Any Sales????

WalkinDude · Mar 23, 2014

Is it me or are we reaching the stage you can't even give domains away? Since the nTLDS, I struggle to recall seeing a 'sold' on any domains posted for sale. So many domains for sale at effectively reg price and no takers, there's even some being offered for free, no takers?????

Any thoughts pls share.

philiporchard · Mar 23, 2014

Good domains are still worth buying.

Probably more to do with the quality of the domains.

Murray · Mar 23, 2014

WalkinDude said:
Is it me or are we reaching the stage you can't even give domains away?.

A domain I caught a week or so ago had had 3 end users email me within the first 2 days

Hasn't sold as of yet though because none of them agreed to stump up the very reasonable mid xxx asking price, (best offer was £390)

Also caught a domain couple of days ago and had an end user email for a price straight away.

http://buydomainnames.co.uk/domains/sold

Denys doesn't seem to be having a problem

And seen some other on here say they have sold some nice names for equally nice amounts, Tim with insolvency for example

I'm very optimistic with .UK being launched there being a provoked interest and a larger volume of inquiries and hopefully sales.

If you have genuinely good domains then I don't think you have anything to worry about

Retired_Member42 · Mar 23, 2014

I think Google has had a lot to do with it. Not only have they rendered most keyword domains useless (unless it's ultra-premium) it's also had a knock on effect on peoples income thus limiting their available funds to re-invest and also domainers aren't selling domains as often as a result of the above so not re-investing either etc

I know Google/SEO/marketing is just one piece of the pie but most stuff up for sale tend to be keywords or stuff that nobody would really want to brand out.

Edwin · Mar 23, 2014

Sales are still happening, I think - just not on Acorn.

Bear in mind as well that we are now less than 3 months from .uk launch and, even though there's a 5 year "window" to register the matching .uk, many domain investors may be looking to "double down" on their better names a lot sooner than that - so they may be hoarding their pennies ready for a big .uk registration spree come 10 June.

This doesn't affect end user enquiries, but it could have a big impact on domainer-to-domainer sales.

Retired_Member42 · Mar 23, 2014

Edwin said:
Bear in mind as well that we are now less than 3 months from .uk launch and, even though there's a 5 year "window" to register the matching .uk, many domain investors may be looking to "double down" on their better names a lot sooner than that - so they may be hoarding their pennies ready for a big .uk registration spree come 10 June.

I think that's wishful thinking. Most domainers seem to be having a firesale with lots of people clearing their portfolios. It doesn't matter if the .uk comes with it, if it's a crap/unsellable/unusable name having two of them makes no odds.

Edwin · Mar 23, 2014

Redemption said:
I think that's wishful thinking. Most domainers seem to be having a firesale with lots of people clearing their portfolios. It doesn't matter if the .uk comes with it, if it's a crap/unsellable/unusable name having two of them makes no odds.

I've had more enquiries (though not more sales) so far this month than at any time since autumn last year. Just finished replying to another one about 30s ago, the 4th in the last 48 hours. Perhaps the "shoots of recovery" in the economy are being felt in the small business arena too...

Murray · Mar 23, 2014

Edwin said:
Sales are still happening, I think - just not on Acorn.

I'm put off even bothering to offer most domains on here because I know I will only get extremely low offers.

For instance I caught gingerbreadman co uk which I personally like a lot, I think the best offer I would get on here is £50 (if any) so I would prefer to just keep it.

Not to say I'm any better when buying, I only want bargains.

Retired_Member42 · Mar 23, 2014

Murray said:
I'm put off even bothering to offer most domains on here because I know I will only get extremely low offers.

For instance I caught gingerbreadman co uk which I personally like a lot, I think the best offer I would get on here is £50 (if any) so I would prefer to just keep it.

Not to say I'm any better when buying, I only want bargains.

Acorn is primarily people looking to flip their catches, dump their extensive portfolios or throw overpriced options out there hoping someone somewhere bites. It's not a fair marketplace for sellers. Do end-user sales even happen here?

Where is the value in gingerbreadman.co.uk in your opinion? Not saying it's worthless, but interested to hear where you see the value in such a name?

Edwin · Mar 23, 2014

Murray said:
I'm put off even bothering to offer most domains on here because I know I will only get extremely low offers.

Yep. In terms of sales values, it looks a bit like this...

Acorn < DomainLore <<< end users

(but Acorn is free whereas DomainLore will cost £5 if the name doesn't sell)

Retired_Member42 · Mar 23, 2014

Edwin said:
Yep. In terms of sales values, it looks a bit like this...

Acorn < DomainLore <<< end users

(but Acorn is free whereas DomainLore will cost £5 if the name doesn't sell)

If a domain doesn't get the £50 starting bid on lore it's not even worth renewing in my opinion. DL has a wide enough audience, if the domain is of value, it'll sell.

Edwin · Mar 23, 2014

Re. the point about Google, I think that's affecting the low end of the market (affiliate marketers don't usually spend much) but end users don't seem too bothered.

Here's what our last 8 sales looked like (all to end users who "walked in" by landing on one of our sales landers)

Generic, 2 words (12 characters excluding .co.uk), 1,000 GKT (High), £900
Generic, 2 words (18 characters excluding .co.uk), 90 GKT (Medium), £450
Generic, 3 words (11 characters excluding .co.uk), 320 GKT (High), £700
Generic, 2 words (12 characters excluding .co.uk), 1,600 GKT (Low), £850
Generic, 2 words (15 characters excluding .co.uk), 210 GKT (High), £700
Generic, 2 words (16 characters excluding .co.uk), 260 GKT (High), £1,500
Brandable, 2 words (14 characters excluding .co.uk), 90 GKT (Low), £900
Generic, 3 words (24 characters excluding .co.uk), 1,300 GKT (High), £1,000

("Generic" means that the domain had a very specific meaning and would be unlikely to lend itself to being used for a different purpose. "Brandable" means there was more leeway to purpose the domain for various things)

Brassneck · Mar 23, 2014

Edwin said:
Re. the point about Google, I think that's affecting the low end of the market (affiliate marketers don't usually spend much) but end users don't seem too bothered.

Here's what our last 8 sales looked like (all to end users who "walked in" by landing on one of our sales landers)

Generic, 2 words (12 characters excluding .co.uk), 1,000 GKT (High), £900
Generic, 2 words (18 characters excluding .co.uk), 90 GKT (Medium), £450
Generic, 3 words (11 characters excluding .co.uk), 320 GKT (High), £700
Generic, 2 words (12 characters excluding .co.uk), 1,600 GKT (Low), £850
Generic, 2 words (15 characters excluding .co.uk), 210 GKT (High), £700
Generic, 2 words (16 characters excluding .co.uk), 260 GKT (High), £1,500
Brandable, 2 words (14 characters excluding .co.uk), 90 GKT (Low), £900
Generic, 3 words (24 characters excluding .co.uk), 1,300 GKT (High), £1,000

("Generic" means that the domain had a very specific meaning and would be unlikely to lend itself to being used for a different purpose. "Brandable" means there was more leeway to purpose the domain for various things)

Thanks for sharing the details - always appreciate your transparency.

Can I ask over what period these sales took place? Also do prices include VAT?

Thanks
Stephen.

Retired_Member42 · Mar 23, 2014

Edwin said:
Re. the point about Google, I think that's affecting the low end of the market (affiliate marketers don't usually spend much) but end users don't seem too bothered.

Here's what our last 8 sales looked like (all to end users who "walked in" by landing on one of our sales landers)

Generic, 2 words, 1,000 GKT (High), £900
Generic, 2 words, 90 GKT (Medium), £450
Generic, 3 words, 320 GKT (High), £700
Generic, 2 words, 1,600 GKT (Low), £850
Generic, 2 words, 210 GKT (High), £700
Generic, 2 words, 260 GKT (High), £1,500
Brandable, 2 words, 90 GKT (Low), £900
Generic, 3 words, 1,300 GKT (High), £1,000

("Generic" means that the domain had a very specific meaning and would be unlikely to lend itself to being used for a different purpose. "Brandable" means there was more leeway to purpose the domain for various things)

If people are paying those prices for domains with those search metrics they're not buying for regular SEO/exact match benefit. I can't think of any niche which would justify a £1500 investment to get somewhere for a keyword with 260 exacts a month. In most niches you could buy domains for a 10th of that price with 10x the traffic.

Care to share any specifics? I'd love to know the keywords if people are paying that much £

Edwin · Mar 23, 2014

Redemption said:
Care to share any specifics?

No. All I can say is that 5 of the 8 domains I posted now have "relevant" sites on them, implying that the new owners were ready to act quickly to take advantage of them.

Edwin · Mar 23, 2014

Brassneck said:
Thanks for sharing the details - always appreciate your transparency.

Can I ask over what period these sales took place? Also do prices include VAT?

Last 2-3 months. VAT was charged on top.

Murray · Mar 23, 2014

Redemption said:
Where is the value in gingerbreadman.co.uk in your opinion? Not saying it's worthless, but interested to hear where you see the value in such a name?

Just very brandable, I could imagine it being used for all sorts of different things.

Retired_Member42 · Mar 23, 2014

Edwin said:
No. All I can say is that 5 of the 8 domains I posted now have "relevant" sites on them, implying that the new owners were ready to act quickly to take advantage of them.

Can you share the click price for the keywords in question?

Edwin · Mar 23, 2014

Murray said:
Just very brandable, I could imagine it being used for all sorts of different things.

A quick Google with a few suitable search modifiers turns up all sorts of uses for this totally generic domain (and no, I'm not going to list them here - not my place)