With the start of the new year, I thought I would launch a new feature called “poll of the day.” Each morning, (for as long as I find it interesting and enjoyable), I will publish a poll question. Some poll questions will be highly topical related to current events and news in the domain industry and others will be more generic to learn about industry habits and interests. The idea is to start a discussion about a variety of topics I think readers will find interesting.
Today’s poll question is Will Domain Sales Improve in 2018? Perhaps the US tax bill will be an impetus for an increase in domain sales. Maybe 2017 was a high water year and domain name sales will not be as good this year.
You are invited to vote in the poll below and are welcome to share additional thoughts in the comment section.
I make the case that domain name sales will improve in 2018 because the retail apocalypse of 2016 & 2017 forced retailers to close many physical locations as shopping centers and malls foot traffic has largely been overtaken by e-Commerce. The companies that want to survive are focusing on the state of their digital marketing and e-commerce schemes as we start 2018. Likewise, the tax cuts will fatten corporate budgets for investment in marketing efforts. The new gTLDs have proven to be nothing more than a temporary distraction from .dot-Com dominance.
I see a good year ahead for 1-2 word domain names with commercial meaning…
Of course I am very BullSish
More demands for my domains very day and more high offers but no hurry to sell.
Dot com is KING and whatever that cyrotocurrency shi&^%t that nobody understands and those bragging they make big money, just beware- the FEDs are not stupid, they are watching every trades you make and dont be surprised you get the letter from them for back taxes and money laundering .
Dont say I did not warn you!!
People will be selling more of their domain names at cheaper prices to move their money into crypto currency where real gains will be made.
Follow the money!!!
Yes, domain sales will Improve/Increase in 2018.
Reasons to be bearish on domains:
Ad agencies cannot bill big $s for acquiring domain names for their clients. Instead, its easier and more profitable for the agencies to charge a recurring 10-25% on top of their clients monthly spending on Google and Facebook ads. Clients compensate for low spending on domains by throwing obscene amounts of cash at Google and Facebook.
In emerging market economies, where we see the greatest potential for growth in domain aftermarket sales, education and awareness about global or US-centric branding is low and appears bound to largely continue that way. Branding may be important in the US, but that does not mean that the rest of the world has to follow suit. Americans may look at a lot of the most popular foreign brand names and say, this stuff is garbage, but those brands customers clearly dont see it that way.
None of the telcos and too few of the other big spenders on TV ads in the US have acquired .BRAND TLDs that they intend to push in their media spends. We may have to wait for delegations from ICANNs next nTLD round to occur before this situation is reversed and domains suddenly become cool again.
Holders of big .COM portfolios are right to disparage nTLDs because it is in their interest to do so. But the speed with which creative agencies can change public opinion should not be underestimated. It always seems like we are three years away from that public tipping point, where .COMs are suddenly seen as uncool. Perhaps we still are.
Last but not least, significant damage to aftermarket liquidity is coming from the big players themselves. Afternic and Uniregistry, Im looking at you. Your IP-address-blocking policies are taking food off my table. Fighting potential buyers by blocking access to for-sale landing pages based on traffic origin (especially from VPNs) does not raise site security one iota. If you want to protect against advertising click-through fraud, then apply address filters at that level, not to landing pages for domain name for-sale listings.