I wanted to share some advice to people who are new to the industry, and perhaps others who make the same beginner mistakes. If you just registered a domain name in the past month or two, and you are looking to sell it for thousands of dollars, it makes you look pretty silly. Unless you registered a domain name for a term that was just coined or some other very hot trend, chances are good that the reason it was unregistered was that others didn’t believe it was worth the registration fee, let alone the thousands of dollars you are trying to get for the name.
One of the keys to my success when I started out was that I priced my new registrations pretty well. I saw people were trying to sell new registrations for several hundred dollars, and I was very happy to sell the names I just registered for $30-100/each. Sure, it took longer to make a large profit than it would have if I sold just one name for several thousand dollars; however, the likelihood of selling a new registration for thousands of dollars is slim to none (and slim just left the building). Yes, I’ve seen it done a couple of times, but I’ve seen more people get chastised for trying to do this than for actually selling them.
If you are trying to break into the business and do well financially, it looks pretty unprofessional to expect a gigantic return on your very short-term investment. Don’t be greedy, and you will be rewarded over time. For some examples of this, search the term “domain” on Ebay and sort from highest prices to lowest, and you will see plenty.
Excellent post Elliot! I can’t tell you how many times we get requests to purchase 3-4 word domains that are only a month or two old for xx,xxx
That is one of the best advice I have ever had. I think sometime guys are just emotionally attached to names that they put high price on them even if they were registered on 1 minute ago. I am guilty of that too…but 1 out of 30, the name you registered – if given good exposure – might spark up some ideas to a buyer who might want it desperately at reasonably higher price; that is when you get lucky which is not unusual.
I always get a kick out of people that submit somebrandnewname.com for 20,000 maybe the requests will slow now. Thanks Elliot!
As some one who is domainer by accident, and more of a business person. I registered a lot of crap names when i got started last december. On the bright side, since my main business was not domain names, the few names that were good, already paid off through branding/image that they were sending. I pretty much own my nitch right now, and it still very small, but since i am planning to develop number of businesses in that nitch, i am happy camper. And if i sell anything along the way… then great, but i am fine if i wont, i already made up in profit for everything i spent on those domain names.
Well, I’ll be the contrarian. I mostly agree with you. However, I think that when dealing with an end user enquiry, you should pitch the new reg at low four figures. That’s what I do, and already twice this year I’ve sold new regs for low $x,xxx.
Great post – When it comes to 3 / 4 and 5 letter .com’s and .net’s I am sure that the people will cash in big time in the next 2 – 6 years if they own those domain names and do NOT sell them now – Patience will pay off BIG time.
excellent point – however, it s/b mentioned that there is a real difference between “new” registrations and picking up a dropped/expired name.