Archive for the ‘Domain Monetization’ Category

From $1,000 offer to a $28,000 sale

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

It’s been a while since I discussed my last domain sale. As everyone knows we are in the middle of this year and my target to make 20-24 sales per year is quite far away right now. This is my 6th sale of this year and I am not happy with the number of sales but what I can say is the total revenue generated is great so far but numbers of sales are not up to the mark.

What I have also noticed is the number of inquiries since the beginning of 2016, which has been on the low side. I have discussed this with fellow domainers and most of them were in the same boat.

From-$1,000-offer-to-a-$28,000-sale

Coming to the sale which I just completed through Sedo was for the domain BrightEnergy.com which eventually sold for $28,000. Buyer contacted through Sedo with initial offer of $1,000. I countered with $38,888. As the negotiation history cannot be seen right now because the sale is completed, I cannot share exactly how we negotiated further but it was something like buyer gave 5K, 10K, 12K, 15K, 17.5K, 18,300, 27,500. I wanted to tell that buyer also came through Afternic broker and those mentioned counter offers were included from both platforms. I knew the buyer is same and using Sedo and Afternic simultaneously. The entire deal took almost a month to get completed from the initial offer to completing the transaction.

I wanted to thank Brian Michitti (Sedo broker) who was very good in handling this entire transaction on my behalf and very quick in taking necessary actions on time.

Feel free to give your feedback and share your recent sales.

How do I valuate domains and set an asking price

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

One of my reader Sumit asked me how do I valuate and set an asking price for domains when I don’t use any valuation tools like Estibot and others. I have also mentioned some factors which I don’t actually consider while assessing domains.

It’s an interesting question and many find it difficulty in setting up prices for their domains. Although I am not an expert or the domainer who mostly sell his domain in 5 and even 6 figures on regular basis. But if someone wants to know more as to how I operate my domain business, please continue reading.

When I was in initial stage of my domaining career, I did flipping and sold domains at sacrificing prices just in order to keep the cash flow going and must not stop buying and selling domains. But as I am quite settled now ALHUMDULLILAH, I can wait for the right buyer and play waiting game.

There are several factors in valuing my domains:

1) No urgent need of money. When you have good cash flow your sense of judgement gets change and you act accordingly. However, I have tried to get maximum out of every domain sale I can no matter what my financial position was. I admit of selling domains at lower price than I thought of their actual value but it was done purposely for the need of cash flow. Now when there is no urgency of funds, I feel I am on top of enduser and can demand what I actually want for every domain.

2) There are hundreds of domain I hold which are upgrades for companies. When you target 1 specific buyer, you limit yourself selling the domain and requires lot of patience and wait for that buyer to knock your door first. But I tell you… the reward is really fruitful and sometimes life changer. But in such cases, Neither I buy domains with having only one potential buyer on internet, nor I target one specific buyer when selling a domain.  But still wanted to share since many other domainers work in this way.

3) When targeting of one specific buyer, that company will definitely be having good backing of funds. If a company has got series of funding in millions of dollars, why cannot they spend a peanut of share on buying/upgrading their domain to a better one. The more time that buyer will delay, the more he has to pay because I have to consider many factors in increasing the price as the time goes by. My investment which is stuck for long time, aftermarket from where I buy domains is as always going up so my price will be adjusted accordingly. Once again I would like to say that neither I buy domains with having only one potential buyer on internet, nor I target one specific buyer when selling a domain.

4) That particular market is huge and has lot of potential. I don’t need of going into much detail about this because we as domainers know which niche has what kind of potential. But this is one of the factor I take into consideration for valuing my domains.

5) I don’t give much importance to exact searches and CPC of Google Keyword Planner. For most of domain acquisitions, I don’t even check these metrics. Also the length of domain doesn’t matter unless it has meaning, demand and potential. The more shorter, the better. Doesn’t mean longer in length domains are not valuable but surely less desirable than shorter names like 2L, 3L.com domains.

6) Number of existing companies. I take this metric into consideration when buying and pricing my domains. I normally check when that domain is possibility of an upgrade. I use DotDB for this purpose. When selling any 4L .com, I don’t see much benefit of checking existing companies through DotDB but Google is more helpful in such type of domains.

7) Registered in other extensions. Let’s take an example of one of my domain (BeeGreen.com). I prefer checking/considering DotDB and Google and rest of the factors I have mentioned in the entire post but just looking if BeeGreen is registered in other extensions doesn’t bother me at all. Yes, there is possibility of .net owner to buy the .com version but never sticking solely to this option of checking if BeeGreen is registered in lower extensions and decide how much to ask while selling the domain. The result will always be poor and I will leave plenty of money on table.

8) Language. Most of the domains in my portfolio consists of English words excluding 4L.com and brandable domains. I do have domains in many different languages but I try to buy good meaningful and very common words used in that language or has decent as well as common meaning in English language. I used decent because I don’t buy domains which has relationship with alcohol/adult/gambling. It’s difficult to sell less popular language spoken domain even in .com as compare to selling some German, Spanish, Italian words in .com. You have to see the domain you own is in which language and how much popular and common that word is in that language. Sometimes people prefer to have .de (German country code) domain than to have .com. Doesn’t mean you should not buy German language domains in .com but research is must. But if you seek my suggestion, I would strongly say to stick with English words in .com and diversify your portfolio once you have gathered good quality along with decent number of domains.

9) Comparable sales. Oh well… This is seriously useless for me for setting up an asking price for my domains. I do keep checking DnJournal weekly sales report and NameBio but that doesn’t mean I set asking prices after going through any comparable sales. Checking those sites keep me updated and helps me while buying domains so that I must not overpay it. But when I valuate my domains, I never check comparable sales because every domain is different. Demand of buyer is different, situation of seller is different and many other factors are involved.

10) The most important factor in my opinion is that buyer have to have the biggest idea for using the domain they are going to acquire from me. You will hear often from domainers who say that your domain is worth what the buyer is willing to pay. In my opinion, that just doesn’t make sense and that person might have no idea about this business. I always valuate and decide the asking price to whatever I want and sell at my own price. If the buyer doesn’t want at that price, he must not have the big idea for my domain. I simply pass which is difficult but that’s the way you should deal if you are to make fortune and change your life for betterment.

I would love to see what others think about my way and curious to know how you guys valuate and price your domains ?

Uniregistry Market is available now!

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

I have been testing Uniregistry Market since the beginning of this week and just now got an email from them which I thought to share with you guys:

“DomainNameSales is evolving.
Powerful tools that save you time.
The new Uniregistry Market is here. Same solid foundation as DomainNameSales, faster tools, instant insights, and an up-to-date modern user experience.

We think you’re going to love it. The best bit… we’re just getting started.

Seamless setup
If you already have a DNS account, simply log in to Uniregistry and link to it. This will give you access to all your inquiries right there in the Market. Like we said – seamless setup.

LINK YOUR ACCOUNT
 
One inquiry or a million, tools that scale
Managing a portfolio shouldn’t be challenging. We give you a complete platform capable of selling from the largest portfolios on the planet. So whether you have a single domain or thousands, you’ll never be lost with us.
Sell your way
List them for sale, mark them for offer only, or just plain ol’ park them to watch the revenue roll in – we don’t dictate
how you use your domains. We do, however, give you a complete set of tools so that whatever you decide to do can be done.
Instant completion
Your domains really are more valuable with us. Domains that live at Uniregistry with a “buy it now” price are eligible for instant checkout through our Registrar. Once added to the market, anyone can find your domains with a simple search from our homepage – checkout is instant and easy.
An inbox for everything
Manage all your sales inquiries with ease using a sales inbox designed specifically for the process of selling domains.

Reply, set reminders, quote prices, and do it all from a single interface. Act on individual requests or use our powerful bulk tools to manage everything in an instant.

Checkout for all
Accept the deal, send the checkout link, then kick back and relax. We’ve built our Secure Exchange technology into the Market – that means we take care of everything from the time you say ‘It’s a deal’ to the time the funds are received into your account. Complete sales with ease.

Did we mention that we’ll even help you out with credit card payments, wire transfers, and payment plans? We want you to sell your domains as much as you do.

Welcome to the future of domain name sales.”

LETS GET STARTED

 

Overall it looks great and will get used to with this new interface of handling inquiries. Easy to manage everything at one place which will save plenty of time and it’s super quick and user-friendly interface.

Better you guys check the new Uniregistry Market yourself and time to move all your domains to Uniregistry for guys who haven’t moved yet!

Feel free to post your feedback and suggestions which will help the Uniregistry Market team to fix those little bugs and improve it for ourselves. I found a couple and reported already.

How to make or lose a fortune in domaining – Escrow.com

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

I received following email from Escrow.com which I wanted to share and it’s really interesting specially for the domainers.

Average-Domain-Name-Price

“Did you know that the average growth of domain prices has been in excess of 7.3% per year over the last 10 years? 4-letter domains rise even faster, 9.3% growth per annum over the last 10 years.

 
Here are some extraordinary results we’ve seen in the past:

RaiseTheMoney.com was bought for $80.55 and sold for $12,500 in 4 months

BuyShares.com was bought for $2,444 and flipped for $15,900 in 6 months

PirateShip.com was bought for $1,500 and sold for $20,000 just 21 days later

However, one of the biggest risk to this amazing growth is the risk of losing a domain to fraud and chargebacks.

A chargeback happens when a seller uses a stolen credit card to buy a transaction, and the seller is forced to repay the credit card’s real owner. When you’re trading domains, PayPal and your bank don’t protect you from most frauds or chargebacks.

Escrow.com protects you and your business against fraud and guarantees zero chargebacks.

Ready to start building your business without the risk of fraud?”

 
This year I have started buying LLLL.com domains more aggressively as long term investment and surely they are going to pay off well. I still see these LLLL are undervalued especially Western letters and I am going more after them.

I find these stats really impressive. What do you guys think about it and the future?

A tip to convince buyer for your domain name

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

Last year I sold a domain through DomainNameSales.com and while dealing with the buyer in the entire transaction I learnt one new way of handling the buyer which will help a little more in convincing to buy your domain name.

Let’s suppose after going back and forth during the negotiation process, buyer’s final offer is 15K and you are stuck at 20K. What I did was telling the buyer that “you wouldn’t be responsible for any additional fees either as I will cover the commission, Escrow.com fee, and all other associated fees.”

Now let’s pay attention what I wrote above… I will cover the Escrow.com fee and all other associated fees which both actually means the same in our business. But the buyers are not aware what all kind of other associated fees will be attached while I will be buying the domain.

I gave the above example which I used to conclude a deal successfully last year using the same trick. The only thing I changed was price above but the price difference was the same in my case!

There are plenty of inquirers and/or endusers of my domains reading my blog and when they will see this trick, they might get more smart in dealing but more important for me is to share whatever I feel is good and might be helpful among the domaining community. In short, you can call this mind game trick 😉

Feel free to share whenever you use this trick and the after effects. Good luck!