strategy Your Reason For Trading Domains - Why/How Did You Start?

[GetBigDomains]

I'm curious to hear from established and newbies..

What was your real reason for getting into domain sales (your motivation)?
How did you stumble upon it/start selling on day 1?
How much was the first domain you bought?
Where was your first sale auction/private?
How long did it take you to sell one?
Who contacted who?
What tools do you use for domain handling if not Excel?
How many names have you cancelled, dropped, forgotten/lost?
What would you tell yourself if you were starting today?

 

[mitok]

I'm curious to hear from established and newbies..

What was your real reason for getting into domain sales (your motivation)?

I liked the idea of trading with domain names, doing that from any location that allows you to go online, doing that at the time you like and to make money of course. Later I realized that domaining is also my way to freedom as I am no more a slave of some corporation.

How did you stumble upon it/start selling on day 1?

I get this idea in 90-es, but unfortunately didnt start at that time. It was clear to me that (quality) domain names will have big value, but was occupied with other things at that time and did not start right away.

How much was the first domain you bought?

Reg fee

Where was your first sale auction/private?

I think here at NP

How long did it take you to sell one?

I think 2-3 weeks.

Who contacted who?

Not sure if I listed it for sale here or offered it via PM.

What tools do you use for domain handling if not Excel?

Word, e-mail, paper & pen and registrars data When I exited the corporate world I lost my Excell skills And I dont miss them

How many names have you cancelled, dropped, forgotten/lost?
[/QUOTE]

Probably x,xxx. Among them were about 50 LLLL.coms which I had at some wild registrar where I used some wild e-mail address so I have forgotten to renew them on time. Those LLLL.coms would be worth $x,xxx each today as they were either the type that we call chips today, or highly pronounceable.

What would you tell yourself if you were starting today?[/QUOTE]

Dont be lazy, do your homework and consider domaining as a real job (and work 5 days a week) and you will make a lot of money.
I cant force myself to work seriously even 5 days a month However, it is still enough to have domaining as my only job.
What I mean by "work seriously"? Get a knowledge and start working (searching for domain names and then for the end-users). If you will wait for an offer via Sedo and Afternic, you will be hardly able to rely just on domaining for a living. You should do outbounds with lower quality domains (which when chosen correctly will yield a regular $xxx and $x,xxx sales) and wait for the offers with a better quality domains.

 

[creataweb]

BTW I only paid reg fees for all my domains in the beginning, never from a reseller or domainer. Also I looked for names I could use for my projects or ideas more than anything else. I don't remember how long until the first offer came but it was pretty fast considering I never listed them for sale anywhere.

 

[kunkka]

What was your real reason for getting into domain sales (your motivation)?

To try and learn something new. Only thing i knew was what the domain is. And of course - to make some money, eventually.

How did you stumble upon it/start selling on day 1?

While i did some research on the net. Found an article about it. There was NP mentioned in the article, and here i am.

How much was the first domain you bought?

$1 - hand reg (dropped it)

Where was your first sale auction/private?

Here on NP - inbound offer.

How long did it take you to sell one?

8 months.

Who contacted who?

The buyer contacted me, made an offer and i accepted it. It was my first ever domain sale so i was hyped and didn't want to negotiate. Took the initial offer just to feel that sweet 'domain sale' taste.

What tools do you use for domain handling if not Excel?

Paper and pen. Probably cause i won just 15 domains.

How many names have you cancelled, dropped, forgotten/lost?

Cancelled - 0
Dropped - 7
Forgot/Lost - 0

What would you tell yourself if you were starting today?

Get bigger budget.

 

[blockchain]

Your Reason For Trading Domains - Why/How Did You Start?

i need money for food

 

[GetBigDomains]

I'm not a newbie.
I registered my first domain in 1999 around the time I was studying.
I was away from domains after running a site called Sing2Win..co.uk which was a tester really.
I ran the competition for less than 1 year.
I remember registering some good names at the start but forgetting about them.
I registered to many names with one company and ended up losing many.
I have sold premium name for cheap.
I have missed a matching premium name that went for silly money.
I have won in flippa and NamePros.
I have missed a nice .info here and told myself off after... loans.info
I have bought from chat (which I regret some)

I was busy raising a family
My eldest is now finishing university.
My middle is a footballer.
My youngest is a maths wiz.

Currently I'm recovering from an operation. And seem to have some neurological twitches.
I did not get much sleep for a while. I took a break from the computer and lost many more names.

My reason for selling domains is an additional income. I want to be successful in many things.
There's so much I still want to do...
But I no longer wish to waste my time.

When I joined NP I wanted to learn for myself through experience. And was quite stubborn at times.
Surprisingly some pages I made began to rank well in Alexa - randomly the ones I'd least expect.
It was also a bit of an experiment. Using various hosts and methods of publishing.
Catchy long tail names and cheesy kind of names. LOL
I think that to be successful with selling or flipping domains and parking revenues / redirects
you need to be much more in the know and read all the threads. Don't guess and waste your money.

I wanted to learn more in practice the Online Marketing Diploma I had take - an online course.
So that when I apply for a job I had a broader knowledge and practical experience.
Using Adwords, Adsense, Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools and so forth.

So I'm looking out for a job that is local or online now. And will hold around 20 domains as a PT hobby.

Thanks for all your replies!

 

[imadoer]

I was looking on Google for a way to get rich discovered the ebet sale I was floored that you could sell a name and at that very moment a light exploded in my head and I knew that this is what I wanted to do with my life

 

[Doron Vermaat]

What was your real reason for getting into domain sales (your motivation)?

I co-founded an employment website for the Greater China region in 2006. That company didn’t make it and was shut down four years later. The domain, which was administered by a web development company, was neglected and ultimately expired from Network Solutions in December 2012. I wanted to relaunch the site so I did some research to find out how to gain ownership of the domain again once it would drop.
This led me to NameJet where all the expired inventory from NetSol is being auctioned. At NameJet I learned about the domain name aftermarket, drops and auctions. That month I won the auction for the NewChinaCareer.com domain name but also started bidding on several others that caught my eye. I was hooked right away.

How much was the first domain you bought?

I paid $314 for the NewChinaCareer.com domain name and some other names I purchased at NameJet that same week were RecipeDog.com for $59, AKKZ.com for $200, Ebore.com for $59, Ehila.com for $59, ActionBee.com for $59, OnlyJobs.com for $375 and HongKongFlats.com for $69

Where was your first sale auction/private?

My first sale was Obria.com which sold for $ 4,696.00 at BrandBucket.

How long did it take you to sell one?

It sold in August 2013 so it was 8 months after I started investing in domain names. I did receive and turned down several offers for other domains at that time but Obria.com was the first finalized sale.

What tools do you use for domain handling if not Excel?

I eat my own dogfood, Efty.

How many names have you cancelled, dropped, forgotten/lost?

What would you tell yourself if you were starting today?

Quality over quantity. As you can see above I dropped a significant number of domains over the years and my profits could have been a lot higher if it wasn't for all the rubbish I purchased during my first couple of years. But,... this is also the cost of an education

 

[creataweb]

Nice. So you've been in it from the start more or less?
I remember getting into IT & Music.
I think I reg'd a couple but was more into my music in those days..

What happened was I wanted to make a website for a project I was working on and needed a domain. I bought one. Then I bought a few more and got an offer randomly (via email - name was never listed for sale) one day and was like, hey I can just sell this for profit because I can use any name for my projects.

Then it happened again and I was hooked. 2 easy sales in a row for doing no work, decent returns on my investment.

Before all that I did attempt buying domains to resell in the 1990s but it was a tougher setup back then. The name I wanted was shown as available and I paid the $70 but then found out later it was taken for years already and had to fight to get a refund. I then left it alone for a few years until the story above happened, and also when names dropped in price a little more.

 

[JB Lions]

What was your real reason for getting into domain sales (your motivation)?
Money, another stream of online income.

How did you stumble upon it/start selling on day 1?
Knew about domains from making sites before I actually became a "domainer"

How much was the first domain you bought?
Hand reg.

Where was your first sale auction/private?
Bido

How long did it take you to sell one?
Shortly after I put them up for auction.

What tools do you use for domain handling if not Excel?
Excel

How many names have you cancelled, dropped, forgotten/lost?
Hundreds+

What would you tell yourself if you were starting today?
Keep buying .coms you can imagine sites being built on (aka end users)

First domain ever bought around year 2000 for a site.

Bought 4 .me domains because I got caught up in the hype when they came out. Overall, I made nice profit from .me, only have 1 left, rest .com.

When the first anniversary came up, was going to let them all drop but decided to throw them up on Bido. Sold all 4 for profit. Thought, this was easy, and that got me hooked, in 2009.

First domain I bought "as a domainer" was sand ____________.com after watching this video:

Look at Kseniya do her thing, she had some people crying:

 

[JB Lions]

So even though you lost many names it is all worth it?
Keeping the end user in mind. Not your own ideas lol. (as I began with a zillion)...
I loved this video BTW

Yes, it's worth it since I've been working from home since 2002, freedom. And the lost domains/not renewing is more at the beginning. Consider that your education, finding out what works/doesn't work, for you. For example, 1 thing I noticed for most of the domains I don't renew, is that they were only registered in .com and not 1 other extension. The ones I have that tend to get the most offers/sales, are usually registered in many different extensions. And that just makes sense. Now, I easily renew 90%+ of my domains.

 

[alwaysforGod]

Domaining just sort of fell in line with other projects I had going on, but was discovered by myself quite on accident. I was considering a domain name for a website, started thinking of various names and then more and more names, researched their availability and such, then looked into domain sales a whole.
I find it enjoyable, a solid investment, plus it's awesome so I stayed at it :]

 

[toughdomains]

i want a name that went from 3k in price to 30k i was considering trading one of my 6 letter .com one word for the name...but the name i want is with a broker so its unlikely since no money involved that the trade would take place...i have had others offer to trade names for a name they cant afford...the name they want to trade for hardly ever is equal to the one they want....

 

[maxtra]

Discovered this article: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-expensive-domain-names-of-all-time-2015-7

Started Domaining immediately afterwards.

 

[creataweb]

Accidentally when someone made an offer on a name I owned.

 

[Coinking]

How much have you spent on domains so far?
What are your top 3?

First Email received from sedo

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Your reason for trading domains - why / how did you start?

Whyyy
I started because I want to make the highest sale of all time.

Howww
I started by creating the highest domain of all time.

 

[MR Harrist]

in 2010, actually domain with pagerank, have high demmand, so, I create 1 and sell it for a few dollar! and because of that reason, I always knew buying domain are the shortcut to make more money, and getting page 1 in Google SERP!

and to be honest, I never knew, that domain with no metrics can be sell for thousand of dollar! and then I learn in here from namepros members, reading all good pages, and then start to buy domain! .us, $50 for 50 domain! and after 11 month, someone buy 1 of the domain, and after a few weeks, someone buy my dot com domain! and that's it, I think domain biz are not that bad! its just need some time to make sales!

but recently I try to do outbound to make sales proces much more faster! but doing outbound are quite tricky! because offering mean low price, but do nothing or inbound, it will take a very very long time to make 1-2 sales! so I am kind of searching the best way how to combine those two between outbound and do nothing! and make maximum profit!

 

[MapleDots]

My journey started when I was looking for an email address instead of using a hotmail type of service.

I was looking for something special and loved the word maple because it represented Canada and I thought whoever I emailed would see that.

That was the year 2002 and I combined thousands of words with maple and finally came up with....

[email protected]

I was so proud and then someone registered mapleone.net and I hated it. I bought up maple1.com and maple1.net and everything else. Then I bought up more maples and had a inquiry to purchase one. A startup Canadian company and I sold for 5k. OMG.... after that I dabbled until 2010 when I decided to do it permanently.

So even though my profile says 2010, I actually started my journey in 2002

I thought maples only had appeal in Canada but I sold a number to China and the USA. I am now known as the maple man in Canada and that niche has served me well over the years.

 

[Coinking]

6 month back i buy a domain from go daddy for personal use (hand reg) and after one week domain is not fit for my project than one of my friend told me don't delete this domain park sedo parking and earn click than i parked at sedo with buy now $200 and after one week domain sold at bin buyer from germany. Than i started a domains trading.

 

[GetBigDomains]

i need money for food

How much have you spent on domains so far?
What are your top 3?

 

[Coinking]

Thats a quick revenue - can you tell us which niche?

Yes
Feeuni.com
Actually i making a website on university fee structure but my friend said to me domain is not good for a blog.

 

[kunkka]

Yep, love learning new things plus that sweet taste of success / first sale - it's a rush!

It is always nice to widen your horizons. And it is even better when you occasionally make some money out of it.

Sounds like you're in profit so far...

Of course. It doesn't make sense otherwise.
But it is hard to control yourself.

 

[shorterwinters]

What was your real reason for getting into domain sales (your motivation)?

I find it really interesting. Something I can do anywhere, any age (till dementia creeps in and that might not stop it), and hoping to make some money. Also to the point of if I wasn't going to do it now, I may never do it. I would never know if I could or not. So, here I am.

How did you stumble upon it/start selling on day 1?

Don't remember how I stumbled on it. Kind of always knew about it in a way (bitcoin anyone??). Big sales in the news or "Ahh, that would make a good website....." kind of thing and and tried about 10 years ago with little effort, no knowledge, and no success.

Where was your first sale auction/private?
How long did it take you to sell one?
Who contacted who?

Inbound offer. Did not even have the name listed for sale.
Last year I looked up some of the names I had dropped from about 10 years ago. Many were taken and some were websites. I decided to jump back in and really try to learn how it's done. It was also before finding this place. That came about 3-4 weeks in this time.
About 4-6 weeks later I got an offer on one of my "new names". Although I hand regged it I since learned that it was a website in a previous life and had been dropped a few years earlier. I still had no clue what I was doing but that got the ball really rolling. Kind of messed with my head a little too. Even tho I really knew it wasn't that easy, I thought I had a handle on what good names were. Ha. This is right about the time I stumbled upon this place.

How many names have you cancelled, dropped, forgotten/lost?
What would you tell yourself if you were starting today?

Original batch I still got my first one and another 4-6 of those.
Right now is renewal time from when I started again about a year ago.
I am dropping far more than I have sold or that I am going to keep many of which I will forget and probably just as many I hope I forget.

The one piece of advise I see here over and over I think is the best.
Read and learn, then read and learn some more. Don't register anything out of the gate. Wait until you have some sort of clue what a truly good domain name is. When you think you know, read and learn some more then look at registering names. There is lots to it no matter how stupid simple it sounds or we think it is, how smart we think we are or even really are.
If I would have followed that advise then the next few months for this batch of renewals would not be so painful. Amazing to see how my portfolio has gotten better. Mind you, I know there is still crap but there is no doubt the quality has gotten far better.

As I have gone along I have found out just how much time is involved and how much work this really is if you wish to have success. So much to learn.

There are some great threads here from members who wrote about what they learned over their first year or just advise given to beginners. Namepros is the single best resource out there for this I think. There are other good ones for sure but you can find them from here (from advise in threads or just mentioned, etc) instead of trying to weed through them on your own.

 

[GetBigDomains]

What was your real reason for getting into domain sales (your motivation)?
Money, another stream of online income.

How did you stumble upon it/start selling on day 1?
Knew about domains from making sites before I actually became a "domainer"

How much was the first domain you bought?
Hand reg.

Where was your first sale auction/private?
Bido

How long did it take you to sell one?
Shortly after I put them up for auction.

What tools do you use for domain handling if not Excel?
Excel

How many names have you cancelled, dropped, forgotten/lost?
Hundreds+

What would you tell yourself if you were starting today?
Keep buying .coms you can imagine sites being built on (aka end users)

First domain ever bought around year 2000 for a site.

Bought 4 .me domains because I got caught up in the hype when they came out. Overall, I made nice profit from .me, only have 1 left, rest .com.

When the first anniversary came up, was going to let them all drop but decided to throw them up on Bido. Sold all 4 for profit. Thought, this was easy, and that got me hooked, in 2009.

First domain I bought "as a domainer" was sand ____________.com after watching this video:

Look at Kseniya do her thing, she had some people crying:

So even though you lost many names it is all worth it?
Keeping the end user in mind. Not your own ideas lol. (as I began with a zillion)...
I loved this video BTW