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A dragon with a “cart” head and its implication for domain investment

by — Domain Sales 6 Comments

China may rule e-commerce.

Economist cover showing a dragon with shopping cart for its head

I was reading news the other day and was intrigued by a picture posted on Economist.com. It reveals a dragon rearing its head, which is not of the usual kind but a shopping cart.

The article says that “it is in China, not the West, where the future of e-commerce is being staked out.” Certainly, Chinese internet retailers have brought out many innovations in recent years, such as live commerce, where celebrity-driven programs livestream content to sell products.

If Chinese e-commerce operators will have a great impact on both China and the rest of the world, I suppose their domain preference will also influence others in the business world too. So, I decided to dive deeper and found “2020 Hurun Top 10 Ecommerce Enterprises in China” (2020胡润中国10强电商) published by the well-acclaimed Hurun Research Institute.

Then, I used Baidu to find the corporate domains used by them. The result is shown below.

Rank Chinese English Domain
1 阿里巴巴 Alibaba Alibaba.com
2 美团 Meituan Meituan.com
3 京东 Jing Dong JD.com
4 拼多多 Pinduoduo Pinduoduo.com
5 滴滴出行 Didi DidiGlobal.com
6 携程 Ctrip Ctrip.com
7 唯品会 Vipshop VIP.com
8 苏宁 Suning Suning.com
9 车好多 CARS (Che Hao Duo) Guazi.com
19 每日优鲜 MissFresh MissFresh.cn

So, what is the implication for domain investment? Simply put, .com is the main stage and English-based domains are fine in China. Note that the top 9 companies on the list not only own .com domains but actually use them within China. China is like the USA in that .com domains are widely used within the country, rather than the country code domain.

Also, “short” is good. This is shown in the case of Jing Dong (owns JingDong.com but uses JD.com) and Vipshop (owns Vipshop.com but uses VIP.com). By the same token, we can guess that Pinduoduo may upgrade to the shorter PDD.com (after all, the company is already referred to as “PDD” in some news).

Note that most of the listed domains are brand-matching. What does it mean? For example, Jack Ma’s company is called Alibaba Group Holding, but most people remember it as “Alibaba.” Therefore, its brand is “Alibaba,” and so the brand-matching domain is Alibaba.com but not AlibabaGroup.com or AlibabaGroupHolding.com. Of course, the acronym version is also acceptable.

Didi is the ride-sharing giant that defeated Uber China and acquired it in 2016. However, its corporate domain is DidiGlobal.com but not the brand-matching Didi.com.

CARS (Che Hao Duo) is using its group domain Guazi.com. I speculate that the used car marketplace operator may, if they can, upgrade to Cars.com (developed, so unlikely), CheHaoDuo.com (apparently undeveloped), or simply CHD.com (not used yet).

MissFresh may want to talk to Canada-based Cook It at ChefCookit.com because the meal kit service provider owns MissFresh.com, which is not used currently.

In short, there are many opportunities to sell domains to corporate China. If you own a domain that lies in the upgrade path of a well-funded Chinese company, then your domain is very valuable. End user research is key. It has already helped me discover the great potential of PDD.com, Didi.com, CHD.com, and MissFresh.com.

14 end user domain sales up to £55,000

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

A musical instrument seller, a ladder manufacturer, and an organic garden supplies retailer bought domain names.

picture of rolled currency with the words "end-user domain sales"

I admit that I had to look it up. But face yoga is an actual thing. Face yoga consists of exercises designed to make your facial skin look younger. A business launching an app to help people with face yoga plunked down £55,000 to acquire FaceYoga.com at Sedo this past week.

It was one of fourteen end user domain name sales I uncovered. Here are the end user sales (you can view previous lists like this here).

FaceYoga.com £55,000 – The buyer has a “coming soon” sign posted along with information about a new face yoga app that will offer customized face yoga exercise programs.

HostGrid.com £23,550 – HostGrid is a web hosting and domain name provider.

FrontSystems.com $8,000 – Front Systems is a Norwegian software company that produces iPad point of sale retail software. It currently uses FrontSystems.no for its website.

Gear4Music.eu $6,001 – Forwards to Gear4Music.com, an international e-commerce site for musical instruments and accessories.

Intra-GNN.com $5,000 – GN Audio A/S bought this domain. It’s an audio solutions technology firm based in Denmark. The publicly-traded company uses the domain name GN.com for its corporate site.

GorillaUSA.com $5,000 – Tricam Industries, manufacturer of garden wagons and carts, step stools and ladders, and other outdoor recreational products, bought this domain name. The company makes the Gorilla brand of ladders.

Roam.ai $3,500 – Roam provides a location SDK for enabling location-aware apps.

Bio-Garten.de €3,497 – Forwards to Bio-Garten.at, an online organic garden supplies retailer. It sells items such as organic fertilizer, soil and raised beds.

DosMaderas.com $3,200 – Spanish liquor company Bodegas Williams & Humbert bought this domain name. It sells a rum under the name Dos Maderas.

SciFair.org $2,500- This is a science fair project resource site with information and support provided by two career scientists.

NerdVPN.com $2,499 – CPG Holdings owns the popular WhatIsMyIPAddress.com website and The VPN Detective.

Temus.com €2,300 – UST Global Inc., a technology consultancy firm with offices in India and California, bought this domain name.

CloudInsider.com $2,000 – A new offering that gives people cloud service market insights. It enables businesses to plan cloud solutions and compare prices and provider options. It got a great deal on this domain.

PrestigeFenster.eu €2,000 – Prestige is a German wholesale retailer of windows, entrance doors, roller shutters, garage doors and accessories.

This DomainAgents feature helped me close a deal

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

Free-form communication tool helped me close this domain transaction.

Picture of man's hand shaking hands with woman

I just completed a domain name sale through DomainAgents. It wouldn’t have been possible without a simple feature that’s part of DomainAgents’ platform.

A potential buyer for one of my domains made an initial offer through DomainAgents. The problem for me was that I acquired this domain in the drop because I thought I might use it for my PodcastGuests.com service someday. The domain name could be used for a podcast-related service.

Even though I bought the domain with my service in mind, I was willing to sell the domain for the right price. I just didn’t want someone to buy the domain name to create a service that competes with PodcastGuests.com.

One of the nice things about DomainAgents is that it allows you to add comments to offers and counter-offers. Through this free-form, real-time commenting feature, I learned more about the buyer and how they intended to use the domain. I shared with him why I bought the domain and my concern about selling it to him. He was able to assuage my concern, and we closed the deal.

DomainAgents isn’t the only platform to allow commenting between parties. But some platforms avoid it, ostensibly to prevent people from cutting the platform out of the transaction.

The only downside to DomainAgents’ commenting feature is that comments can only be submitted with a new offer/counter-offer. You can’t submit a follow-up comment without lowering your price.

By the way, if you’re not familiar with DomainAgents, the service charges buyers to submit an offer and gives domain owners $10 for responding to the inquiry, whether they close a transaction or not. Most domain owners accept the $10 via PayPal, but others decide to donate the money to charity. Last year, domain owners contributed $5,700 to charity through the platform.

15 end user domain sales, including to a $49 billion company

by — Domain Sales 0 Comments

Waste Management was among the companies buying domains at Sedo recently.

picture of rolled currency with the words "end-user domain sales"

Sedo released its latest sales report yesterday covering the two-week holiday period. The top sale was Limit.com for $120,000 but it wasn’t an end user sale. Brent Oxley, founder of HostGator and now a domain investor and internet entrepreneur, bought the domain.

The top end user sale I could find had a big buyer behind it. Here are the end user sales (you can view previous lists like this here):

MyWM.com $15,888 – Waste Management, the $49 billion market cap resources and waste company, bought this domain.

AlphaPeople.com $5,950 – Forwards to AlfaPeople.com, an IT service provider that does implementations and supports Microsoft Dynamics 365 business technology. In other words, this is a typo domain to the buyer.

Volten.com €5,800 – Stylish Eve, Inc. is a hair care accessories company. I’m not sure what this purchase is for.

Ansahl.de €4,500 – Ansahl Consulting is a German “green” nutrition and diet consultancy.

MonAlimentation.com €3,980 – This domain was purchased by the Dairy Farmers of Canada. It’s French for “my diet”.

Viomi.de $3,960 – Forwards to IPOS-Gruppe.de. IPOS is a German conglomerate of several companies including a medical supplies distributor, a steel and building material supplier, a temporary employment agency, a training program for construction professionals, and a trucking logistics firm.

Fairclough.net $3,000 – Whois shows the buyer is Fairclough & Co in Great Britain. A Google search leads to a chartered building surveyor company.

ATL.ch €2,990 – ATL Global Holding is a Zurich-based consultant group aimed at building sustainable connections between leading tech companies.

SmarterBot.com $2,600 – This has a coming soon sign posted that says, “Coming soon: Next generation business automation with SmarterBot”.

MGNFY.com $2,595 – Swinque UG bought this domain. It’s a German full-service artist management, booking and consulting agency. This seems to be short for Magnify. If so, they got a discount for not paying for vowels.

PureContent.de €2,500 – A digital agency specializing in AI-based content for web projects, social media activity, press releases and more.

EuroGarden.eu €2,499 – EuroGarden is a Slovenian gardening and landscaping products retailer.

Logos.se €2,000 – Forwards to Logos.dk, the Danish website for the newly merged Logos and NPS companies, now called Logos Payment Solutions.

InfinityBook.com $2,000 – Forwards to the customer login page for Tuxedo Computers. Tuxedo Computers previously bought Slimbook.com through Sedo.

K2Air.com $2,000 – K2AIR bought this domain name. Its an HVAC service provider seeking to improve the indoor air quality of commercial and federal buildings by upgrading existing HVAC systems in order to eliminate airborne particulates, odors, and pathogens. This is pitched as fighting against the spread of Covid-19.

This is a brilliant landing page strategy for selling premium domains

by — Domain Sales 9 Comments

Sending buyers to LinkedIn has many advantages.

Landing page for faster.com shows two people shaking hands

The other day I came across Domaining.com owner Francois Carrillo’s landing page for Faster.com (see image above). It’s a simple landing page that allows visitors to take only one action if they are interested in the domain: contact Francois through his LinkedIn profile.

If you click anywhere on the page it shows a message:

Message on Faster.com about buying the domain

Clicking “OK” brings you to Francois’ LinkedIn profile where you can contact him.

I immediately thought this was brilliant. It weeds out any confused visitors. It forces the buyer to make a least a little bit of effort to contact you. It reveals the buyer’s identity. And even if they try to contact you through other means, they show up on LinkedIn in people who viewed your profile.

I reached out to Francois to ask him about this strategy. He stressed that it makes a lot of sense for premium domains. For lower priced domains he uses a lander with fixed prices. Here are the benefits Francois noted via email:

1) It blocks most low ballers and not motivated people.
First because one will see their face, second because it obligates them to log in to LinkedIn, or worse, create an account.
2) You can do “price upon request”.
You know who is behind an inquiry, his company, his history, his network …You can discuss before giving any price and this way get an idea of what the buyer is planning to do with the domain and how much he is willing to spend. So you can give a price that better matches the buyer’s possibilities and your expectations.
4) You don’t need to update your landing page or marketplace prices over time.
What one is willing to accept today for a domain was maybe previously priced for less or the inverse. With this landing page, you decide the price at the moment and with “due diligence”.
5) If you have a domain that probably should perfectly match the buyer needs (low or no competition) you can always say:
Sorry, but this domain is not for sale… now if you have an outstanding offer I am willing to listen. This way you let the buyer tell you what he could/want to pay… it’s a good negotiation start. It’s harder to use that tactic when your landing is already giving a price estimation.
6) If, after seeing the profile of the potential buyer, you estimate he could never buy for your price expectations you can always find a polite exit so he will not insist and waste your time. And if the guy is not polite or harasses you…simply delete the conversation thread, or block him. (I never accept an anonymous friendship connection. I only respond to the note added to the connection request and delete the conversation thread if it was of low interest.)
7) It’s awesome to have a real person in front and negotiate, discuss… marketplaces are so boring and idiotic, it’s like exchanging prices with a wall.
Now, it may happen the person you talk to is so nice that a kind of friendship may occur over time, and you may finish selling him your name at a discounted price, but no problem because he gave you so much that in fact, you do it with pleasure!
8) Some domainers do not want to expose their full portfolio for many reasons. People who contact you have no idea if you have one domain or thousands.
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!