How Many of your Have Sold to "End Users"

[addz123]

One of the terms that gets thrown around a lot whenever someone values a domain is "end user".

I completely understand how the process works. A domain like TravelMoney.co.uk for example might be worth £3-£10k for a domainer and then £20k-£50k for an end user.

What I'd like to know however is how many of you have actually successfully sold to end-users and the process you used? Did they contact you, did they buy it through Sedo, did you have to contact 100 companies to get an interested buyer etc?

It seems like most people are just hanging on to domains (probably worth £5k-10k on this forum) and waiting for an end-user to come along and offer say £20-£50k.

Do you guys wait years before you flip a domain or is there a point when you finally decide "fuck it, I'm selling it at domainer value"? Also, are there any specific types of domains that tend to be easier to sell to end-users (e.g. single word, commercial potential, certain markets etc..)

I'm just really interested in this whole process because I know end-user value is typically 2x-5x that of domainer value.

Cheers.

Adam

 

[max99x]

I've sold a few to end users, but to be honest they were sites and i was sending leads to the company who ultimately bought them. So it was more they realised the power of the domain from the site on it and showing actual leads

 

[RobM]

I've sold many to end-users privately and via Sedo. They do exist. Sold a hyphenated .co.uk last week to an end-user who's already put up a site. The main thing is to make sure they can get through to you - if this means even getting a contact email or site in the whois go for it.

 

[websaway]

One of the terms that gets thrown around a lot whenever someone values a domain is "end user".

I completely understand how the process works. A domain like TravelMoney.co.uk for example might be worth £3-£10k for a domainer and then £20k-£50k for an end user.

What I'd like to know however is how many of you have actually successfully sold to end-users and the process you used? Did they contact you, did they buy it through Sedo, did you have to contact 100 companies to get an interested buyer etc?

It seems like most people are just hanging on to domains (probably worth £5k-10k on this forum) and waiting for an end-user to come along and offer say £20-£50k.

Do you guys wait years before you flip a domain or is there a point when you finally decide "fuck it, I'm selling it at domainer value"? Also, are there any specific types of domains that tend to be easier to sell to end-users (e.g. single word, commercial potential, certain markets etc..)

I'm just really interested in this whole process because I know end-user value is typically 2x-5x that of domainer value.

Cheers.

Adam

It depends on your portfolio. If you have a strong portfolio the answers are going to be different to if you have a portfolio with names that are two a penny. If you own tyres.co.uk you will find it easier to interest an end user than if you have a keyword domain name like tyresformycar.co.uk . It really is horses for courses, and if you own tyres.co.uk and it hasn't attracted good offers you are more likely to be comfortable holding on to it indefinately than say if you own funkytyres.co.uk which may have seemed a good idea at the time you registered it but confidence may have evaporated through experience. I think that the people most likely to agressively market their domains are the people with inferior portfolios, their strenghths are in their labour and determined effort rather than in the quality of the domains they are selling.

 

[rob]

Quite alot.

Wont touch sedo with a barge pole.

Good names have buyers coming to you.

 

[stevebrowne]

privately, to people who contacted me. I'm not generally a seller as I have ideas for everything I register, so to sell it has to balance out with what I think I can make from it.

 

[Edwin]

Over 80% of our sales are to end-users (or their representatives, whether ad agencies, web design firms or the like) who contact us by typing in one or other domain from our portfolio and seeing our sales page with price/contact details. Usually in the low £x,xxx region rather than the amounts you're quoting, though.

Good names have buyers coming to you.

Suscinct, and spot on!

 

[julian]

I think one problem is buyers are not always 'aware' of the best domain name for the brand/website and will often reg a 'make do'.

They also often resent paying what they probably consider a ridculous sum for a domain when they can reg a 'make do' for £7.

One lesson I would heed from this as a domainer is that 'make do' domains are probably good enough to do the job if everything else in the business model is ok - you may only get a few chances to shift a certain domain to an end user but often greed, long term intrinsic emotional attachment (Golem syndrome), combined with a skewed belief in the overall potentialities of the domain to be worth more than it is, stand in the way of the sale.

Do you know what the saddest thing is? - its the fact that domainer lets said domain drop 5 years later anyway.... Mwhahahahahahahahah

(most of us here are guilty of all these at some point)