How I Bought A $20 Domain Name and Sold It For $4500 Within a Week!
There is no sales pitch here, just a story I wanted to share.
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Domain Names Are Valuable
In the world of domaining, most domain names are held onto for many years for high profit sales. However, there are many sales that are considered ''quick flips'' - where a newly acquired domain name can be sold within days or weeks.
I purchased a casino related domain name for $20 USD and sold it for $4500 USD within the week. Unfortunatley due to an NDA I can not get into the full details of that transaction, however I can discuss a $1000 USD sale that came from a $20 purchase.
Tours / For / Singles was a domain that I had purchased in late 2014 via a drop catching service known as Pheenix. It cost me roughly $20 USD to acquire, and since there were no other backorders placed for the name on Pheenix, the domain was awarded to me without going to auction.
As soon as I had the domain in my account I began looking for qualified buyers. The best way to find domain buyers, also known as ''end users'', is to use search engines like Google and Bing.
Finding Domain Buyers
I always look up the keywords of the domain first, in order to see who would be the most interested in owning the domain. In this case, I went to Google and searched for "Tours For Singles". After going through 6 or 7 pages of results I had roughly 15 prospective buyers to contact via eMail.
These prospective buyers consisted of mid to large scale travel businesses that were competing against each other for the singles travel market. It is important to weed out the ''mom and pop'' operations, and find businesses that have a strong internet presence that are likely to understand the appropriate market value for domains.
Contacting End Users via eMail
Whenever I contact an end user I use the actual domain name I am offering as my eMail address - [name]@domain.com. Sales is psychological, when an end user sees someone using a great domain name they want to use it as well. Using the domain eMail is also considered more professional than using a free eMail service, which is cheap and can be thrown away at any time.
It''s very easy to set up eMail for your domain within HostGator; I will include a tutorial for HostGator eMail setup so that you can use this approach for yourself.
Good domains almost sell themselves, the final selling price comes down to who is selling it.
Negotiating A Domain Sale Price
The final sale price comes down to your presentation. If you have found a qualified buyer, and they are interested, only you set the prices, and only you can close the deal.
If you are just starting out in domaining, you might be inclined to ask for $200 to $300; as you feel that this is a fair return for your $20 investment. However consider this; there are only so many good domains out there. Five to seven years from now, it maybe extremely difficult to even find bottom of the barrel .COM domains for less than $50 USD. So hold onto your names, and only accept prices that will make you very happy, and can sustain your domain acquisition goals.
When I contacted the end user about Tours / For / Singles I asked for $4500, a counter offer of $1000 was made; I accepted.
Keep in mind, total time from acquisition to sale was roughly 4 days. It''s not my best flip ($20 USD domain flipped for $4500 USD within 24 hours), but this is one that I can discuss as there was not a non-disclosure agreement in place.
Things to consider
You can flip a domain rather quickly, as long as you put in the time and effort to find those end users! Do not expect to buy a domain and have buyers swarm to you; it happens, but it''s rare unless you decide to buy $500k in domain names (like some investors do).
The domain is your property, set your sales goals high; there are a finite number of quality domains out there; make your profit, buy better names, and then sell for higher prices.
What do you think?
Is this something you would be interested in, or does it seem too challenging?
Most people here are from the crypto world, so viewing intangibles like domains as digital investments can be very attractive.
leave a comment below with your thoughts and experience with this, let's talk about it.
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Misleading title, but very interesting article!
Do you have to pay someone for a registration fee each year to keep the domains in your possession?
Sorry you feel that way, it's not misleading at all... I purchased a casino related domain name for $20 USD and sold it for $4500 USD within the week. Since I can't discuss that sale, I can tell you about another sale that I used the same exact strategy with. To answer your question, yes; you pay a registrar like GoDaddy $8 - $15 USD annually to retain possession of your domain. This does not include acquisition price. Some domains have a floor price of hundreds of thousands, and some you couldn't give away.
Love your approach, been investing in Domains for almost 8 years now. No great sales but I am a long term holder and have been offered small amounts but as you say do not sell unless you are very happy. Some may be worth a pretty penny in 10 years, here's hoping!
You must have a nice portfolio! 8 years ago you could still get some premium domains at reasonable prices. Congratulations on having the foresight to get started when you did!
I'm glad that stuff works for you, but man, cold sales get people on an instant blacklist for me. The times some fuckknuckle mailed me to ask if I want to buy his .mobi / .biz / .net typo to add to my .com portfolio.. gah..
I don't reach out to fuckknuckle's, I converse with CEO's and decision makers brokering quality .COM domains. That's the difference between people that are successful in the industry, and spammers hoping that someone is dumb enough to buy their .XZY domain.
How do you have time to do cold outreach?
That's time lost brokering domains and filtering datasets of the drop.
How is the net value of doing outbound PR in a business segment where the PR routinely seeks you out (good names sell themselves), a positive one?
I never hear much of outbound sales going for more than the interested inbound ones.
Outreach is brokering. Buy domains, find buyers. One in the same.
Inbound sales do typically sell for more than doing outbound, however if I just sat on a domain for 3 years for an $8k sale versus owning it for a week and converting a $4500 sale, it just makes sense.
This notion of 'time lost' or 'time spent' just means you need to make a more efficient system. It takes me 1 - 2 hours to sort through ALL drops and auctions every day. The rest of the day is outreach and qualifying leads. Plenty of time to do it all :)
Good luck.
I do have just found a domain related to steem. should i sell it on flippa or host a website on it ??
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Keep up the great work @store
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