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Domain Name Brokers

Discussion in 'Selling Domain Names' started by RSK3000, Apr 9, 2016.

  1. RSK3000 United Kingdom

    RSK3000 Active Member

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    I am thinking of getting in touch with a broker to sell some of my domains.......

    Anyone used a broker to sell your .com domains?
    Was the experience good or bad?
    Are there any good ones out there?

    Thanks
     
  2. Domain Forum

    Acorn Domains Elite Member

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  3. Adam H

    Adam H Well-Known Member

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    Most of the ones ive spoke to want all the leg work done for them, they want everything priced and they want to sell at the price you gave rather than trying to maximise pricing or actually be a salesmen. Most want to "broker" existing deals for a commission rather than do any outreach to find buyers which is pointless unless its a long drawn out deal thats not worth your time. If you find one that can get out there, email and find buyers feel free to post here as im sure there will be loads of people wanting to take it up.
     
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  4. accelerator United Kingdom

    accelerator Well-Known Member

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    There is:

    http://www.igloo.com/

    I've never had any dealings with them, but I've seen them appear at domain conferences, and that's usually a good sign. They might be worth further investigation.

    Other brokers I've heard of, but not had any dealings with:

    http://www.ddna.com/
     
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  5. Edwin

    Edwin Well-Known Member

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    Adam has it spot on. Unless your domain is ultra high-end, most brokers will approach a sale very passively. They might mail it out to their industry contacts (and some will have bulging contact lists) or to buyers they know showed an interest in similar domains before, but most won't do much more than that. It's a shame and a pity - but if you see it from their point of view, marketing costs money (and done well it can cost a lot) but there's no guarantee of a payoff at the end of it.

    So when you're looking for them to beat the bushes and turn over every rock in the search of a buyer, you're effectively asking them to front your marketing budget!

    (There have been various attempts over the years to redress the balance, for example by requiring domain owners to pay a fee up front for brokerage so that they have skin in the game - but "free" always seems to win, and from the domain owner's point engaging a reactive broker is still "free" i.e. no money out of their pocket. If you think about the opportunity cost, on the other hand...)
     
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  6. bizzyboy Ireland

    bizzyboy Active Member

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    As a 1-person brokerage, Maven Domains, based in the UK I just don't acknowledge most of the points raised in the comments above. It may well be that larger brokerages operate in the manner that has been suggested above but I can guarantee you that as a very pro-active broker my work is very time-consuming and laborious, and in a lot of cases can give me zero return on my days, weeks and months of effort.
    Plus, I don't have the luxury of a list of potential buyers I can contact about buying a domain I am brokering.

    I have to balance the amount of time and effort I will need to put into researching and contacting potential buyers with what I believe is the '%' chance of that domain selling at the Asking Price.
    As a broker if you want me to try and sell your domain for $100k and the domain market shows similar domains selling for an average of $50k then why would I want to spend all my time on effort doing all the research to identify companies, then identify decision makers, and then contacting those people multiple times to try and make a sales case for a domain that is clearly over-priced?

    I need to be able to build a sales case for every domain I broker, and one part of my sales pitch is to use comparable domain sales, because I can guarantee you that I will be asked to justify the Asking Price at some part of the sales process. And although as part of my sales pitch I will build in 'value' into why the company should purchase this domain, when you have strong comparable data then it is hard for a potential buyer to argue hard sales data facts.

    And most brokers will be very selective about the domains they broker as we work on commission only. Not every domain I broker will sell, for a variety of reasons, but I will broker domains that are valued from a few $1,000 upwards. At the moment I have a LLLL.org/.net domain I am trying to sell for a client and if successful I only get a few $100 commission.

    I am also brokering a few LL.com and LLL.com domains to end users, and these are the most difficult to find an end user buyer for. You should try approaching a company 'cold' and ask them to purchase a domain for $1m+ or $100k+. For some domains I may even spend money advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn and sending out a Press Release about a domain for sale. There may well be a nice commission 'if' the domain sells, but there will also be many days and weeks of hard work completely wasted if I cannot find a buyer for these LL.com and LLL.com domains. And the same is true for any decent 1-word or 2-word domain.

    The bottom-line is I do brokering the hard way i.e. I pro-actively research and contact potential end-users, but I will balance that by being selective. And by 'selective' I mean that apart from looking at the quality of the domain name I will also look at the number of potential end-user buyers to see if there are enough to give me a 'reasonable' chance of making a sale.
     
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  7. Adam H

    Adam H Well-Known Member

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    I think thats where it gets crossed especially in the UK space where the "good" domains go for XXXX rather than XX,XXX and above and not everyone possesses such domains. Most good brokers are looking for Mid XXXX upwards to get a reasonable commission from. But dismiss things which maybe they could turn around within days rather than months. You only have to look at the guy on here shifting decent amounts of questionable quality domains ( according to murray ;) ) but for low prices and making tidy sums out of it ( good on him ).

    Id bet that the majority of sellers with decent sized portfolios here have more than half of that portfolio in those kind of KW domains and would happily pay £50 - £100 or more if someone could shift them for £200 - £500+ a pop and be proactive about it.

    You've said your self that you could spend weeks hunting down for the sake of a couple of hundred dollars. There are lesser domains which you could probably pitch to half dozen end users , get a bite and you'd only have to sell a couple to get the same amount of commission as the one thats taken weeks and alot more research.

    Thats the difference I see between brokers and potentially the need of a cheap lackey to thump out a shed load of outreach emails for a couple of hours a week due to the repetitive, boring nature of what outreach generally is. Maybe we all need to hire an apprentice/lackey/cheap overseas worker instead of looking for "brokers" so to speak....... Is that where we are all going wrong :D
     
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  8. bizzyboy Ireland

    bizzyboy Active Member

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    I'd love to be able to turn domains around in a few days and take smaller commissions, but from experience that just doesn't happen. I own a small portfolio and every once in a while will try and sell domains for a few $100. And just because they are priced low does not mean they will sell without the same effort, or will sell any quicker. And I've also found that dealing with small companies they need even more hand-holding when it comes to domain transfers etc. So you spend even more time dealing with these potential buyers, so sometimes you feel like 'it just aint worth the hassle!'.

    I think you're right when it comes to lower value sales in that it would be better to outsource the work, as long as you have a detailed system to pass to them which they can follow i.e. you need for them to know how to do extensive research for buyers, find the name of the decision maker which may not always be the person on Whois etc and then send out emails and follow-up accordingly.

    And I am sure the person who has posted his sales results on here has a similar outsourcing system in place, and he doesn't do all the work himself. It's obviously a system that works and generates a profit so good on him.
     
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  9. RSK3000 United Kingdom

    RSK3000 Active Member

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    Some great info here. Thanks.