Joseph Peterson reviews the past week of expired domain name sales at NameJet.
The usual suspects are at it again – China and the USA. During the past week, NameJet saw a $13.9k auction finish for Wangan.com, which formerly belonged to a Chinese manufacturer of electrical fire places that managed $9 million in assets, a 646,000 square-foot factory, and 380 employees. Said the company: “We are powerful in manufacturing and researching”. Aye, but less so in paying $10 renewal fees. Although the buyer is Chinese, other bidders might have favored a Japanese meaning. For Wangan is also a Tokyo road infamous enough for street racing that it apparently features in video games.
The next 5 expired domain sales, however, are all English. First a demonym for the residents of Florida, Floridian.com, claimed $10.9k. Curiously, there’s a lingering $10,000 “buy now” price for that domain at Afternic. So the past owner got precisely what he asked for … albeit belatedly. It’s an unfortunate consequence of poor market circulation that domains are often worth more dead than alive.
Gadzooks.com ($6.7k) is an exclamation of surprise – these days enjoyed for its quaintness. Really the sort of thing we’d expect Batman to hear from Robin. A fun brand name … now that nobody remembers its origin as “God’s Hooks” (i.e. crucifixion nails). On the other hand, many of us do remember from school that The Scarlet Letter is a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel about shame and adultery in 17th-century Puritan Boston. So I wonder what sort of project wants to be branded with ScarletLetters.com ($805).
GreenInvestments.com ($9.1k) was bound to get attention from investors, and it did. TrainingOnline.com ($3.6k) has obvious development potential. As a surname, Markman.com ($2.2k) would fit perfectly this partnership of brothers. Alpern.com ($888) is another last name. CCBA.com might have been an English acronym for business analyst certification, but instead the domain has gone (surprise, surprise) to China.
Domain Name | End $ | Domain Name | End $ |
---|---|---|---|
Wangan.com | 13,920 | Floridian.com | 10,877 |
GreenInvestments.com | 9100 | Gadzooks.com | 6655 |
Kerri.com | 5099 | TrainingOnline.com | 3557 |
LianChang.com | 3411 | CCBA.com | 2905 |
RoofCare.com | 2550 | Markman.com | 2235 |
SitePlanner.com | 2100 | JUZZ.com | 1760 |
ATVTrailers.com | 1310 | OGOL.com | 1309 |
AsiaEC.com | 1231 | CentralPlumbing.com | 1085 |
QuickPayDay.com | 922 | MomAndMe.com | 900 |
UsedATVs.com | 898 | QuickApproval.com | 898 |
Alpern.com | 888 | Custom Contractors.com |
860 |
ScarletLetters.com | 805 | SchoolPlanner.com | 726 |
PJCC.com | 686 | NetActive.com | 675 |
BlackRobe.com | 669 | PenPower.com | 665 |
MudVayne.com | 615 | VisitPisa.com | 595 |
BestPath.com | 580 | FloridaHoliday.com | 580 |
Discoveries.org | 565 | MangoWood.com | 560 |
DTMR.com | 551 | ComicBooks Direct.com |
550 |
FlyFitness.com | 510 | PaydayLoan Online.com |
415 |
DFRS.com | 415 | S4W.com | 411 |
Nervous.net | 409 | FremontSeattle.com | 405 |
FishGuru.com | 365 | EVVC.com | 363 |
BlueGrass- Anonymous.org |
360 | Module- Developer.com |
345 |
SSLF.com | 340 | WFMR.com | 324 |
52422.com | 320 | EnergyDrink.net | 315 |
0WE.com | 314 | CVISProject.org | 310 |
NRGP.com | 300 | ConArt.com | 300 |
CopyrightFoundation.org | 270 | PJXT.com | 265 |
LinkMads.com | 265 | EBIMedical.com | 260 |
FreeSupply.com | 258 | Holtzbrinck Publishers.com |
250 |
TreasureWorld.com | 244 | FlightCoupons.com | 221 |
PerfectImplants.com | 210 | Florida Campgrounds.com |
209 |
ESEM.org | 205 | IdahoWriters League.com |
200 |
FindLocally.com | 180 | ExpressRoom.com | 175 |
PreAlgebra.com | 165 | TopStudies.com | 161 |
Navify.com | 160 | 34245.com | 140 |
UEVF.net | 131 | ChiliPeppers.net | 121 |
PCUOnline.org | 92 | NottinghamArts.org | 90 |
Parametrica.com | 89 | BCRC-UK.org | 85 |
Caopa.net | 81 | Opera-Britannia.com | 80 |
MicroCreamery.com | 80 | TheTanker.com | 80 |
Restoration Consultant.com |
80 | ExpressGames.com | 79 |
VegasWin.com | 79 | VXSX.com | 70 |
UJNE.com | 70 | CouponFeeder.com | 70 |
Evelation.com | 70 | StThomas.tv | 69 |
AngelStartups.com | 69 | Enhancements.net | 69 |
TwitBook.com | 69 | Hollywood Motorcycles.com |
69 |
سودوکو.com | 69 |
We have a few topical clumps. All terrain vehicles: UsedATVs.com ($898) + ATVTrailers.com ($1.3k). (Anybody who sells ATVs ought to be overjoyed to buy such domains at those prices.) Home maintenance: RoofCare.com ($2.6k) + CentralPlumbing.com ($1.1k) + CustomContractors.com ($860). Payday Loans: QuickPayday.com ($922) + QuickApproval.com ($898) + PaydayLoanOnline.com ($415). Planners: SitePlanner.com ($2.1k) + SchoolPlanner.com ($726).
.NET and .ORG didn’t rise above mid $xxx. My favorite among them was Discoveries.org ($565), but Nervous.net ($409) has its applications in therapy for nervous disorders. Plus there’s performance coaching from athletics to public speaking. It’s also interesting to see a relatively high wholesale price on a 2-word .NET like EnergyDrink.net ($315).
FremontSeattle.com ($405) is a neighborhood known for its farmer’s market and bridge-dwelling trolls. Several strong brandables are tucked away in the chart – among them, BestPath.com ($580), NetActive.com ($675), MomAndMe.com ($900). ConArt.com ($300) ought to be the title of a reality TV show about con artists. PenPower.com ($665) may be mightier than the sword, yet it has also generated many an effete TwitBook.com ($69).
Some purchases look like great bang per buck. Casino goers are all looking for their elusive VegasWin.com ($79). Motorcycles in Hollywood sell far in excess of the $69 paid for HollywoodMotorcycles.com, and “Hollywood” might show up as a brand name in any city on the planet. AngelStartups.com went surprisingly cheap for such a popular topic. At $212, FlightCoupons.com might be slightly more expensive – but only slightly. Airlines are a massive industry very focused on competitive pricing and discount rewards; so coupons seem like a natural fit.
Last but not least is the Arabic transliteration of a Japanese game you might have played: سودوکو.com = Sudoku.
Doron Vermaat says
“domains are often worth more dead than alive.” You hit the nail on the head with that one. Not too long ago a contact of mine emailed me to say he was the one that dropped a domain I paid several hundred dollars for at DropCatch. He dropped it because it wasn’t making enough in parking revenue which is something I don’t care about when I buy/sell.
Joseph Peterson says
In other cases, a domain owner will actively attempt to sell a domain – to members of the same audience that ultimately buys it – but find no luck. The communication task is daunting.
After he gives up and the domain expires, ironically, the marketing infrastructure of the domain industry kicks in and suddenly bidders are aware of the domain he couldn’t get them to pay attention to.
Many domain investors have very settled habits when it comes to their purchasing routine. They watch certain venues for convenience – expired auction houses chief among them.
More buyers converge on expired domain auctions than anywhere else in the domain market. Period. That’s why we see a valuation paradox. On the one hand, these sites constitute a mostly wholesale context. On the one hand, they organize more economic demand and often achieve prices beyond what the wholesale domain market is accustomed to elsewhere.
Most methods of coordinating domainer-to-domainer transactions (conversation, forums, mailing lists, auctions) are inefficient in comparison to the major expired market players such as NameJet, GoDaddy Auctions, SnapNames, DropCatch, et al.
So it’s not uncommon for a domain to be virtually unsellable while owned yet find itself in a bidding war once unowned. That’s what I meant by saying “domains are often worth more dead than alive”.
Sometimes I wonder if buyers in the more heated auctions would have paid as much or bid at all if the domain had been offered to them elsewhere – say, by its former owner. In many cases, they wouldn’t. Competing against other bidders provides excitement that most people don’t get from the tempo of 1-on-1 negotiations.
SOfreedomains says
I’m not impressed with ExpressGames.com which went for $79.
KC says
Wangan in Japanese (湾岸) means “the coast of a bay” or loosely “bay area”. In Chinese, Wang An (王安) was the founder of Wang Laboratories, well-known mini computer maker before the arrival of PC, if you are old enough to remember.
Joseph Peterson says
That’s interesting. So Japan lost a generic, and China bought a personal name. Wangan.com had been developed by the fireplace manufacturer as late as 2008.
Thanks, KC.
KC says
Since 2000, the domain name had continuously been owned by the same Chines company (成都王安产业有限公司) until at least 2014. Now they are using nbwangan.cn. See how they downgraded to a less favorable name. The company name is likely the name of its founder, which is the same as the founder of Wang Laboratories. I don’t think it had ever been used by a Japanese company. Most Japanese companies are way behind in recognizing the importance of domain name in general and .com in particular.
Joseph Peterson says
Yes, I’ve noticed that with the Japanese.
ChuckWagen says
Interesting to see you show the $xx sales, to show the spectrum? Prices are all over the place, is the sweet spot dropping? FlightCoupons, for one, was relatively “cheap fare” (pun intended).
Joseph Peterson says
The price distribution peaks at $xx and has a long tail out toward $x,xxx and above – meaning that there are far more $70 sales than $700 or $7k sales happening at NameJet. (And, of course, the same applies to GoDaddy Auctions, SnapNames, Pheenix, DropCatch, and every other expired domain market place.)
Yet it’s the high sales that are generally reported. Partly that’s because high prices are interesting to an investor audience, regardless of what the domains themselves are. So $700 and $7k are more newsworthy (in a sense) than $70.
There are far too many $xx sales during any given week for them to be listed and looked at individually. But they’re underreported for another reason. At NameJet the mechanics of tracking auction results often means placing a bid. Since I don’t want to accidentally purchase domains, I tend to ignore auctions with few backorders, since those have the greatest risk of bidders backing out and leaving me holding the baby.
All the same, I find cases of low prices for good domains to be worth reporting. So when I catch such a fish in my nets, I try to include them in the table. After all, the market is more complex than just the top-end auctions that happen to garner the most bidder attention. And, no matter what discouraged domainers may think, it’s still possible to find undervalued assets by looking where others don’t look.