Important Factor When Selling to Domainers

When you are selling a domain name to other domain investors, I believe the most important thing to consider is the price. I frequently see good names come up for sale, but price expectations are far too high for the audience. Perhaps a domain name would sell for that price to a company who plans to rebrand and use it for their company, but realistically, end user prices will not fly with other domain investors.

Most domain investors want to buy domain names that will either generate revenue that can bring them a quick ROI, or they want to be able to re-sell the domain name at a profit sometime in the future. If the domain name isn’t generating revenue from parking or an affiliate deal, and the price is higher than the potential buyers think they can sell it for, they won’t want to take the risk, and the name will stay on the market.

Of course there is a risk that you will price the name too low, but this shouldn’t really be a consideration when a domain owner wants to raise capital by selling to another domain investor. Sure, you could be leaving some money on the table when you price a name lower than you might ideally like, but you should price it based on what you paid. I would personally rather have a quick sale at a slimmer profit margin than a sale that takes a long time to make at a heftier margin. Oftentimes when a domain name doesn’t sell quickly, other domain investors will avoid it, knowing a price ceiling has essentially been set.

If you want to sell a domain name, and your target is the domain investor audience, you should price your domain name accordingly.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

2 COMMENTS

  1. Very good advice.

    Make a small profit, sell wholesale and give the buyer a good feeling about the domain and you, the seller.

    Ask them what they like to buy and see if you can find them more opportunities.

  2. A related factor that many sellers don’t seem to consider: whether similar (and possibly even better) domains are still available for reg fee. For example, somebody recently advertised a list of pretty obscure first-name .info’s on a forum for $50-$100 each. A quick check shows that some more popular first-name .info’s are waiting to be reg’d, at $1.19 each or whatever.

    Sometimes when I see clearly overpriced sales listings on forums, I figure the seller isn’t expecting anyone to pay those prices, but rather hoping somebody will make a far lower bid, which they will be glad to accept. (Same thing with some of those goofy eBay ads where $xx- or $xxx-value domains are listed for 6 or 7 figures.)

    My model for sales to domainers continues to be this: offer decent-quality domains at low reseller prices, so anybody who’s interested in them doesn’t have to agonize or go through negotiation cycles. Flip, flip, thank you, on to the next one. That’s how I’ve moved 3,000+ domains in the last 2 years. However, I’m trying to gradually increase the average quality of my domains, so that the margins become higher-dollar even if the ROI % remains the same.

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