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Pool Set to Auction Namaste.com

Pool.comI just received an email from Pool.com announcing an exclusive auction for the domain name Namaste.com. The domain name has cultural significance, and for those who are unfamiliar with “Namaste,” here is how Wikipedia defines it:

Namaste, from external Sandhi between namaḥ and te) is a common spoken greeting or salutation used in India and Nepal. It has multi-religious or else common usage where it may simply mean “I bow to you.” The word is derived from Sanskrit namas, to bow, obeisance, reverential salutation, and te, “to you.”

When spoken to another person, it is commonly accompanied by a slight bow made with hands pressed together, palms touching and fingers pointed upwards, in front of the chest. This gesture, called Añjali Mudrā, can also be performed wordlessly and carries the same meaning.

This domain name will be sold by June 3, 2010, which is less than a week away. The auction starts at $16,000, and I think it will probably sell for much more than that number. If interested, you can bid on Namaste.com via Pool.com.

If you don’t already get Pool’s daily Hot List newsletter, you might consider signing up so you can be informed about auctions like this and upcoming popular daily auctions.

Let Me Try & Help You Sell a Newly Registered Domain Name to an End User

A while back, someone emailed me to ask if I could be his mentor. I passed because that seemed like a lot of pressure and I didn’t feel qualified to be a mentor. A lot of people seem to have questions about selling domain names to end users, and while I would never say that I am an expert at it, I have had some success.

With that said, I want to try something unique. I want to work with someone who wants to learn how to sell a domain name to an end user. I will communicate with this person via email, and based on the person’s background and experience he (or she) and I will discuss some available domain names and determine one or two of the best and that person will register the domain names with the hopes of reselling one or both for $500 or less, which I have found to be a fair number.

I will then work with the person to help find potential buyers and craft an email that will hopefully lead to a successful sale. I obviously can’t promise that it will lead to a sale, but hopefully the person I work with will get a good understanding of how I evaluate domain names to buy for resale. The more diverse a person’s “real world” experience is, the better, since this could help with buying great niche domain names.

If this is something that is of interest to you, please post a comment in this article, and when I return from my trip on June 7th, I will create a list of people who are interested and use a random number generator to select the winner. I will also be happy to share the results with everyone – or better yet – the winner will write a guest post about the experience. I am headed out of town tomorrow, so comments may be slow to be approved but I will eventually see and approve them.

Disclaimer: The person will be responsible for buying the domain names and will keep 100% of the proceeds if the domain name sells. He/she will be responsible for completing the sale (payment and domain transfer). The person will be responsible for any issues or problems that come up related to the domain name(s). There is obviously no charge for my services for this opportunity. I will only act as an adviser on this project and can’t be held liable for anything associated with this.

Another End User Sale Detailed

I am not going to share the names of the two domain sales I made this week to protect the privacy of the buyers, but they were both hand registered within the past 7 days, and they sold for $360 and $400. I have a third domain name, which is related to one of the two that sold, and I think that one is going to sell for a little bit less today.

I want to detail the domain sales process for one of the sales, as the second sale was was similar to the first (although it was made after just 2 emails).   For the first sale detailed below, as I was emailing companies based on a Google search of the product, I realized there was an alternate spelling to the product, so I registered that domain phrase too.   As of 11am this morning, I only sold one of these two names, but you’ll see more information below.

My initial email to around 30 companies and people in the business:

———————
I see that you sell custom xxxxxxxx, and my company is selling the domain name CustomXxxxxxx.com. The domain name is the exact match of the search term, and developing it could provide a SEO boost for your company in this market.

If you are interested in acquiring CustomXxxxxxx.com, please let me know. I am offering it to several xxxxxxxx companies in the next few days. Also, my company owns XXXXXXX.com and will be looking for partner opportunities in the near future, so if you have any ideas on how we could work together, please let me know.
———————

Half way through the 30 emails I sent, I added a line about the second domain name I bought, mentioning the fact that I own it as well and would sell it. I mentioned one of my domain names that I am looking to partner on, as it’s a very well known name in this particular business and I thought it would give me added credibility.

Out of the 30 or so emails, I received nine replies. Six asked for the price of the first name, one said she wasn’t interested but wanted to know the price, one said she didn’t sell this type of product any longer, and one asked for the price on the second name. I replied to the eight interested people with an email saying the names are $900 for both and it would go to the first person who replies. I didn’t get a positive response to this BIN offer (I got 3 “no thanks” types of replies).

Two days later, I sent out a second email with everyone Blind Carbon Copied:

———————
I am blind carbon copying the 9 people/companies who have shown an interest in CustomXxxxxxx.com and/or CustomYyyyyyyyy.com. I have opted to drop the price of the domain names to facilitate a quicker sale. Each domain name is just $360 to purchase. The domain names are registered at Moniker, a Florida-based domain registrar. If you would like both domain names, the price for the pair is $600, although I can’t sell the pair if someone agrees to buy one of the domain names first.

The first person to write back and say, “I will take it” will get the domain name. Payment may be made via Paypal.
———————

One lady replied within an hour and said that she would take the first name for $360, and the name was transferred within a day and payment was made nearly immediately. She opened a Moniker account and didn’t have any issues using them. In less than a week, the profit from the sale was $330 after Paypal fees and the cost of the domain name, and it literally took under 2 hours for all correspondence and research.

This morning, I received an email from the person who wanted to buy the second name, and he offered $500 for both (he also asked how much Moniker charges per year). I replied that I only had one of the names remaining, and I would sell it to him for $250 – and I gave him Moniker’s price. I also let him know I was going away tomorrow so I could hopefully close the deal before I leave. I will provide an update later.

So what did I learn from this and from other recent sales to end users?

  • Looks like sales under $500 are easier to make
  • Domain name should be the exact match .com of a high profit margin product (custom things are generally higher margin)
  • Almost all replies were from individuals or very small businesses
  • I previously mentioned that registering names at Godaddy made a sale easier because everyone knows Godaddy, but it worked fine with the names being at Moniker
  • Focus on one or two names at a time, sell those and repeat the process
  • You might not always get what you want for the names so be flexible in pricing
  • Don’t go for a “home run” with your price
  • Treat everything like a learning experience – test everything from emails to pricing
  • I still love finding new domain names and selling them. Yes, it’s thrilling to buy a $5k name and flip it for $10k, but when I bought the name I knew it was worth more than I was paying. Finding unregistered names that has value is more fun for me although I probably couldn’t run my business simply by doing this.
  • Not all valuable domain names are registered!

Compete Traffic Numbers & Fusible Report – LOL

According to a post on the anonymously written* Fusible blog, “Elliot’s Blog experienced a big drop in traffic, going from over 46,000 unique visitors in March to under 21,000 visitors in April. Other blogs experienced significant falls in traffic – with Mike Berken’s popular TheDomains.com blog showing a difference of 20,000 visitors.

As I was writing a reply in the comment section of the Fusible blog , my blog’s hosting/server manager wrote me an email:

“Here are the server stats if you want to dispute Fusible’s incorrect post saying you’ve gone down in your traffic:

April Total Visits To Your Blog – 64,684″

I also added that for my blog at least, Compete is way off… I checked in Google Analytics and Stat Counter, and the # of visitors in April was up a grand total of 226 visitors (according to Google) and up 951 visitors (according to Stat Counter), which is virtually identical and a negligible difference.

As you can see from the aforementioned traffic numbers directly from my server, Fusible is incorrect in stating that “the results aren’t that far off.” Likewise, Mike Berkens’ commented about the traffic report as well. In any case, I am just writing this to clarify my blog’s traffic stats, and as my advertisers know, I am happy to share my traffic numbers with them.

*BTW, I only say “anonymously written” because there is little information about the writers on the website (other than the fact that it’s a husband and wife team), and the blog’s domain name is privately registered.

One Thing That Bothers Me About Sedo – Seller’s Listing Price

37

Sedo

A few years ago, I made an offer on a domain name on Sedo for something like $1,000, and the owner counter offered at over $50,000. I immediately hit the cancel negotiations button knowing the difference was too great of a gap to overcome. A few moments after confirming the cancellation, I received an email from Sedo congratulating me on buying the domain name, and for the next few days I frantically did what I could to make sure the sale wasn’t enforced.

As a result of this, up until recently, I haven’t bid on many domain names using Sedo. On top of the problem I faced, I just don’t like the process of using a company to negotiate with a domain owner on my behalf, and I usually sell my inventory of domain names so quickly, it doesn’t make sense to put them up for sale on a platform like Sedo, as I would then have to take them down when they sell.

Over the past couple of months, I have been using Sedo more often to make offers on domain names. One thing that really aggravates me is the the Seller’s Listing Price. If a seller has a listing price, I should be able to buy it right away if I offer that price. The sale should be completed rather than starting a negotiation if I give the seller what he wants. I made an offer on a name that matched the listing price, and I still haven’t heard back. IMO, there should be a Buy It Now button if you don’t make an offer that is lower than the asking price.

My second issue is probably more of an error but I don’t use Sedo enough to know if it’s a one time error or something that happens more frequently.   There was a name on Sedo with a Listing Price of $375, and I tried to buy it for $375. For some reason after placing my bid, I got an error message saying the minimum bid is $1,500. I understand that this may have been a mistake, but I don’t know how Sedo’s system didn’t catch the error, as it shouldn’t allow someone to set an asking price lower than the minimum bid they would accept.

I wanted to share a couple of thoughts about Sedo as I have been using their system more frequently.

Buy E.co and Support a Charity of Your Choice

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the .CO Registry’s Founder’s Program, a program in which web developers with a great plan can be awarded a .CO domain name before others have the opportunity to acquire them. Techcrunch was recently awarded Disrupt.co, and the company has used the domain name for its Disrupt conference currently being held in New York City.

I just learned that Sedo has teamed up with the .CO Registry and together they will be auctioning off the premium, one letter domain name E.co, with the proceeds from this auction going to the charity of the winning bidder’s choice. As you may recall, E.biz was recently auctioned and the bidding ended at over $66,000.

The bidding for E.co will run from June 7 – June 10th, and it will conclude at 4pm. The auction coincides with Internet Week, an event in New York City that celebrates everything related to the Internet, including domain names. To give domain investors and others more of an opportunity to bid, the last hour of the auction “will be conducted live from Internet Week’s broadcast stage and simulcast at both the Internet Retailer (Chicago) and TRAFFIC (Vancouver) shows, allowing conference attendees at all three events and online participants from around the world to be a part of the action.”

With the proceeds of the domain auction going to a charity selected by the winning bidder, I think this is going to exceed the E.biz auction by a wide margin.

The full press release from Sedo is below and you can learn more about this by visiting E.co

====

Sedo, the leading online domain marketplace, today announced it will support the highly anticipated introduction of the .CO top level domain name (TLD) by powering an historic charity auction for E.CO.   The auction, which runs from June 7 at 12 pm EDT to June 10 at 4 pm EDT, will be hosted by .CO Internet S.A.S. at   Internet Week, a festival in New York City celebrating all things Internet.   The last hour of bidding – June 10 from 3-4 pm EDT — will be conducted live from Internet Week’s broadcast stage and simulcast at both the Internet Retailer (Chicago) and TRAFFIC (Vancouver) shows, allowing conference attendees at all three events and online participants from around the world to be a part of the action.   All proceeds will go to the charity of the buyer’s choice.

“With the launch of .CO, we are witnessing the introduction of one of the most valuable domain extensions on the market — one that provides so many unique branding opportunities for Internet users across the globe,” said Kathy Nielsen, director of sales at Sedo.com.   “We are excited to be part of this historic event and hope to leverage this unique opportunity to continue educating the market on the critical role a domain name strategy plays in the success of any marketing campaign.”

The .CO extension has been named one of the most highly anticipated domain launches since .COM, because of the infinite opportunities it provides Internet users, and its instant appeal given short, meaningful names are so rare and difficult to obtain. Considered a unique and exciting alternative to the .COM extension, .CO has many potential uses for Internet users looking to build or expand their brand online.

Many different types of organizations will be able to benefit from what .CO has to offer, including companies, communities, corporations and other commercial and/or non-profit endeavors.   Some early adopters that have already started building websites on .CO domains include the popular political website Politico.com, which recently launched a branded url shortener at politi.co; and the popular blog TechCrunch, which is hosting the TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 conference at www.Disrupt.co.

The E.CO auction marks the beginning of a new era online — it is the very first .CO domain auction available, providing Internet users with a limited opportunity to purchase one of the shortest, most meaningful domain names in the world.   Domain names of this nature are highly valuable because they are more memorable and extremely rare, presenting an incredible branding opportunity for marketers to successfully build or extend their web presence.

“Since the dawn of the Internet, the letter “e” has come to signify all things electronic – from email and e-commerce to online exploration, education and entertainment – and everything in between,” said Juan Diego Calle, CEO of .CO Internet S.A.S.   When paired with the .CO domain, the letter “e” takes on an even greater significance – offering buyers “perhaps the shortest, most memorable digital brand in the world – a domain name with endless possibilities.”

“We are very excited to be working with a strong partner like Sedo to help us introduce the .CO domain to the world,” said Calle,   “and we are confident that our work together will raise a lot of money for a very worthy charity – which is simply a fantastic way to celebrate our upcoming launch!”

To learn more about the .CO domain and the E.CO auction, please visit: www.e.co

About .CO
.CO Internet S.A.S. is the Registry Operator for the .CO top-level domain.   .CO Internet was formed by a strategic venture between Arcelandia S.A. and Neustar, Inc. The .CO domain offers individuals and businesses a truly global, recognizable and credible option in branding their online presence. Thanks to leading-edge technology, enhanced security and unprecedented rights protections for trademark owners, the .CO domain is poised to become the world’s next premier web address. For additional information, please visit www.COinternet.co.

About Sedo
Sedo, an acronym for “Search Engine for Domain Offers,” is the leading domain marketplace and monetization provider.   Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., Sedo has assembled the world’s largest database of domain names for sale, with more than 16 million listings.   The success of Sedo’s model has attracted a global membership base of more than 1 million domain professionals.   Sedo is owned by Sedo Holding AG (ISIN DE0005490155 / German WKN: 549015), which is part of the German United Internet AG (ISIN DE0005089031/ WKN 508903).   Sedo offers regional versions of its site for the UK (Sedo.co.uk), France (Sedo.fr), Germany (Sedo.de), and Spain (Sedo.com).   For additional information, please visit them online at www.Sedo.com or on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Sedo and on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/Sedo.

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