Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on December 31st, 2015 42 Comment
Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
At the very beginning of 2015 I wrote about the achievements in 2014 and my goals for 2015. After going through that post right now I see the first goal was to have 1,200 domains by the end of 2015 and I can tell you I almost got it there. Finally I have 1180 domains under my portfolio closing this year.
Second was to make $1,000 p/month in domain parking. This was once again a disappointment because for the last 2 years I have been setting the same goal but revenue is not as increasing as the number of domains in my portfolio.
Third was to make at least $5,000 sale in total every month. I can tell you that I made double than what amount I set to make every month the whole year which personally is very satisfactory.
Fourth was to sell 20-24 domains in the entire 2015 which isn’t difficult considering the number of domains but eventually I ended up selling 13 domains plus 1 lease to buy option domain which was cancelled this month with non-payment but that gave me several months of bonus revenue and keeping back the domain. I feel sorry for the buyer but cannot do anything other than sending several reminders and give some extra time than mentioned in contract. Although the number of domain sales were too less but making total sales in six figures is something what I focus more rather than selling domains cheap.
Last was personal goal, not related to domains… It was to move out from Karachi where I was born and grew up. And finally I moved to Islamabad (capital city) in mid of 2015 and so far it’s great experience and overall happy with this decision.
To wrap up in short, it was a fantastic year than I expected and what I can surely say for next year is to have a much better year INSHAALLAH. Thanks to ALLAH who has given me everything and lot of happiness than I could even imagine, my parents who supported me specially my father, entire domaining community from whom I have learnt plenty of stuff and learning it every day and my life partner who is always there to fully support me in every decision I make in my life.
Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on November 23rd, 2015 73 Comment
Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
Time flies so quickly and I just noticed that it’s over a month since I published the last post. Well, everything is great at my end. Had some nice acquisitions recently but not much sales.
Today I wanted to share something very important because many of us domainers uses Flippa. I am their member for over 3 years and for quite some time Flippa promoted their service through my blog by placing banner ad in past. I am giving you the background just to know everything in detail and you guys better decide if their decision was fair enough for me?
Last month my Flippa account got banned with reason “multiple account operation”. Since I have opened my account with them (over 3 years), I had only 1 account for personal use. Looking at my domain business, some of my family members wanted to involve in this industry and asked for my guidance. I started giving them all material/resources and whatever guidance I could give and one of which was Flippa. Couple of my close family members are at my home to get complete knowledge about this business so later they can do on their own. I am always happy to share whatever I can.
The day I received email from Flippa, I wasn’t sure about which multiple accounts they are talking about but their support team provided those 2 new accounts which were created several months back!
I tried to explain them but no one bothered to listen me and stopped responding to my emails.
I contacted Luke McCormack (Director, Business Development) who initially contacted me in the same month for promoting their affiliate program. I wrote him and explained him everything but he too didn’t responded which wasn’t really looking good because when writing for promoting their affiliate program, he was efficient enough in writing me but when I needed him, he didn’t bothered to reply back. That shows how cooperative their team is! At least Luke could have said it’s not his job to look into this issue. This shows how good you are!
Finally I contacted Kevin Fink and got automated response of being out of office. I was desperate to get my account unbanned because the status shown banned at Flippa along with my profile isn’t good no matter I use Flippa or not.
I than emailed Kevin through NamePros and he reached out to me as soon as he was available. He told me that “Marketplace Integrity team does not have confidence that those accounts are operated by separate people.” He was right because they didn’t knew me and my background. But Kevin knew me very well except meeting in person. Anyhow, he said that he could reinstate just one account only, but it would then be limited per IP address; if your family members wanted to utilize an account, they would have to have WhoIs info / IPs / etc different from yours.
Seriously? That was just nonsense to me. If my family member wanted to use an account from the same place, they should get different internet connection just for the purpose of using Flippa!!
I responded “But that’s crazy for us to have a different internet connection just to operate Flippa because your MI team keeps banning such type of accounts. Using one sole account is not possible because I want them to operate their own domains and buy/sell themselves so they learn all stuff without my guidance in future.
It’s better for all of us not to use Flippa again in future unless you guys unban all our accounts.
Once again thanks and hope we keep our good relationship intact.”
Kevin responded back:
“I hope you understand why the answer is no; unless your family members can provide separate identifications for each new account, our team will continue to uphold the ban. We take this very seriously, and as much respect I have for you, and hope to continue to work with you where possible, this is simply out of my personal control. It is a ToS / marketplace integrity issue, and we cannot cut anyone special treatment.
Let me know if you have ideas as to how your relatives can work with us to adhere to this.”
Instead of sending passport copies and documents which will prove their different identifications, I decided that all my family members wouldn’t use their service any more. Overall, it’s their loss because there are plenty of places to buy/sell domains.
Apart of that, Kevin is a good guy and he responded in time and appreciate him taking steps to get my account unbanned.
Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on October 22nd, 2015 27 Comment
Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
It’s been long time since I last shared my domain purchases with you guys and I wanted to share some of the recent acquisitions.
TimJohnson.com – I am a big fan of buying person names. Although I see people inquiring on such domains are offering mostly under $100 but I am still happy to buy such common two word names which will definitely pay off one day.
EMA.CO – Already sold couple of .CO names in five figures to date and I am seeing .CO is growing as always and buying short, person name is always good if you are getting it at the right price in my opinion.
Brent.net – This is much more common name than the above two word person name. Even it’s a .net domain, I still like it because it’s quite common name in U.S. (Correct me if I am wrong).
Phresh.com – Love such type of brandable domains. Already received dozens of inquiries to date.
TheWonderland.com – Never sold a domain with the starting word “the” but always fond of buying such type of names as I have seen good track record of these “the” starting domains.
ILCS.com – Prices of LLLL.com has increased dramatically compared to last year. I still feel it’s the time to buy quality LLLL.com no matter whether it’s Western or Chinese premium. Just buy it if you are getting at the right price. I found ILCS overall a good combination.
QeMedia.com –Raymond Hackney likes to buy LLmedia domains and I think we are on the same boat. Although I have very few LLmedia domains.
204040.com and 118886.com – I like the first one due to sequence and the other with 3 consecutive 8’s. Someone looking for more insight about them can reach out to Chinese please 😉
OnlineGraphics.com – I know you must be thinking that GraphicsOnline is better but that’s what I could get.
PLUP.com – Decent name for any startup looking for short, catchy and brandable domain.
The above domain acquisitions are very few which I shared and just chosen randomly to list here. I simply tried to share a mixture of short, brandable, two word names to have an idea of what domains I usually buy.
Just recently I shared some domain sales which included a five figure sale and I am happy to announce that I had 2 more five figure sales after that!
One of the five figure sale I cannot disclose because the buyer requested not to share it but the other one I had through Afternic where the broker contacted first and asked the price for the domain Dowin.com. Normally I ask buyers to present their offer but rarely I quote the price. I asked for $15,000 NET and the response was that the buyer’s budget is 15K max and after commission I will get $12,500 which I gleefully accepted and the deal was swiftly done. Not much negotiation done so nothing more to share about this particular sale 😀 By the way, the buyer seems to be from China.
Many thanks Escrow.com and Afternic.com as each of those sale were completed through them.
Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on October 9th, 2015 5 Comment
Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
I wanted to share the phishing emails I received now and I by mistakenly downloaded the attachment and tried to open which in turned out a fake one and nothing happened. I quickly realized that I was on the wrong side for opening the mail because I had received original email of payment from at the end of last month.
**NOTE** This is to inform everyone that these emails were NOT sent by DomainNameSales.com and has absolutely nothing to do with that.
I went ahead and changed all the passwords for important sites. Make sure you guys don’t open. However, below is the entire email with IDs:
“marketing@vijol.com>”
Dear Sir/Madam,
The attached payment advice is issued at the request of our customer. The advice is for your reference only. Yours faithfully,
Global Payments and Cash Management HSBC *************************************************************************** This is an auto-generated email, please DO NOT REPLY. Any replies to this email will be disregarded. *************************************************************************** Security tips 1. Install virus detection software and personal firewall on your computer. This software needs to be updated regularly to ensure you have the latest protection. 2. To prevent viruses or other unwanted problems, do not open attachments from unknown or non-trustworthy sources. 3. If you discover any unusual activity, please contact the remitter of this payment as soon as possible.”
Received another one too in some minutes:
The attached payment advice is issued at the request of our customer. The advice is for your reference only. Yours faithfully,
Global Payments and Cash Management HSBC *************************************************************************** This is an auto-generated email, please DO NOT REPLY. Any replies to this email will be disregarded. *************************************************************************** Security tips 1. Install virus detection software and personal firewall on your computer. This software needs to be updated regularly to ensure you have the latest protection. 2. To prevent viruses or other unwanted problems, do not open attachments from unknown or non-trustworthy sources. 3. If you discover any unusual activity, please contact the remitter of this payment as soon as possible.”
Any advice or feedback is welcome in this regard to keep things safe and intact.
Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on October 2nd, 2015 32 Comment
Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
It’s been long time since I shared my domain sales. For the last couple of months I think including this one too, I had 3 domain sales and one was a real special one. For the first time, we leased our domain with having the buyer to make payment for a period of 24 months and later the domain will be transferred to him.
Several months back, I decided to re-list my domains with Sedo to see how things work for me because in the past I didn’t see much response from there. However, I quickly made 2 sales of Buddy.CO and Smooz.com. I had acquired Buddy.CO for may be $29.99 in 2010 and sold for $7,500. It was decent ROI and I always buy domain keeping in mind that it will take 5 years to get sold if I need fruitful profit out of it. Smooz.com was a nice small sale of $3975.
For Buddy.CO, the buyer started off with $100 offer and at the end it was a good deal for both of us.
The domain which has been leased to sell was actually a deal in 5 figures and making consistent money for a period of 24 months is a great thing and I am happy with this new way of selling domain which might not be new for some but I am sure most domainers would love to sell their domains on lease to buy option.
Finally this week I sold another domain for $15,500. Unfortunately can’t reveal the names of last both sales. It took longer than I anticipated but at the end the deal went smooth and buyer was a great guy to deal with.
Care to share your recent sales? I would love to hear it. Any questions, feedback is welcome no matter how good or good it is 😉
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