Frank Schilling made a comment yesterday regarding NameJet that I believe is significant – and not because it’s anything new … rather the opposite. Many people, myself included, have observed rising final auction prices and speculated about the intermixture of wholesale and retail purchases at NameJet going back at least a year. So why does it matter (and it does) that Frank Schilling calls the present an “interesting moment where the line between wholesale and retail is getting closer than before”?
While I wouldn’t regard Mr. Schilling or anybody else as an oracle and seldom spend my time mopping up another domainer’s casual remarks with exegesis, I do respect his years of experience attending to market prices. Indisputably, one thing Frank Schilling does not underestimate is the retail value of domains. So when he hints that some NameJet prices are venturing into retail territory, few domain investors will step forward to suggest that he doesn’t appreciate domains’ full value. In other words, the perception that retail and wholesale price ranges have merged at NameJet has by now percolated throughout all domainer strata, from aspiring newbies with limited budgets all the way up to the top sellers / big spenders. Frank Schilling’s comment isn’t news per se, but it signals consensus.
The question now to be debated is whether we’re seeing (1) end users and resellers competing side by side to buy the same assets at the same venues or (2) wholesale and retail prices converging with thinner resale margins but (ideally) greater liquidity.
Last week’s top expired sale is a case in point. To me $14.2k looks like a retail number for OnePass.com. But if a reseller could rely on a quick flip, even at a small ROI, then appearances would be deceiving. We’ll see where the domain ends up. Perhaps Thomson Reuters .
Another fairly expensive domain, HOBB.com ($7.8k) has all sorts of English overtones, from political philosophers to Tolkien characters with furry Ankles.com ($6.1k). Apparently, it’s also the surname of a best-selling, Tolkien-inspired fantasy novelist. So many viewpoints overlap in the domain market, though, that we could be looking at a future bread & breakfast (“BB”); or the domain might end up speaking Chinese, as so many sequences of Latin letters do these days.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
OnePass.com | 14199 | HOBB.com | 7777 |
Ankles.com | 6099 | JetRental.com | 4700 |
MailMarketing.com | 4210 | PaddleBall.com | 3922 |
Voices.org | 2801 | Lirio.com | 2615 |
WebSurveys.com | 2400 | InfoShield.com | 2269 |
Inizio.com | 2101 | Helix.org | 2099 |
LDAI.com | 1959 | WatchMyCredit.com | 1911 |
PosterMaker.com | 1433 | Rosca.com | 1423 |
Toured.com | 1400 | RocketNet.com | 1369 |
OnlineWriter.com | 1211 | BII.net | 1106 |
HumanPotential.com | 1005 | SeniorDeals.com | 1000 |
Motoria.com | 990 | Nicaragua RealState.com [sic] |
960 |
LifeInc.com | 938 | EdMedia.com | 743 |
VisitGambia.com | 727 | TeenageFashion.com | 690 |
NB7.com | 665 | SSHA.com | 628 |
MixPad.com | 590 | PointWay.com | 580 |
SpintoBand.com | 570 | SROB.com | 531 |
Jacket.org | 511 | LHCG.com | 508 |
TAFP.com | 508 | DiamondExpress.com | 505 |
VoiceAnalytics.com | 497 | 0LV.com | 496 |
OffTheDock.com | 470 | Competitiveness Forum.org |
444 |
Careering.com | 441 | FGPA.com | 415 |
APHY.com | 412 | UltraLiner.com | 398 |
MVAP.com | 384 | SuccessManifesto.com | 370 |
Revisers.com | 366 | MicroElectronic.com | 364 |
Free-PHP.net | 356 | MyBaptism.com | 342 |
SoccerPhotos.com | 342 | TVCart.com | 311 |
MDATechnology.net | 311 | XGSY.com | 309 |
E5C.com | 290 | OLPB.com | 279 |
ICCUK.net | 256 | 65937.com | 247 |
WholesaleRings.com | 232 | TrickGolfBalls.com | 219 |
SFBrewing.com | 186 | XLSI.com | 182 |
HealthForge.com | 180 | SRLST.com | 170 |
SharingFaith.org | 159 | Lifeline-Gallery.org | 152 |
AdultPersonals.net | 145 | Kenri.com | 130 |
Searchezy.com | 129 | YouLawyers.com | 121 |
iPodCases.com | 111 | VRBU.com | 110 |
SandwichBoxes.com | 109 | TravelAccessories.org | 100 |
AgePage.com | 85 | Japans.net | 80 |
ShortSaleSecrets.com | 79 | ResellerTalk.com | 69 |
Despite talk of retail prices, I’d say there is plenty of meat left on the bone for JetRental.com ($4.7k) and MailMarketing.com ($4.2k). After all, charter jets don’t come cheap; and mail marketing is a vast industry. No, 10 bucks shy of a grand is not the high water mark for an internationally viable brand name such as Motoria.com.
Although many auctions close near retail prices, most do not. TVCart.com ($311) could prove crucial in the future as e-commerce and TV advertising become intertwined. AgePage.com ($85) was a bargain – perfect for a site about aging gracefully. Given all its connections to health, travel, and retirement planning, along with the certainty of getting older, such a domain can make money.
Quality in the chart above is generally high. Domains such as TeenageFashion.com ($690) and SeniorDeals.com ($1k) ought to be developed already, right? I’m sure several people selling TrickGolfBalls.com ($219) could increase their sales using that domain. Helix.org ($2.1k) makes a lot of sense for genetics and DNA testing.
SFBrewing.com ($186) probably refers to San Francisco but could also be Santa Fe. ICCUK.net ($256) corresponds to sites built on .COM (auto repair), .ORG (the Islamic Cultural Centre), and .ORG.UK (International Children’s Care). Inizio.com ($2.1k) is Italian for “beginning” or “I start”, yet it’s near enough to “initiate” to start something in English.
Watch out for Searchezy.com, which (according to the first website I saw) “is classified as a harmful Google redirect virus, which mainly spreads through Trojans, and hacked websites”! Also, watch out for typos so that you don’t end up spending $960 for the not-so-real real estate of Nicaragua.
another domainer says
We all have respect for Frank but recently he is part of the problem. 🙂
For the couple years, he was not an active bidder on the auction sites. However, in the past 6-9 months, he has become aggressive like he was in the ‘old days’. He is not bidding crazy prices like ‘first’ but he does bid much higher than what most domainers have become use to on Namejet. Most domainers have gotten spoiled by the low prices that many semi-premium or premium domains went for on NJ.
Realistically, FS has the deepest pockets around. In the ‘old days’ he use to do a lot of the bidding himself. Today, I figure he has a couple people doing the bidding for him. And, he probably doesn’t know what he bought in the past week.
(not complaining. Just an observation.)
Josh says
I’ve always thought there was a loose correlation between the stock market and the retail domain market. One is clearly in a bubble. The other, I believe, is too.
No one will ever agree on economic calls. But everyone can agree: Sell into strength. Buy into weakness.
thelegendaryjp says
I have said for some years now NJ and snap auctions are nuts for “premium” names leaving no margins for resellers. Frank was and still is part of the problem and in fact mentioned years ago he purchased of those sites because it was some how safer? Congrats you grossly over pay, get ripped off by snap and buy from NJ who we have discovered do their own back door deals on good names and feel safe about it?
The good ole days of buy and flip are long gone, small names with small pargins still exist but that is it and rare.
In my opinion if you are not an end user, typo buyer or squatter and buy from the drop regularly, you are a sucker. Rare exceptions sure but someone wins the lottery every day too so…
another domainer says
I am sorry I mentioned Frank in the initial posting. He does not deserve any ridicule.
When it comes to domain auctions, there is no success coming in second or third place. The buyer needs to play to win (within reason) or go home empty handed.
As for the margins shrinking for resellers, that always happens as a market begins to mature.
In the consumer products industry, the supply chain has changed a number of times in the past 30 yrs.
First, distributors and wholesalers started to disappear because margins shrunk and the supply chain eliminated that level of distribution. Now, we are witnessing the next evolution by consumers bypassing brick and mortar for companies like amazon. Plus, some manufacturers are now selling directly to consumers by utilizing their website.
Look how the domain supply chain has evolved. First, you just needed to reg it with netsol. Then, guys (ie, Yun Ye, Ham) figured out how to catch domains. Then, the registrars got into the game with enom club?, namewinner, original afternic, etc. Then, snapnames became the big boy and almost disappeared. And, now NJ is top dog. But, that will change one day.
Nothing stays the same. Evolve or fall by the wayside.
ChuckWagen says
Here’s another literary connection: Ankles and “Hobb”ling. Got that, Mr. Man?
Will says
Very interesting read and interesting comments.
I agree with this comment – “As for the margins shrinking for resellers, that always happens as a market begins to mature.”
Overall this is great news for domain owners.
In all businesses – We are seeing the middle man getting wiped out. It’s also clear that in the near future we will be seeing many more companies sell direct (B2C). Take the example of the wildly successful Nesspresso capsules. Is there any reason why companies like L’Oreal should not sell their cosmetics directly to consumers online?
By the way who on earth is “first” and “twotwo” – These guys are unstoppable!
FT says
First and TwoTwo are not individuals. They are just proxy bidders for the winning bidder on 2 Chinese auction platforms.
Charley says
Which are the auction platforms?
OhCanada says
to appreciate our hero’s logic one must think beyond ‘domaining’, in the last 7-16 months there has been *thousands* of startups appraised beyond millions, there are businesses built specifically to ‘buy an almost-matured startup and resell to big pockets’, middle entities or middlemen everywhere are not so middle anymore, travel agencies are redundant, fantasy money ? bubble ? large data-sets of stats suggest so, but it could be also an effect of our ‘information age’, the new currency is not bitcoin nor dollars, it is information, it seems .. imho…