(image source: Flickr)
A great read on NamePros shed some light on the current domain market.
NamePros Member Burano writes:
So, has it always been like this on this forum? I see pages and pages of posts of people trying to sell lists of domains with no responses except themselves
Some of these names are decent too…since I haven’t been on this board that long, I was just curious if this was always the case since it’s free here. Or maybe your domain just really has to STAND OUT??It used to be you could at least make your money back on lower quality domains…seems like those days are over.
For years most of the domain market has been riding on the back of PPC revenues. Domainers made good money with PPC, reinvested buying more domains, made more money from PPC, and so forth. Very few were smart enough to diversify, to read between the lines, to understand that PPC income is an opportunity of a lifetime, and not something that will forever keep going up. As Rick Schwartz put it so well the other day (comments 45):
Just look at PPC. Domainer margins have shrunk a LOT while our “Partners” have not. Google makes more and the PPC companies only care about maintaining THEIR margins at the expense of OUR margins and domainers just sit back and PARTY! Party, while WE pay for that party.. But domainers have been out to lunch on every facet of this business when it comes time to standing up for themselves, their rights and their fair share. But don’t worry folks, it will only get worse. Worse because domainers have decided to be powerless.
The bottom line is if domainers make less money they spend less on buying domains in the aftermarket, they save more (if they still have anything to save!), and overall, they look to diversify from a falling trend. In the bigger picture it forces all of us to go out and get the word out to mainstream. If we fail to do so, we will surely suffer the consequences.
Bido, with it’s focus on one domain a day and participation of hundreds of industry voices, intends to do just that. It is easier for an outsider to read about one domain and the various thoughts on it than to look at a whole market and understand years of dynamics. If you want to stay in this business you must adapt, making no choice is the wrong choice. What worked yesterday is not working today. What works today won’t work tomorrow. After years of experience I learned this: In the domain business you either adapt, or you perish.
Have a great day!
Sahar
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Hi Sahar,
Regarding Bido, and domainers buying from domainers, I submitted 3 names for consideration on Friday, 6/19. It’s now Tuesday 6/24, and I haven’t heard anything one way or the other. I would have expected that Dan and the boys would have programmed an auto-responder to at least peel off an email regarding what the timeline would be for a Bido response regarding the worthiness (or not) of the submitted names and our requested reserve prices. But that does not seem to be the case - at least in the case of our submission. There was a message displayed on the site about the fact that the names had been properly submitted, but nothing to inform the user on when that submittal might be reviewed.
Can you comment?
Best regards,
Bob Amend
DKH Domains
http://www.DKHDomains.com
—-answer—-
Hi Bob,
We may have overlooked this. I will forward this to our team to be addressed soon.
Cheers
Sahar
This article is once again a wake up call for Domainers overall.
Domainers selling to Domainers is fundamentally ok in the short term, however this significantly deflates domain values and eventually the domain market may just end up benign forever! I do like what you are doing here on Bido, but I do need to ask… are you running any ad campaigns in the mainstraem media? are you actively calling up “targeted” business end buyers to come in and place bids? The fact is, if none of the domain auctions and sales conduits are not doing what I just suggested, then there is the big problem!
We must be very critical of our methodologies if we all want to experience collective growth in this industry, while there is still a window of opportunity, otherwise there could well be a huge crash ahead. For instance, I have never seen a Sedo.com ad in any mainstream newspaper or heard any of their ads on the radio etc.. Unfortunately, the same goes for all the others.
I’m sorry if what I’m emphasising here upsets anyone, it’s just a fact! The mainstream are completely unaware that an aftermarket really exists. If you don’t believe what I’m saying, just ask your neighbour or average person in your neighbourhood if they know what aftermarket domains mean and wait for a blank stare!
I believe all the leading domain entities in this industry actually mean very well and have indeed achieved quite a lot, however it really is time to take this industry to the average business consumer and the average consumer looking for investment opportunities in general. This can only be achieved through longterm strategic marketing throughout the entire media industry, i.e print, radio, tv and the internet. Also I urge all domainers to start calling on “targeted” enterprises through local yellow pages, magazine and newspaper classifieds etc.. and do your own direct sales.
You will be extremely suprised at what response you get. I have started doing this with through my site, DomainAdvertisingAgency.com and it’s looking very promising indeed, even though difficult at first. Plus we are a very small startup that is at least trying to reach a broader consumer market through our contextual advertising platform.
We all need to collectively do as much as we can, instead of passively waiting for buyers to come by or waiting for the next domain auction…trust me, this is a way to ultimate dissapointment! If every domainer does what I have just suggested above, it will create broader awareness overall and raise domain values.
With any luck I’m about to sell DonateSperm.co.uk to a UK fertility company that I personally called up just as an example. So far, the response has been very very positive and my asking price of £5000.00 does not seem to be an issue at all, its negotiable too!. I would never ever get that through at any of the auctions, maybe $300.00 on reserve at best! Sorry auctions do not reflect the true value of any domain, they are there to “LIQUIDATE” your assets, which means something entirely different. For now, it looks like we are as an industry staking out on LIQUIDATION marketing. That is not how Commercial Real Estate sells. When we all learn how to become Commercial Real Estate agents, we will see a MASSIVE difference!
Thanks Sahar once again for allowing us to give feedback and constructive criticism on you delightful blog…everything helps!
Cheers!
Robert