Domain Sales

One of the most common questions I am asked and I see being asked on NamePros, Twitter, and elsewhere is related to knowing what types of domain names to buy that will be desired by end user buyers. After all, it is simple to buy domain names but a domain investment business needs to sell domain names to survive and thrive.

Sedo, NameJet, and SnapNames report the domain name sales transacted on their platforms when privacy is not requested on a weekly basis. GoDaddy has begun reporting the largest sales transacted on its platform on a trailing basis. NameBio records all of these sales and many additional sales. What gets the most coverage, though, is the largest sales on each platform while the smaller sales tend to get lost.

Someone I follow on Twitter responded to someone else, and I noticed that she is sharing lists of domain name sales transacted on DAN from the prior day:

I have had the majority of my portfolio listed for sale via DAN.com around six months. During this time, I have done some testing of the different types of landing pages offered by DAN, which includes the longer term payment plan offering, the BIN page, and the BIN page with a Make Offer option.

Initially, I was not crazy about BIN + Make Offer landing page. My feeling has been that someone who sees the buy it now price with a make offer field will choose to make an offer. After all, the prospect can usually just buy it for the asking price if the seller rejects the offer – or possibly get a better price. With that said, I have sold several names for the BIN price without an offering being submitted, so it doesn’t always lead to an offer.

A point of frustration, though, is when a buyer believes their offer will be given full consideration only to learn that the seller is inflexible on the price. Afterall, most people expect to be able to negotiate when they see the buyer is willing to consider offers.

Case in point, I read a one star review of DAN which focuses on this very topic: