3 Lessons I Learned About Selling Domains This Year

As the year comes to an end and things start to slow down (okay they never really slow down, but let’s pretend that they did!) I get pretty darn reflective. This has been a very big year for Daina and I in so many ways and I wanted to share some of my Domain-related reflections with all of you.

So, as we countdown to Christmas I’ll be covering three things I learned about selling domains, buying domains, developing domains, and monetizing domains. Yes, it’s a pretty geeky way to countdown to Christmas, but hey, we’re all domain geeks right?

This year my company was part of close to $3M in total deals between our own sales and brokerage deals for our clients. Considering that this number was under $500,000 in 2011 this is a pretty big jump. I do think you can learn any better than during a period of rapid growth within a company. So, after having an even better year of domain sales than I could have ever imagined, here were my three big takeaways:

To maximize liquidity and sales price go with .COM – I’ve said it many times this year but I’ll say it again, .COM is king and when it comes to selling domains to end-users, this is their top choice 99% of the time. Yes, I love many other TLDs and have seen some great sales this year in extensions like .ME, .TV, and .CO but this is often a second choice for the buyer, the .COM is always their first pick.
  • One word domains are a whole different ballgame – it wasn’t until this year that I really started focusing on one-word domains. One word domains are a completely different ballgame and I’ve found have much larger and broader markets, especially when you have a generic word that could be used for so many different things. You could say once you go one-word you never go back and I can tell you that one word domains have become the focus of my portfolio over the course of the year.
  • Auctions produce liquidity, not great sales – we see it time and time again both in person and online, domain name auctions rarely bring in top dollar sales. So if you’re looking to sell your name for top dollar, a domain auction shouldn’t be the venue you look at. The flip side of this is buying in auctions and I do think this is a great place to buy domains, but I’ll save that for my next post. In short, if you need cash now and need to sell domains, you can liquidate them at wholesale at auctions, but thinking you’ll get end-user pricing for your domains at a domain auction is unrealistic.

That’s it, those are three of the biggest lessons I learned about selling domains in 2012. Feel free to add your own or comment on any of mine.

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton