Hand Registered Domains For SaleA Speculative Investment in Domain Names The experiement was a complete failure. I DID NOT SELL ONE SINGLE DOMAIN NAME FROM THE ENTIRE LIST BELOW. I decided to open a new account at Sedo even though upper management is more loyal to Google than to its customers. I listed the domains for sale with a fixed price at Sedo, Afternic and GoDaddy Auctions. I did this sometime in July. I have not sold a single domain and I lowered the prices as mentioned below. Speculation is OUT of the domain industry unless you include the fool's gold that is .co.
On March 28, 2011 I hand registered 104 domain names with the sole purpose of trying to make a profit off the total investment before the domains came up for renewal in one year's time. This page will document this experiment. I will update this page as I make a sale or when I have a comment I would like to add about this experiment in domain name sales. Scroll down to see the list of domains but first, a bit about this speculative investment experiment in domain name sales. Selection Process I started with a long list of several hundred domains and narrowed the list down based on a number of criteria. It took me about six hours to come up with this final list of domains. The underlying idea behind the selection process was to register domains that would be good candidates for purchase by small to medium sized businesses or organizations (end users) that may want to buy a generic domain for development or marketing reasons. The domains below were not selected on the basis of potential parking revenue, cost per click rates or the possibility of selling to domain investors. Therefore, none of these domains are parked. Recurring revenue is not part of this business model. Sales Channels The domains below were all registered at GoDaddy and listed for sale in GoDaddy Auctions. They were not listed for sale as "Premium Listings" at GoDaddy. Since domains listed at GoDaddy Auctions now show up in the registration process as available for purchase, there is no advantage to listing them as "Premium Listings" at a 30% commission. Here are the ways people will find these domains for sale: 1. GoDaddy Auction listing 2. Registration process at GoDaddy 3. Afternic listing but NOT at Sedo I have NOT listed the domains for sale at Sedo since Sedo's upper management openly admits to NOT having the ability to defend their customers against Google's "fail listing" of domains. This is a fact. Sedo will not give you the reason for a fail listing because they have no recourse with Google and/or no will power to challenge Google, their ad provider. Also, Sedo deleted one of my domains "for my protection" because they are being sued by Louis Vuitton. I was told there was nothing I could do to challenge my accuser in either situation. I disagreed. I changed my nameservers away from Sedo parking, removed all my domains for sale, wrote this comment and closed my account permanently. I guess there was something that I could do but I digress... Landing Pages All of these domains are individually forwarded to their respective sales landing page at Afternic. I want any type in traffic to land on a for sale page with a buy it now price. Any other lander is just a distraction for this business model. I would have considered pointing all the domains to a GoDaddy sales landing page but one does not exist. Oddly enough, GoDaddy only has a registration page or shopping cart link but no for sale "lander" with a "buy it now" link. Investment Time: So far I have about ten hours into this because of the selection process, forwarding of domains and writing this page. Money: I paid $811 for these 104 domains (about $7.80 each). I had planned to register 100 domains exactly for this experiment but I got a price break at 101 that was equivalent to 4 domains so I registered four domains for at no additional cost. Since I bill out my "Uncle in the Business" domain consulting at $120 per hour, that's like having $1200 in time invested in this experiment. I do not expect to have to invest any more time since none of the domains will require any maintenance. So, let's call it an even $2000 that I have invested in this project. Pricing - Sales Strategy - Return on Investment From now until June 30, the domains are all priced with a buy it now price of $995. (If you are reading this and want to buy one of the domains, I will sell direct for $750) If I can have a 2% sell through rate in one year at this price (2 domains x $995 each = $1990), I will consider this project a success since I would about break even yet still have 102 domains that I may or may not renew at only the cost of the domain renewal. No more time would be required to invest in domain selection or forwarding. From July 1 to September 30, I will lower all the buy it now prices to $495. If I did not sell any domains at $995, I will have to have a 4% sell through rate to break even. From October 1 to December 31, I will lower all the buy it now prices to $250. Again, assuming ZERO sales previously, I would have to have an 8% sell through rate to break even. From January 1, 2012 to renewal date of March 28, 2012, I will lower the prices to $99 each and hopefully blow them out at that price or maybe even list them all for sale at Namejet at $69 and let them go. Commission and fees Since these domains are registered at GoDaddy, they do not qualify for Afternic's Premium Listing service. Therefore they will be in the DLS Network where the commission is 15% of the sales price or $120, whichever is greater. If a domain sells at GoDaddy, Auction sales have a 5% commission. I will post sales, commission cost and any fees at the top of this page when a domain sells. The Hand Registered DomainsI have pasted in the list of 104 domains below. Most are self explanatory but you can see my comments in parenthesis next to the domains. AllapattahApartments.com (Miami Neighborhood) ** means rejected by Afternic I removed these CharterFerry.com They now point to our legal travel to Cuba site, CubaTrips.org |
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