.Club Sells $150k Worth of Names in First Week of Broker Program

Dot ClubDuring NamesCon, the .Club registry announced its new  Broker Program and interest-free financing plans to help sell .Club domain names. Konstantinos of OnlineDomain.com wrote about this news in an article published a week ago.

In a press release announcing this news, here’s what the registry had to say:

“As we enter a new year, .CLUB continues to innovate new ways to make our brandable premium names accessible to entrepreneurs and small businesses. We were the first to offer financing to select registrants under our Startup Club program, which successfully incubated businesses such as Coffee.club and Soap.club. Now we are expanding the opportunity by offering Registry-backed financing for all premium names sold directly by the Registry and priced at $1,000 or more. With 60-month, interest free financing, that $1,000 name can be had for less than $17/month. For businesses and entrepreneurs, great 5 and 6-figure premium names become much more attainable when payments are spread out over 5 years. You can search for and purchase premium .CLUB names, with a one-time payment or with 60-month financing, at www.get.club.”

This afternoon, .Club registry CMO Jeff Sass shared that the registry sold a hair under $150,000 worth of .Club domain names in its first week offering these programs. This translates into 39 domain sales with a total value of $149,480 (after the broker discounts). Jeff told me that 37 of the 39 sales were made with the help of financing. 17 of the names were bought or sold by participants in the broker program.

According to Jeff, “the goal of us offering financing is to make great, brandable .CLUB premium names affordable for end-users – especially small businesses and entrepreneurs.” I am not entirely sure how this differs from the Startup.Club program the registry offers where buyers can pay using a payment plan and the startups get a marketing boost from the registry.  

Commenting on the Broker Program, Jeff told me that “domain investors and brokers can more easily market and sell .CLUB premium names to their clients, passing along savings and the financing option.”

It seems like people are interested in participating, although  the  amount of money that people are putting down and the payment terms are key factors that were not shared by the registry. It would be interesting to know what % of the purchase is being put down at the point of sale. Hopefully Jeff and the .Club registry keep us updated on the progress of the program. I would imagine the sales prices will  be publicly reported once the domain names are paid-off in full.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

12 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Elliot, and thanks for the post. To answer your question, Startup Club was focused only on names priced at $20,000 or more, and each deal was vetted individually based on the intended usage of the name. The new financing program at http://www.get.club is instantly available for all premium names priced at $1,000 or above and is not based on usage. End-users have access to use the name as soon as they make the first payment. Investors and brokers can finance a name they want to re-sell, and pay the balance due when they find a buyer. For all names, there’s a buy-it-now retail price, and the financing option is simply the retail price divided into 60 monthly payments. No interest. Just search for a name at http://www.get.club. All the details are there. To become a broker there’s a form at get.club/broker. If anyone needs more info feel free to contact me at jeff at get . club.

    • “Investors and brokers can finance a name they want to re-sell, and pay the balance due when they find a buyer.”

      This bit I find confusing. So if I become a .club broker, and someone finds a name they want but can’t pay 100% for it, I, the broker have the pay the remaining balance???

      Example: BillyBob wants whatever.club and it costs $5,000 but can only pay $1,000 down. I, the broker, have to pay the $4,000?

      OR are you saying that I, the broker, can find premium names before hand that I want to sell and simply pay out of pocket to resell.

    • T, the broker just gets their commission, they aren’t liable for anything, if the buyer defaults (which will happen for a big chunk of these names) the name goes back to .club and they sell it again.

      I’d say the reason why this “broker program” is so popular is people are just using it to get a discount between a couple of friends, one is “broker” one is “buyer”. The big worry though is that they appear to be targeting domainers with this despite earlier suggestions otherwise. Were they promoting this program at Namescon? Would be interesting to know.

      It is setup for people to over speculate, buy stuff that they can’t afford and the length of time is long enough (5 years) that a big chunk would default in that period. The average new tld investor is financially burnt out before 5 years, they literally can’t make the renewals and that is the ideal situation for a registry where they can take back a name and resell it.

    • Also on this, the confusing bit is where the “broker” actually buys the name to resell without having a buyer, in that case they are liable.

    • Thank you for your detailed reply, Snoopy.
      I’m interested in trying it out. But I definitely will not be buying a premium .club myself as I don’t have the funds to do so. (Even with financing, I’m not so sure about this.) But I think it may be a good way to earn some commission.

      Thanks again,
      T

    • @T Sorry if it was not clear. As a broker, you don’t have to pay anything unless you choose to buy a name yourself. If you give BillyBob your code and he uses it to buy a name at get.club, he’ll get a discount. He’ll have the option to buy it now or finance it, and you, as the broker, will earn commission on BillyBob’s purchase. Some brokers may want to buy/finance a name themselves, to effectively control it, in which case they would pay the balance only when they wanted to transfer it to someone else (when they re-sell it). Hopefully that is more clear. Thanks again.

    • @Snoopy, thanks for helping explain. Yes, we did promote the broker program at NamesCon as that’s the logical place to do so with so many brokers and investors present. That said, the financing program is really focused on making it easy for end-users (small businesses and entrepreneurs) to get and use premium names in an affordable way, and we’ll be marketing to those groups outside the domain industry. Thanks!

  2. Want a true test of how the “financing” is going? See if .club can hypothecate the loans and sell them over the next year with a major bank other than their own lender. If they can then .club is probably on solid ground because that “major bank” will do extensive DD. Time will tell. We have a few so we wish them the best.

  3. Most of those domainers using finance to buy NTLDs will be broke within 5 years or will simply walk away, .club will be lucky to ever see even half of that money.

    • Thanks for the good question @Xavier. During the time a domain is being financed, there are no additional renewal fees. Once a name is paid in full and transferred to the buyer’s account they are subject to our standard renewal fees at their registrar. .CLUB names, including all premium names, always have a low, standard renewal fee. Hope that answers your question.

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