One of my absolute favorite types of domain names to buy (and sell) is dictionary .com domain names. There are companies of all sizes that operate on dictionary .com domain names, including financial institutions, sports teams, media companies, tech businesses, and many other fields and industries. As a result, the demand for good dictionary .com domain names is strong and the values tend to correlate with the demand.
When a domain broker represents a domain owner by selling a domain name, the broker receives a previously negotiated percentage of the sale as compensation for a successful deal. When a broker is working on behalf of a buyer, the compensation structure can not be set up in the same way, as that would pit the broker’s interest against the interest of the client:
I don’t discuss my proprietary compensation model publicly (it was developed in consultation with my clients) but you are on the right track. What I suggest, in general, is that the broker’s compensation model ALWAYS be aligned with the client’s objectives.
— Bill Sweetman (@BillSweetman) December 11, 2019
Performing due diligence is a critical task before buying a domain name in the aftermarket – both private acquisitions and even on auction purchases. With GDPR in force, doing the necessary due diligence is more difficult, and as time goes by, it will become even more challenging. One area of due diligence that should not be overlooked is related to the registrant’s email address.
I operate my own “for sale” inquiry pages for my domain names via Embrace.com. I like that I can control my own landing page designs and have total, private control over my leads (I trust platforms like Efty and Dan.com have privacy features, but I also assume if someone acquires either business, they would also acquire data). There are several downsides to managing your own landing pages, and I want to share them with readers.
Every day, it seems like more and more startups and companies launch on, or move to, .com alternative domain name extensions. Some do this out of necessity because the matching .com is unavailable or too expensive, and others do it for branding or other marketing purposes. In my opinion, if a company uses an alternative extension such as a new gTLD or ccTLD, they need to embrace the extension in their branding.
I was looking at a domain name today and came across its Efty landing page. On the left side of the page, there was a short list of publicly reported domain name sales, including a few in the multi-million range. These domain names were not comparable to the domain name I was looking at, and the sale prices were not close to what the domain name is worth. I think showing unrelated domain name sales might be a detriment.
