This is a guest post from Jason Miner, who oversees Afternic’s Sales, Business Development & Customer Service departments while also guiding the Product and Development teams. With over 6 years at Afternic and more than 15 years of senior management experience, Jason brings adept leadership skills to the helm of Afternic.
The domain market for primary registrations and premium domains shows no sign of slowing down. From the latest Verisign Domain Name Industry Brief : “Registrations have grown by more than 20.4 million, or 10 percent, since the fourth quarter of 2010” and “the .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth, reaching a combined total of 13.8 million domain names in the fourth quarter of 2011.”
It’s also been almost two decades since the first e-commerce purchase, yet recent studies estimate that around 40% of small to mid-sized businesses still don’t have a website! From McKinsey’s Internet Matters report: “All business leaders, not just e-CEOs, should put the Internet at the top of their strategic agenda.” These indicators show that there is a great deal of unmet need for premium domain names for ecommerce sites that are yet to be built.
Since a solid domain is the foundation of any business’s website, the domain industry – and especially the aftermarket – is poised for a huge amount of growth. Improvements in the premium domain transaction process and increased trust in the aftermarket have made it easier for customers to find and purchase premium domains.
Improved Processes Leads to Improved Liquidity
Afternic has made a substantial commitment to and investment in technology to improve the premium domain sales process. Whereas premium domains were previously subjected to a lengthy escrow process, those for sale through Afternic Premium Promotion are now available to the buyer almost immediately. This fluid transaction process is critically important to the growth of the domain aftermarket; customers expect that what they are buying online will be available right away.
Improved Trust by Partnering with Industry Heavyweights
This improved infrastructure has brought many of the world’s leading registrars on board with listing premium domains for sale alongside primary registrations. This both expands the audience for premium domains and lends added legitimacy to the domain aftermarket – which is newer and less known than older registrars.
New Domain Extensions Increase Awareness
Domains have been in the news a lot lately, especially with ICANN’s announcement of new TLDs and the varied responses to this announcement. Any news that keeps domains and their value “top of mind,” is good for the industry.
We expect that consumers will value past performance (.com domain extensions being the most trusted historically, for example) as a predictor of future success, ensuring that .com will still remain the gold standard.
Learn more about selling your domains on Afternic today.
Then why is afternic selling so cheap subpar xxx to low $1,xxx?
@ Ron
Some names are worth that.
I just bought CallCenters.com for $xx,xxx via Afternic/BuyDomains. The deal was private, but it would have been the highest recorded sale of the week had I allowed it to be published. There are plenty of names selling for big $$$.
CallCenters.com… That much… Why?
It’s a huge industry… and it’s worth more than I paid 😉
I think it will likely be used by someone for lead gen.
40% of small to mid-sized businesses still don’t have a website!
is this in USA?
more websites more “BullS”
Elliot, just be aware that Google cached pages can often take months to update. It’s often one of the first things I look at when I’m interested in purchasing a domain if any past sales can be found 😉
Hi El,
(Hey Jason – nice article and points made. I wanted to ask you a zinger, which is “how does Afternic stand in sales promotions to end users compared to BuyDomains.com sales promotion? Isn’t this a conflict of interest? Please don’t hate me for throwing this pie, ol buddy!)
Anyway, regarding Jason’s guest post, I just posted my blog article tonight regarding a possible reason I think many companies do NOT respond to aftermarket domain opportunities. You might see the logic in the reasoning.
Jason, re: your report on companies that still don’t have an internet presence, that’s incredible! 40% Huge. I know there are some companies (I own several internet ad directories) that don’t understand the concept that millions of potential customers are online that they can reach for less advertising cost than ANY other traditional marketing medium.
It’s stupefying that the domain industry has waited as long as we have to get end-users involved in aftermarket purchases on a “gold rush” basis. So many end-users freak out at the thought of paying $1000 for a spot-on relevant domain name that defines their prodservs, but they’ll pay $10,000 for newspaper ads in their local paper that are worthless in 3 days after publication.
Blatant promotion addiction forces me to state that my latest rare blog article may offer a possible answer to why many of the large companies who “know” about the absolute value of generic domains aren’t buying up aftermarket domains that they should own. One domain I saw for sale, “Brain dotcom”, for $499k, is a “no-brainer’ for any company in the education or advertising industries. My God, imagine what you could do with that domain.
BTW, readers, if you haven’t worked with Jason Miner, you can trust he is a respected name in this industry. Honest, knowledgeable, and personable, Jason is a great guy to have on your side and Afternic is lucky to have him. (Non-paid endorsement of a guy I’ve known for many years and has helped me when he should have just hit me with a shovel!)