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Breaking: eName announces Initial Public Offering

by — Domain Registrars 5 Comments

Chinese domain name company announces IPO.

enameeName has announced its plans to go public, following the merger/acquisition of 4.cn earlier this year.

The company had 2015 revenue of 260 million(CNY) ($40 million USD) and net income is 27.9 million(CNY) ($4.3 million).

That compares to 2014 revenue of 168 million(CNY) ($26 million USD) and net income of 11.9 million(CNY) ($1.8 million USD).

Chairman Dejing “Meatball” Kong owns 68.8% of the shares.

The company will trade on a secondary, smaller market similar to the London AIM (where Centralnic and MMX are traded).

(Hat tip: Simon Cousins with Allegravita)

Breaking: eName acquires 4.cn

by — Services 35 Comments

eName now listed as sole shareholder of GoldenName entity.

Consolidation in the Chinese domain name market has begun.

Based on a Chinese corporation document and discussions with industry sources, Domain Name Wire has confirmed that eName now owns domain marketplace 4.cn.

Sources tell Domain Name Wire that DN.com and other properties under the GoldenName umbrella are included in the deal, although I haven’t been able to confirm this from official documents.

A source says the deal can be considered more of a merger than an acquisition.

For its part, DN.com company representatives have denied an acquisition. After DN.com went down last week due to an ownership transfer, a company representative posted a carefully worded explanation on NamePros, stating:

Please understand that taking down www.DN.com temporarily was a prerequisite move if we wanted to modify the entity. We did this to coordinate with the lawful procedures.

For you to understand it better, we’d like to explain the exact procedures that we need to go through. We hope everyone can take an objective perspective over this. The official term is called “备案（bei an）”. “备案（bei an)” is to register the website and the company with the government’s network authority, in which procedure we report to the government about what the website’s business is and which company the website belongs to. It is because of our development plan, that we are changing the entity from “Hangzhou Midaizi Network Co., Ltd.”(also the mother company of 4.cn) to “Hangzhou YunBiao Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd.” Both companies belong to John Xu, 4.cn owner.

Although John Xu is still named on a Chinese corporation document for “Hangzhou Midaizi Internet Limited”, a Chinese company search shows that eName is the only shareholder. Records show that the ownership of the entity changed on March 3.

A DN.com company representative again denied the company was acquired in a comment on Domain Name Wire. I reached out to DN.com customer support this morning for a comment about the company search showing eName as the owner of Hangzhou Midai.

It’s possible that there are technicalities around the ownership, which is perhaps why DN.com was moved to a different entity than the one that owns 4.cn, but sources believe the transaction includes DN.com and other affiliated sites.

This is a developing story, and I should have more insight later today.

The Challenges of Creating a Marketplace

by — Uncategorized 3 Comments

Creating a marketplace is tough, but the rewards are high.

One of the challenges new companies offering domain name services face is that of creating a market. It’s the age old question of the chicken and the egg. Which comes first, the supply or the demand? To get sellers you need buyers and vice versa.

This isn’t limited to domain marketplaces in terms of buying and selling domain names.

Starting a parking company. Consider the typical domain name parking company. First you need to get a contract with Google or Yahoo for an ad feed. To do this, you need to monetize a substantial inventory of domain names just to get a meeting. And the more domains, the better your payout from Google or Yahoo. But how can you get more people to park their domains with you when you are getting a lower cut from the ad provider, making it hard to compete with larger parking companies?

A typical solution for parking companies is for them to own their own substantial portfolio. A number of domain parking companies have sprung up thanks to the parking company’s own domain portfolios. One option for newer parking companies: offer a higher percentage of your cut to the domainer. Even if Google is paying you less because of your volume, you can come close to matching the revenue paid out by bigger companies. As you get more domains you can decrease your payout percentage without lowering the domainer’s take.

New Monetization. Another example of a company that is facing the market challenge is Root Orange. The company leases category killer domain names on a city-by-city basis. If you’re the owner of one of these domains you could, in theory, make more money in the long run on Root Orange than with traditional PPC or using the domain for only one “site”.

But what happens the first day your domain goes live on Root Orange? It’s not like 50 cities will be leased in the first month.

Root Orange tries to “pre-sell” certain domains before bringing them onto its platform, but this is also challenging. It’s hard to get business owners to lease the domains before they’re even on the system.

Another solution is to allow domain owners to continue to park the domain and earn PPC revenue for any city that isn’t sold yet.

Aftermarkets. Of course, the prototypical marketplace in the domain industry is a place to buy and sell domain names. Asking domainers to spend time uploading inventory is fruitless if you can’t guarantee buyers on the other end.

There are several solutions to this. Consider Bido, which started with one auction a day. By offering only one auction, it was able to ease the supply side of the equation while focusing on building the demand side. Once it attracted buyers, it was able to open up the supply side.

Another tact is to focus on a smaller niche. 4.cn is proving successful by focusing on the Chinese domain market.

Although the challenges of creating any marketplace are plentiful, the results of executing it are powerful and profitable. Once an effective marketplace is operating, the owner can sit in the middle while the economic forces of the market do the work.

Gregory Ricks Sells 199.com on 4.cn, 500.com is Next

by — Domain Sales 9 Comments

Ricks scores big sale on Chinese domain site.

I have to admit I wasn’t familiar with domain name brokerage site 4.cn before I learned about a recent sale by Gregory Ricks on the site. But now that Ricks has his money and the domain name is transferred, Ricks is certainly a believer.

Ricks sold the domain name 199.com in an auction on the site for 368,666 RMB (yaun), which is about $54,000 USD. It was his first big sale on the site, and it has given him the confidence to send another valuable domain name to auction: 500.com.

4.cn works similar to Sedo, but with a focus on the Chinese market. (Number domain names are very popular in China, but the site accepts other domains.) Buyers submit offers that the seller can accept, negotiate, or send to an auction. If the seller wants to send the domain name to auction, the person who made the offer has to agree. His bid will be the first in the auction and he has to place a deposit. Other bidders must also make a deposit to bid, which increases confidence in the auction.

Ricks’ sale of 199.com isn’t the only big sale on 4.cn. Other top sales include 866.com for 401,000 RMB and 022.com for 271,000 RMB.

The auction for 500.com ends on April 21, and has a reserve between 250,000 RMB and 500,000 RMB.