Since Payoneer launched its domain name escrow service, only domain name sellers have been permitted to set up transactions via Payoneer Escrow. As a buyer, this could be frustrating because I would have to rely on the domain owner to initiate a transaction, and I have found that the less friction there is, the less likely a domain owner will back out of a transaction. The sooner I can get a buyer to agree to a deal, sign the purchase agreement, and start escrow, the more likely a deal will close.

This afternoon, Payoneer Escrow announced a couple of platform updates. Domain name buyers now have the ability to initiate transactions at Payoneer. Since domain buyers may have more experience with Payoneer and/or domain name escrow services, this may make transactions easier to set up and quicker to transact.

In addition to this change, sellers can now communicate the domain name transfer or account change information to the buyer directly via the Payoneer Escrow platform. This is a minor change, but it can be helpful to have all of the information flow through the escrow service.

I have found that some buyers and sellers aren’t all that knowledgable about domain name purchases or sales when they agree to a deal. Escrow services can add some friction to transactions, so it is good to see improvements that help make transactions go more smoothly.

There was another three letter .com domain name that recently became the subject of a UDRP proceeding: NTI.com. Because the NTI.com UDRP was filed at the Czech Arbitration Court (CAC), I didn’t even realize the UDRP had been filed until I read the decision on UDRPSearch.com.

The owner of NTI.com was represented by domain industry attorney John Berryhill. The complainant is a company called NTI CADcenter A/S, which operates on the similar but inferior NTI.dk domain name. .DK is the ccTLD extension for Denmark.

I think the most important aspect of the UDRP decision can be found here: → Read More

Several days ago, I reported that the S.CO domain name was acquired by MarkMonitor on behalf of a client. Because the Whois registrant information listed MarkMonitor’s privacy proxy service (DNStination Inc.) as the registrant, it was unknown who was behind the brand protection company’s acquisition.

This morning, a reader named Davis noticed that the S.CO domain name was activated, revealing that Snapchat appears to be the buyer of S.CO. If you visit S.CO right now, you will be redirected to Snapchat’s homepage.

I did some Twitter searching, and I do not see any mentions of the S.CO domain name by Snapchat or any other Twitter user. This isn’t surprising because the company likely hasn’t announced how the domain name will be used. I would not be surprised to see → Read More

I am not a huge believer in domain name appraisals for a number of reasons. Not only is the domain name market dynamic, but every domain name is different and one small difference can make a domain name worth millions of dollars and another domain name worth significantly less (Sex.com vs. SXE.com for example). When people email me asking for a domain name appraisal referral, I typically tell them I don’t think appraisals are worth buying.

That being said, I occasionally reach out to business friends and colleagues to ask their opinion about a domain name I bought or about an offer I received on a domain name I own. Sometimes I want some reassurance from a third party or I want the opinion of someone I trust who doesn’t have a vested interest in the domain name. Like most people in the domain name space (I think), I have a tendency to “fall in love” with my own domain names, so getting a third party to share their insight can be helpful in setting my expectations.

I want to share an offer made by Uniregistry Market domain broker Darryl Lopes via Twitter yesterday evening: → Read More

Earlier this morning, I published a press release from Uniregistry with details about its year to date sales results. The company reported that it sold 3,617 domain names totaling more than $29,000,000. I asked Uniregistry VP of Sales Jeff Gabriel if he could share any more details about YTD sales at Uniregistry Market, and he sent me a list of over 2,700 sales worth more than $17.2 million. Jeff mentioned that many of the sales were removed, so the list I received is abridged.

Several of these sales were previously reported. For instance, I wrote about the the sales of Squeeze.com and Coya.com. I presume there are other domain name sales that have been written about by me or by others. I also presume this list of sales will be reported to DNJournal and NameBio for archiving. Once Ron Jackson has this data, there will be some major changes at the top of the DNJournal Year to Date sales report.

For the sake of convenience I am sharing all of the sales I received that are worth $20,000 or more. There are 156 domain name sales worth $20,000+, and the vast majority of those are .com sales. In this list of 156 sales, there are a handful of .net and .org sales, and there are some one-off sales in other extensions such as .ca, .link, .co.uk, .co, and others.

At a quick glance, there are some really, really solid sales here. If I owned some of these names, I almost certainly would have undersold them. There also seem to be a few solid deals for the buyer. Sometimes people are happy to move inventory and the buyer gets a good deal.

Have a look at the list and let me know your thoughts. → Read More

Earlier this morning, Uniregistry published a press release (published below) with its aftermarket domain name sales report from Uniregistry Market for the first 8 months of 2017. While the report doesn’t offer specific details about domain name sales, it offers a general overview of sales on its platform year to date. From what I understand, this aggregated sales data includes domain name sales from Frank Schilling’s Name Administration company as well as the third party sales of Uniregistry Market clients.

You should read the entire press release for more color commentary, but here are the most interesting data points the company shared:

• “it has sold 3617 domains totaling more than 29,000,000 USD in the first 8 months of 2017.”
• “The number of transactions increased by more than 24% over the same time period in 2016”
• “total sales have increased by 13.85% from the 25,000,000 USD sold in the same period prior.”
• “Average sale prices since 2011 have seen steady gains year over year, with 2017 showing some signs of moderation as the average prices dropped marginally for the first time ever to $8,017 USD per domain down from $9,110 USD.”

It was a bit surprising to see that the average sale price on sold domain names declined for the first time since 2011. The average sale price seems to have dropped from $9,110 to $8,017. Despite this 12% shrinkage, I think the average sale price of $8,017 is still higher at Uniregistry Market than on other domain name sale platforms. This is likely attributed to the high quality of domain names listed for sale on Uniregistry Market. That said, there was still a drop in the average sale price, and here’s how the company explained that:

“Dollar volumes moderated during this period, due to continued expansion into exploratory, nontraditional markets such as Generic Top Level Domains (GTLDs) and Country Code Top Level Domain (CCTLD) sales.”

My interpretation of this is that the company sold more ccTLD and new gTLD domain names this year, and those domain names have lower sale prices. As a result, the higher volume of lower sale prices caused the average sale price to drop. In explaining this, it would have been helpful if Uniregistry shared the increased volume of ccTLD and new gTLD sales. For instance, if the volume of these sales increased by 50% over last year, the lower sale price would have been more obvious. If the sales volume increased marginally, the lower average sale price would be more concerning to me.

I am hopeful that the company will release additional data. I believe Uniregistry Market released more sales data to DNJournal last year, and I hope the company does the same thing this year.

Here’s the company’s press release, which offers more insight about its sales and gives a glimpse of its expectations for the future: → Read More