Domain acquisitions and sales of January/February 2016

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

Today I wanted to share what domain acquisitions and sales I made so far this year and will share some of the purchases I did in the last couple of months:

288626.com, 982228.com, 668155.com – Bought several 6Ns last year and very few this year including these two of them. I buy all domains thinking of long term investment but if there is a decent offer, I do accept it.

AEHM.com, MBNI.com, SIBN.com, RIAM.com, ABWM.com, SGMI.com, AGAD.com, JMCL.com, CISG.com – I have been buying LLLL.com rather quickly than I did in past. I still see non CHIPS are undervalued and has plenty of room to improve in pricing so if your pocket allows you spend, buy some LLLL.com which you can get at bargain. Although I paid decent prices for each of them as I go after combination of letters in which I see lot of potential.

JamieLee.com – Is there any post of my acquisitions in which I didn’t mention a person name. I just love buying such type of names. Although very few sold to date.

BEB.org, CGL.org, PDR.org, TPA.org – I think they are undervalued right now like 4L .com non CHIPS. Although Chinese are not much into .org but there are plenty of non Chinese buyers (enduser) out there for buying a quality LLL.org

SpeedHero.com – My first domain with the word “hero” and reading the posts from Doron inspired me to buy this one 😉

Liget.com – Every CVCVC.com has some value and I like this one although it doesn’t have any significant meaning other than “park” in Hungarian language.

MorningDew.com – I love these type of domains which can be used as brand for many different type of businesses.

KitchenAndBathroom.com – A three word .com with “and” in it but is a perfect domain for any kitchen and bathroom related company. Explains everything.

LymeLight.com – May be a type of sale what Mike Berken’s does it on regular basis. But nothing to worry when buying this as I won’t seek for that high sale price 😉

ExpressPizza.com – Any startup or existing pizza company with this name?

ShopGreen.com – I would prefer to have GreenShop.com but that’s what I was able to get it. Still I like this name.

Feel free to share your acquisitions and if you wish, can comment about on my above purchases.

Let’s get into the sales part which I think will keep it short. I actually had so far 3 domain sales in the past couple of months

First two sales I cannot disclose the name due to buyer’s request. But the sale price was around mid 4 figs each.

The last domain sale which I made in February was of ThePropertyClub.com. There were a couple of interesting things in this particular sale which I wanted to share. First, the buyer approached me calling from UK and offered me £200. I politely rejected and told him I will sell for around 4-5K.

Next day, he called me again by offering this time 1K which was again rejected. At the same time he increased the offer to 1.5K. Again, my answer was the same.

May be the next day or a gap of one day, he called again and asked what will be the minimum I would accept. It was $4,000 and he accepted. Payment was made swiftly and deal done! Interesting part was that I made my first domain sale through a phone call when the buyer called at first. Although I have made very few sales in the past when I initially approached the endusers.

Last interesting thing, it was my first sale starting with word “The”. Took too long to make it first as I like domains with starting word “the”. I think of having around 20 domains starting with “the” and glad it started paying off from last month.

Feel free to share your domain sales and if you wish, can comment about on my above sales.

GoDaddy SEO Services

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

Today morning I received an email from GoDaddy Premier Services manager which I wanted to share with you guys. Neither they haven’t asked me to publish this nor I have used their SEO services as of now. Also I don’t plan to use it in near future because I am not much into website development and all. But I thought to share with fellow domainers in case you might want to try out.

Godaddy now offers SEO Services at a bargain! We offer onsite and offsite optimization, custom content creation and more! According to a study by MOZ.com, the average hourly charge for SEO services from firms across the country (not scam artists but actual reputable measurable firms like ours) is about $76-$200 per hour. GoDaddy charges about $48 per hour! 

https://moz.com/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services

 

Click the link below for more details about GoDaddy SEO Services: 

https://www.godaddy.com/online-marketing/seo-services

 

RESULTS THAT ARE EASY TO SEE.
80% of our clients are on the first page of Google within 6 months when they choose the recommended plan, including on-site optimization. Monitor your site’s progress with 24/7 access to your account dashboard.

 

WHY GODADDY SEO SERVICES?

YOUR OWN ACCOUNT MANAGER.
You’ll have one dedicated SEO expert focused on your business — no starting from scratch with some random person if you call in with a question. It’s like having an employee who just happens to work in our office.

GET STARTED INSTANTLY.
One call with your dedicated account manager and we’ll have everything we need to get your business climbing the search results. We’ve got your SEO covered so you can stay focused on your business.

CHECK IN ANYTIME, 24/7.
While your account manager can’t be available to take calls 24/7 (even SEO experts need sleep), you can access your account dashboard anytime to see what’s been done and how your site is doing.

 

HOW IT WORKS

 

FIRST WE LEARN ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS.
It all starts with a phone call. We’ll talk to you about your business, your goals (like if you’re targeting local shoppers or want to go global) and determine the best plan for your budget.

THEN YOUR ACCOUNT MANAGER GETS TO WORK.
After researching your target market, your personal account manager will regularly update the code and content on your site to boost your results and maintain strong search results

FINALLY, SIT BACK AND WATCH YOUR TRAFFIC GROW.
SEO takes time. No one jumps from page 12 to the top spot on Google overnight. But clients who’ve made the investment have seen their search rank rise from 100+ to the top ten in less than a couple months.

 

Click the link below for more information about GoDaddy SEO Services

https://www.godaddy.com/online-marketing/seo-services

 

If any one you try their service, please feel free to share your feedback, suggestion and/or criticism which will help others to understand about their SEO services.

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!

Issues I faced while using Afternic as a seller

Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,

I wanted to clear up first that I am starting to like using Afternic because I made some nice sales at Afternic last year including last month as well. But that doesn’t mean I will stop sharing the issues I faced using Afternic with you guys which will help you to be careful in advance.

I already sold a domain last year through Afternic for $15,000 (Afternic commission 15%) and got the payment through wire option smoothly. Later at the end of last month, I made my first low amount of sale at Afternic last month which was of Adventix.com for $5,000 (Afternic commission 20%). I admit my mistake of not remembering the commission change which is on the higher side for lower amount of sales.

It is something like this:

20% commission ($15 minimum) for domains costing between $50 and $5,000.
For domains costing between $5,000 and $25,000 the cost will be $1,000 plus 15% of the amount over $5,000. So if you sold a domain for $20,000 you’d pay $1,000 plus 15%.
For domains costing over $25,000 you’ll pay $4,000 plus 10% of the amount over $25,000.

Disadvantages-of-using-Afternic-as-a-seller

Afternic must point out somewhere in the dashboard or negotiation page about their cut for that particular deal. For my above domain sale, I was expecting their cut is the same 15% and I agreed to the price but later the broker informed me about that and he asked if there is the need of contacting buyer about the price change but I stopped him because I had my words (price to buyer) given and that would have been unfair and unethical for buyer to see the price change in no time! Finally I sticked to that price and eventually the domain was sold within a week.

So in short, commission structure is not clearly mentioned, although they have informed about that in past but that cannot be recalled while making sale specially after a long period of time reading the changes in commission.

The next problem came when the payment was received by Afternic, they asked me to select payment method and I was unable to find wire option which I selected for my last sale. I contacted the broker and even called their helpline but unfortunately they had their rules of not sending wire for any amounts under $10,000. That’s just ridiculous! I asked the reason and was told the bank don’t allow us to send small payments. Another ridiculous statement!

I was left with 2 options left. PayPal and check. As many of you are aware that PayPal don’t support Pakistan for opening an account. For check, it would have taken around 75 days to get funds cleared. Finally I received funds in one of my relatives PayPal account.

Last but may not be the least issue, you instantly receive email for price request (only when you haven’t priced your domains) and Afternic asks you to update through logging into your account but you don’t see the domain at dashboard for almost an hour to update pricing unless you are familiar using their platform and knows to find the domain under your portfolio and update pricing. So it’s better for Afternic to either send price request notification a bit with delay or simply update the dashboard immediately with the domain showing up because all sellers are not pro and can easily be confused.

Care to share your experience with Afternic and feel free to share if you had any similar good 😉 experience in past.