Domain Sales

DealDash Buys Swoopo Domain Name

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A few years ago, I learned about Swoopo, an interesting type of online auction website that had bidders pay for bids. As I recall, there was some controversy surrounding the type of auctions on the site, because a $100 item that sells for $10 could conceivably have hundreds of dollars worth of bids to get to the final sales price.

You can read a couple or articles about the controversy surrounding Swoopo  here and here. There are plenty of others that I could find, but I think those two articles summarize the issue pretty well.

According to an entry on Wikipedia, “in March 2011, Swoopo’s website became inaccessible, and a notice page claimed that Swoopo was experiencing “technical issues.” On March 26, 2011, Swoopo’s parent company filed for bankruptcy. There is no information regarding whether the site will reopen or permanently close.

It looks like the later part of that excerpt has been answered when you have a look at Sedo’s weekly sales report (via TheDomains.com). Last week, Swoopo.com sold for 10,000 EUR (roughly $13,000 USD). When you visit Swoopo.com, the domain name forwards to DealDash.com, which appears to be a penny bid auction website.

According to the DealDash website, “DealDash is the longest running penny auction site in America. DealDash ´s Buy it Now option removes the risk of losing from penny auctions by allowing losing bidders to purchase the product at a fixed retail price and get a full refund of all the bids lost in the auction.”

This seems to be a wise (and cost effective) acquisition for Deal Dash, since there seem to be a significant number of references to Swoopo and quite a few inbound links. I don’t know if the company purchased any other intellectual property, but the domain name was a smart purchase.

Did You Sell Any Go Daddy Premium Domain Names During the Super Bowl?

Domain Name News reported that Go Daddy planned to have their premium listings appear during the Super Bowl. This was big news because GoDaddy spent upwards of $10 million producing and airing its two Super Bowl commercials, and as a result, the company always experiences a huge traffic surge to its website.

Since domain names listed on both Afternic DLS  and Sedo MLS  are shown on Godaddy searches, I was wondering if anyone saw an uptick in premium domain purchases on Sunday night and/or yesterday. I don’t have a large enough list of domain names that  utilize  the Godaddy premium sales channel, but I am sure some of you have enough and could indicate whether there was an uptick.

Additionally, I was curious if you received more interest than normal in your domain names, whether it came from direct inquiries, form submissions, aftermarket sites, or other sales channels. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that there tends to be an increase due to the attention given to domain names during this busy time of the year.

Last week was a busy week for me for domain sales, but all of them were procured through my efforts rather than through inquiries for my domain names. I don’t think I received any “Godaddy bump,” and I was wondering if you have.

Challenge of Being a Domain Flipper

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Most of my business comes from flipping domain names. I buy domain names in private or at auction, and I try to sell them at a profit as quickly as possibly. I subscribe to the churn and burn method of domain sales, aside from those names I keep for development.

One of the most difficult aspects of being a domain flipper is deciding whether to quickly flip a domain name or hold out for a higher offer. To illustrate this, let’s say I bought a domain name for $20,000 and received a $30,000 offer to sell it a week later. For most people outside the domain industry, a 50% ROI in a week’s time is outstanding, especially when we’re talking about making $10,000 profit. However, if I feel the domain name is worth $50,000 minimum, I would likely pass on the offer.

The issue with passing on a $30,000 offer in the hopes of selling it for $50,000 is that the higher offer may never come. Additionally, the $30,000 offer may not be there days or weeks later should I decide that I want to sell the domain name. It’s easy to make an assumption that a domain name is worth a specific figure, but getting a financial commitment for that number is a different story.

The need to maintain liquidity is always in consideration, too, because I need to have enough cash on hand to pay bills and make other acquisitions as well. This is critical because if I have inventory that can’t be profitably turned into cash, my business is sort of dead in the water. I always need to be investing to keep growing my business.

If you buy and sell domain names, how do you cope with this challenge of being a domain flipper?

Another Way to Use End User Lead Generation Website

I previously discussed how I used the Estibot lead generation tool* and how I used LeadRefs.com to find buyers for domain names I was looking to sell. I also discussed how you might go about using the tool to find a buyer. I want to share an “alternative” way to successfully use tools like these to sell domain names.

When you are considering the purchase of a domain name in the aftermarket (like via auction or a private sale), you might want to plug the domain name into the tool to see if there will be adequate leads for a sale. I don’t know what number would be considered adequate, but I would think 20+ leads means you’d have a solid chance of finding a buyer.

You might also want to see if those similar domain names are developed and who owns them.  If a company understands that a descriptive, keyword domain name will have value to them, they might also want to buy this one if you are able to buy it at a good price and re-sell it.

Once you find some of these leads, you might take a next step and review a domain name sales history website like NameBio  to see if any of those other domain names are listed as past sales. This can give an indication of when and how much the owner paid. You can and should do a Whois History search to see when the other domain names were acquired.

While it’s great that another company values keyword domain names, I believe there is a difference whether they hand registered the name(s) several years ago or bought it in the aftermarket. I think the later is more  indicative  of a company’s willingness to spend money on domain names now.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to email potential buyers before you buy the domain name. I don’t think that’s a smart move, especially because they might try to buy the name on their own. Additionally, I don’t believe you can use either tool for unregistered names, so you can’t use it to find buyers for names you want to hand register.

*Note: I took the first article down after comments were expressed that I made it sound too easy while my success was predicated on the quality of my domain names.

20% of DomainFest Auctions Have Bids

With a couple of days to go until the DomainFest live auction, a little under 20% of the auctions already have bids. The live auction, also found online via Snapnames, will take place on Thursday,  February  2nd at noon EST. I have highlighted the domain names I like in the auction and welcome your feedback.

Domain Name Reserve Current Price Bids

  • stripmall.com $201 – $500 $425 5
  • civilunion.com $1,001 – $2,500 $1,650 3
  •  avengers.com $501 – $1,000 $691 3
  • qe.com $25,001 – $50,000 $65,000 2
  •  californiarolls.com $201 – $500 $325 2
  •  rentaltrucks.com $5,001 – $10,000 $5,251 1
  • guitarclasses.com $5,001 – $10,000 $5,200 1
  •  margo.com $2,501 – $5,000 $2,500 1
  •  liberalartscolleges.com $1,001 – $2,500 $1,234 1
  •  weddingcards.net $501 – $1,000 $590 1
  •  antiqueguide.com $501 – $1,000 $500 1
  •  plasmatv.com $25,001 – $50,000 – 0
  •  12.com $750,001 – $1MM – 0
  •  1800business.com $10,001 – $25,000 – 0
  •  activitycenter.com $1,001 – $2,500 – 0
  •  autosupply.net $201 – $500 – 0
  •  banquethall.com $10,001 – $25,000 – 0
  •  bargain.com $750,001 – $1MM – 0
  •  cardswiper.com $1,001 – $2,500 – 0
  •  catfood.com $50,001 – $100,000 – 0
  •  cheyenne.com $100,001 – $250,000 – 0
  •  cloudmusicstorage.com $501 – $1,000 – 0
  •  democracy.com $100,001 – $250,000 – 0
  • drill.com $25,001 – $50,000 – 0
  •  eco.org $100,001 – $250,000 – 0
  •  emails.com $500,001 – $750,000 – 0
  • empire.com $100,001 – $250,000 – 0
  •  eo.com $100,001 – $250,000 – 0
  •  eve.com $500,001 – $750,000 – 0
  •  feuds.com $5,001 – $10,000 – 0
  •  guavas.com $501 – $1,000 – 0
  •  homeowner.com $250,001 – $500,000 – 0
  •  host.com $1MM – $5MM – 0
  •  hotcoupons.net $201 – $500 – 0
  •  icard.com $5,001 – $10,000 – 0
  •  internetradio.com $100,001 – $250,000 – 0
  •  jackpot.com $750,001 – $1MM – 0
  •  juice.com $750,001 – $1MM – 0
  •  liverdonor.com $201 – $500 – 0
  •  loveline.com $10,001 – $25,000 – 0
  •  nurseries.com $25,001 – $50,000 – 0
  •  planners.com $50,001 – $100,000 – 0
  •  platinum.com $750,001 – $1MM – 0
  •  prescriptionrefill.net $201 – $500 – 0
  •  promo.com $1MM – $5MM – 0
  • qr.com $250,001 – $500,000 – 0
  •  reconnect.com $50,001 – $100,000 – 0
  • security.com $1MM – $5MM – 0
  •  servers.com $250,001 – $500,000 – 0
  •  sox.com $50,001 – $100,000 – 0
  • sportstherapist.com $1,001 – $2,500 – 0
  •  surveillancecamera.com $10,001 – $25,000 – 0
  •  trinkets.com $10,001 – $25,000 – 0
  •  unplugged.com $100,001 – $250,000 – 0
  •  videodownloads.com $10,001 – $25,000 – 0
  •  vintagemirrors.com $501 – $1,000 – 0
  •  work.com $1MM – $5MM – 0
  •  workscited.com $10,001 – $25,000 – 0
  •  xeam.com $501 – $1,000 – 0
  •  xegg.com $1,001 – $2,500 – 0

As always, this is going to be an exciting auction to watch, as there are several domain names I could see selling for 6 figures. For instance, Empire.com would seem like the perfect name for insurance giant Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

What are your favorite domain names in the live auction?

How I Used LeadRefs.com

I wrote a post yesterday recommending LeadRefs.com as a source to find potential domain buyers. I want to share some additional insight and information to help you potentially close a deal.

First off, it may or may not be okay for you to send multiple email messages trying to sell domain names to people you don’t know. I am not a lawyer, and I am not going to interpret any laws that may or may not exist in your locality. I am personally opposed to sending bulk, untargeted, and unpersonalized spam emails.

That said, I think the best possible domain acquisition prospects are people and/or companies who already own descriptive domain names. They either realized  certain types of keyword domain names have value back in the day or they recently bought them, which may even be better. They likely don’t need a big sales pitch or any sales pitch at all to sell them a good domain name that will fit within their business strategy.

More important than the leads are the domain names and prices. You can have the best sales letter, but if you’re trying to sell a crappy, hyphenated .info domain names for $5,000, it’s not going to work. I almost exclusively use exact keyword .com domain names when I am trying to find a buyer. I don’t try to do lead generation for brandable domain names or call to action names.

I try to keep my email simple and to the point these days. I might write something like this:

I am the owner of xxxx.com, and I thought your company might be interested in purchasing it. The price of xxxx.com is $x,xxx, and payment can be made using Escrow.com or an escrow service of your choice. I am offering this domain name to several companies, and the first to agree to the price will have the opportunity to purchase xxxx.com.”

I think prospecting for buyers is a very good way to sell domain names. Companies that already own solid descriptive domain names that are similar to yours make great prospects.

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