Domainers turn to sales to maintain cash flow.
At the last TRAFFIC conference in Orlando I had a conversation with one of the more successful domainers. We chatted about parking and the drop in parking revenue, and also discussed sales. He told me he is starting to sell some of his portfolio:
“With domain parking down, I’m selling a couple domains a month to maintain the same cash flow I had last year,” he said.
Of course, parking revenue is very different from sales revenue. Parking revenue is rent, whereas selling domains is akin to selling the houses that earn rent. It’s not “revenue” to many people; it’s an asset sale. Over time you have to replenish your housing inventory if you wish to maintain your parking revenue. But most sellers in this market are being opportunistic. They sell domains that don’t make much parking revenue when the right end user comes along. Even if it’s just a $5,000 sale, that’s not bad if the domain earns $100 a year.
And there are buyers out there, especially small and medium businesses. NameMedia has told DNJournal that its sales numbers are better than ever.
What are you doing in this down market? Are you selling some of your domains to keep cash flow steady? Are you buying at the same time?
Kelly lieberman says
I haven’t personally felt the effects of the down market – except at the gas station(!!), because I listened to Owen Frager and got into Apple while it was at $120!
I have always been actively open to selling domains for the right price, so I haven’t increased my selling although I am trying SnapNames auction service for the first time next week.
I have 0RateCreditCard.com,HighStakesBet.com, and AppFreebies.com going to auction. The reserves are very low and I wanted to see where the market goes on these. (I also am still standing by my pledge of 15% to the ICA for all of my domain sales)
I also have some domains up for auction at TDNAM. I am trying a few experiments here and there, deciding what is the best service to go with. I have 0RateLoan.com, CardiacCareUnit.com and WhiteHouseCrime.com at auction now with low reserves. I really had some great plans for White House Crime…but I will have to leave that to Steven Colbert…
More than the economy, for me it is part of what is great about domaining, the fun of buying and selling. I have been buying like crazy so I need to sell to buy more. It is an addiction that’s for sure. I have to feed the beast…
Robb says
Buy and Sell, Sell and Buy. There is no market where people only buy and hold forever, like stocks, real estate, etc. There is a time to buy, and a time to sell. Encouraging that Afternic had their best quarter ever, the way the economy is going. It’s feeling like the domain market is really in an upswing, probably because demand is increasing for good domains, and supply is going down as they’ve been snapped up over the last few years by end users and large portfolio holders.
Zorro says
“It’s feeling like the domain market is really in an upswing.”
That is very funny!
NoDomainsForSale says
Standard business practice at old-industry companies is to maintain an ongoing valuation of what a business unit is worth, and what tripwires would trigger a sale. Why should domain investing be any different?
Emotional attachment to a domain name can be accounted for by adding an emotional premium or sentimental surcharge.
For some domains, setting a minimum bid amount (rather than a sale-price amount) is all that is needed.