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Dan.com’s September sales and what it shows us about the market

by — Domain Sales 3 Comments

Here are some trends from September based on Dan’s sales.

Chart showing domain sales by TLD at Dan.com in September, highlighting that 66% of sales were .com

.Com accounted for 66% of sales at Dan last month. Everything else was long tail.

Yesterday, I wrote about Dan.com’s sales in the final week of September. I communicated with Leanne McMahon (who puts the data together) and suggested that we feature the monthly sales on Domain Name Wire going forward. Let me know if you like these summaries, and be sure to follow Leanne on Twitter or visit her site to get the weekly updates and see the full monthly dashboard.

Here’s the high-level data from Dan.com in September:

  • 4179 public sales, up 276 from August
  • 4 six figure sales
  • Highest sale of the month a .club $198,000
  • Wednesday was the best day for sales, Sunday the worst
  • The top 10 sales are: .club .com .so .poker .casino .io .com .trade .com .careers
  • Only 3 .com’s in the top 10 this month compared to 8 in August
  • .com responsible for 66% of sales (2758), down 4% from August
  • .co.uk is 2nd with 3.9% (162)
  • 172 different TLDs in total, up 23 from August
  • Average sale $1250, up $308 from August
  • Median sale steady at $250 (note that this may be artificially low due to installment sales)
  • US makes up 50.2% of the buying market
  • UK 2nd at 7.6% and Canada 3rd with 5%

August can be a slow sales month due to vacations and the end of the summer, so it’s interesting to compare this to Dan’s July numbers:

July Sales Volume: 3494
September Sales Volume: 4179
Up 685

July Sales over $2500: 247
September Sales over $2500: 319
Up 72

July Average Sale: $942
September Average Sale: $1250
Up $308

July # Different TLDs Sold: 149
September # Different  TLDs sold: 172
Up 23

July is still a summer month, but Leanne points out that the new Dan 2.0 launched halfway through July, so we could be seeing some upward trends because of the upgraded system.

August’s top 10 list had 8 .coms and there were only three this time. It will be interesting to see if that’s a trend. A lot of blockchain-related domains have been selling lately and some of these companies are opting for non-.coms.

In my post yesterday, I pointed out that there are opportunities in non-.coms. People get really defensive about that. It’s true that the majority of sales at Dan in September were .com. The next highest had only 3.9% of the sales volume. You can look at this two ways. You could point to this and say .com is dominant. Or you could say that focusing on just .com leaves 34% of the market off the table.

This is the long tail. Like any market, a lot of people focus just on the short tail. Others focus on the long tail. You see this in all types of businesses. Many people fight over the short tail and others find ways to make the long tail work.

I don’t understand why people get defensive about this. If you believe in .com (which I do), you don’t need to get defensive about it. There’s no debate about which extension is preferred all else being equal.

If you want to ignore the other 34% because it’s hard to figure out or you don’t want to mess with the long tail, that’s fine. There are other people who find a way to make it work, just like in all industries.

Two takeaways from Dan.com’s sales data

by — Domain Sales 9 Comments

Two things jumped out at me after reviewing Dan’s latest sales data.

The word "Sold" in big letters in quote on red background

Domain name investor Leanne McMahon puts together a weekly summary of sales at Dan.com. Here’s a look at the numbers from September 22-30:

There are a couple of takeaways.

First, the Dan platform was responsible for nearly $2 million of sales during the last week of September. These are sales that industry stalwarts Afternic and Sedo left on the table because they haven’t innovated fast enough. Dan (and other new platforms) provide more options, tools and data to domain sellers at a lower price.

Second, you’re foolish if you think there aren’t opportunities in non-.com domains. Sure, you have to be savvy to find the right deals and extensions. But .com didn’t chart until the fourth spot this week, after a .so, .poker, and .casino. 98 different TLDs sold, including sales over $5,000 in .vacations, .builders, .lease, .ski, .irish and several others.

Sedo’s GreatDomains auction: OpenSea.com, Affiliate.com and more

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

The latest GreatDomains auction has some domains that live up to the auction’s brand.

Illustration with four hands holding bidding cards that say "bid"

Sedo’s latest GreatDomains auction kicked off today and ends Thursday, October 21. I don’t usually write about these auctions, but I think there are some noteworthy domains to pay attention to.

First, OpenSea.com is on the auction block. The popular NFT marketplace uses the domain name OpenSea.io, and I’d consider the matching .com a security risk for the company. Sedo shows that it gets substantial traffic. The domain wouldn’t be worth the $500k-$1 million reserve if it were not a hot brand, but it would be a drop in the bucket for the marketplace to secure this important domain name. I’m curious if it bites.

Second, there are a lot of great domains in the auction this time around: affiliate.com, claim.com, soft.com, bronze.com and more. Of course, there’s good quality, and then there’s quality at good prices. The reserves on some of these domains are (rightfully) high, so it will be interesting to see if Sedo pulls off a strong six or seven-figure sale.

Some domains on the lower end have met their reserves already: comedy.org (current bid £190, this is a great domain!), 5g.co ($120), hemv.com (€119), 30.at (€95), worlds.co ($99) and dtpo.com ($99).

Top foreign brands give clues on investing in .cn domains

by — Uncategorized 0 Comments

See how these major global brands approach the Chinese market, domain-wise.

Image of hanging lanterns with Chinese letters and .CN

You can learn a lot about investing in .cn by looking at how top foreign brands handle this extension in their domain strategies.

I picked the first 10 foreign brands from the Global 500 list and examined them for this study. The reason is that, as the best global brands, they must have studied the choice of domains for their entry into the Chinese market carefully.

Below are the foreign brands and their Chinese domains.

Walmart is known as 沃尔玛 (Wo Er Ma) operating from Walmart.cn in China. Woerma .cn does not resolve and seems to belong to a beverage company in Henan. Walmart has acquired Woerma.com but it does not resolve either.

Amazon is known as 亚马逊 (Ya Ma Xun) operating from Amazon.cn. The company also owns Z.cn, Yamaxun.cn, and Yamaxun.com but they all forward to Amazon.cn.

Apple is known as “Apple” and no Pinyin name is used. Its main site is Apple.com.cn even though it also owns Apple.cn (which forwards to Apple.com.cn).

Toyota is known as 丰田 (Feng Tian) operating from Toyota.com.cn. The automaker also owns Toyota.cn but it does not resolve. FengTian .cn is for sale and FengTian .com is owned by a fertilizer producer in Jiyuan.

Volkswagen is known as 大众汽车 (Da Zhong Qi Che) operating from Volkswagen.com.cn. The automaker also owns Volkswagen.cn which does not resolve. DaZhongQiChe .cn seems to be owned by an individual and DaZhongQiChe .com is for sale.

Samsung is known as 三星 (San Xing). Although the Korean conglomerate owns Samsung.cn, the domain forwards to Samsung.com hosted in Korea. Its Chinese contents carry an ICP license even though the contents are published outside China. SanXing. cn and SanXing .com are owned by an IT company and a medical device manufacturer in China, respectively.

BP is promoted as “BP” even though it has the Chinese name 英国石油公司 (British Petroleum). Its Chinese contents are published on BP.com hosted in the United States. BP .cn is owned by an individual.

Shell is known as 壳牌 (Qiao Pai) operating from Shell.com.cn. Shell .cn is for sale now. QiaoPai .cn is also for sale and QiaoPai .com is owned by an equipment manufacturer in Liaoning.

Exxon Mobil is known as 埃克森美孚 (Ai Ke Sen Mei Fu) operating from ExxonMobilChemical.com.cn. The company also owns ExxonMobil.cn which does not resolve. Both AiKeSenMeiFu .cn and AiKeSenMeiFu .com are still available for registration.

Daimler is known as 戴姆勒 (Dai Mu Le) operating from Daimler.com.cn. The automaker also owns Daimler.cn which forwards to Daimler.com. DaiMuLe .cn is owned by an individual and DaiMuLe.com is for sale.

What can we learn from these brands about investing in .cn domains?

First, you can invest in English-based .cn domains. None of the brands in this study use Pinyin-based domains for their main sites. This is because English is acceptable in China, and that’s why Apple does not even bother to get a Pinyin brand. The Pinyin domains for Exxon Mobil are still available for registration!

Also, focus on .cn instead of .com.cn. The six brands still using .com.cn probably have done so for the historical reason as explained in “Should you invest in .cn or com.cn?“. They should switch to .cn now.

Prepare to be Amazed with this week’s end user sale list

by — Domain Sales 3 Comments

The Florida Department of Transportation was among the groups buying domains at Sedo this past week.

Graphic with purple background and a dollar sign with the words

I’m going to be frank with you; I’m amazed to see two .co domains sold for $23,000+ this week. I included Amaze.co below because it’s clear who bought it, but we’ll have to wait to see who paid $23,000 for frank.co.

Here’s a list of end user domain name sales that just completed at Sedo. You can view previous lists like this here.

Amaze.co $25,000 – Famous Industries provides tools to create graphics and other marketing assets. It forwards this domain to its website at Famous.co.

Pemfexy.com $18,000 – ISectra is an IT company for pharmaceutical businesses. Pemfexy is a new cancer drug.

Neoplants.com $15,000 – This appears to be an upgrade from Neoplants.co for Neoplants, a biotech company producing plants.

TradingControl.com $10,000 – Whois lists the buyer as Trading Control but I can’t find more about the company.

SportDeal.com €8000 – SportDeal is a sports marketing company.

Pecheur.fr €9,000 – This domain forwards to Peche.com, a fishing website.

FDOT.com €7,900 – Florida Department of Transportation bought this domain name.

Metabox.net €3,500 – Metabo produces the Metabox, a rugged storage and transport box.

MakeAndPlay.com $3,499 – Make and Play lets you design your own toys and jewelry that are built and shipped directly to you.

RollaCoasterClothing.com $3,000 – Rolla Coaster is a clothing store in California.

RCGH.com $2,899 – This domain forwards to the website for investment company River Capital Group.

Behalal.com $2,480 – Whois lists Behalal in France as the buyer but I can’t find more about the company.

JRweb.com $2,150 – JRWEB is a hosting company.

 

 

 

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