for a quick great deal got me burnt.

 

[JyotiG]

I registered a .com and got an offer on that after 2 weeks for $150. I didn't sell it then thinking that it would sell for more and listed it on Flippa with No Reserve. I only got one bid on it and had to sell it for $1! Yes only $1. This was my biggest flop and I still curse myself sometime for not taking that offer.

 

[chloe321]

I bought a bunch of expensive 1 word .asia domains (costing close to a thousand) when it first came out thinking I'm gonna land myself a big payday when I resell them. What I found myself landed on was huge renewal fees for domains that were doing nothing and eventually dropped all of them...

 

[awei]

didnt realize it was "layboybeauty.com" until i got the confirmation email
sucker!
i blame myself for being careless
and i feel bad for the guy who regged it
if he had regged a lousy name like this
very likely he regged more than one lousy name like this

 

[daj]

I sold ibackgammon (.com) for $146 in a namepros auction and the winning bidder ended up reselling it for $2500 months later. I still made a profit on it (it was a $1 domain I hand regged on GoDaddy) but I could of made a much bigger profit if I held on to the domain...

 

[21x20]

This is a helpful thread.

I've had times where I've been extremely hard on myself for not foreseeing one trend or another. I don't really want to disclose my specific flops, but let's just say, since I started in '99 if I had played everything correctly, I'd have a couple million extra off a basket of names that I either sold too early or just decided not to renew because budgets were tight at the time.

 

[Willox Perez]

Really great thread just read the stories and this is definitely great to see because we all deal with the flops at one point or another.

For me so far the biggest flop was a missed opportunity. There was a name my partner Omar and I were battling in an auction for, the auction was at $140 and we starting hesitating as to this domain being worth it. We really did want the domain but were not sure if we should continue bidding.

In the end the other person we were going against got it for $143. Forward about 1 month later and we come across the .com name on Flippa sold for $1800.

Can you believe that? So for hesitating we ended up losing out on making what ended up being over 1000% return on investment.

Definitely the biggest flop but also the biggest lesson learned.

 

[vickyhunter]

You didn't Order Sushi, right?

Really great thread just read the stories and this is definitely great to see because we all deal with the flops at one point or another.

For me so far the biggest flop was a missed opportunity. There was a name my partner Omar and I were battling in an auction for, the auction was at $140 and we starting hesitating as to this domain being worth it. We really did want the domain but were not sure if we should continue bidding.

In the end the other person we were going against got it for $143. Forward about 1 month later and we come across the .com name on Flippa sold for $1800.

Can you believe that? So for hesitating we ended up losing out on making what ended up being over 1000% return on investment.

Definitely the biggest flop but also the biggest lesson learned.

 

[vickyhunter]

Come on guys. We all learn from our mistakes. Share your Flops and your advice.

 

[vickyhunter]

Hmmm... We hope to hear from more people here. As I said we learn from our mistakes

 

[GoWebnames.com]

@SirDrago Was it you who bought 0il.com ??

 

[SirDrago]

@SirDrago Was it you who bought 0il.com ??

Haha, I struck mud instead!
But no, that wasn't me.

 

[kawalsukhi]

I am lucky that I have no FLOPs so far in 2 years.
some domains I am not able to renew makes some loss of $2-$10 roughly no major FLOP!!

E.g.

Few months back, I purchased 52 LLL.biz (in $6) which were nearly expiring within 1-2 months. I sold 40 of them in $565 and rest 12 got expired and I dont renew them and let them expired.

So this kind of flops sometime happened with me.

I invest very calmly and always with low investment though returns are always profitable and some are more profitable.

Those names which I think cant flip like new extensions I will not invest in them and stay focus on .com, .net, .org and .info only as research says its still much lovable than other extensions!!

 

[imadoer]

My biggest flop was spending $400 on hand regs that i paid full price for.
I think i ended up with 38 domains. a month later i figured out they were crap i sold them all for 2 bucks a peice so i lost 300 and change..... i wish i had some gd coupon codes at that time lol....

 

[vickyhunter]

Hope this post has been a learning experience for some of us. Thank you for all who have contributed, but frankly we would like to hear more !

Cheers,
Vicky

 

[chloe321]

bought a domains for $40 bcos of the fake traffic the seller presented to me here @ namepros. To bad not even a visitor. Lost my hard earn cash

I hope you reported to the mods about this? We don't need people like that here!