It’s a rare thing for me to make a Friday Night posting but I figured since I have not done so, why not make it one of my favorite kinds of posts! Domain Microblogging……
~ Two of my recent sales have closed and payments have come in. What sold? I sold FoamCore.com to ArtSupply.com for $2,000. ArtSupply.com was great to work with and they clearly understand domain names! The second sale to close was the domain I submitted to the DomainConsultant.com Domain Madness auction which ended for $3,000 and was StayThin.com .
Side note: I thought about linking all those domains above, but it’s Friday.. and I’m feeling lazy and figured you didn’t want to see all that Blue.
A little info on the FoamCore.com sale. I sent out 5 emails to companies that I thought would be interested in the domain that offer FoamCore products. I got a reply back from ArtSupply.com and it took a little bit to come to an agreement on price, but the deal happened. They are putting the domain to use already for their FoamCore product lines. I used Afternic.com to close up the deal to add some trust into the deal, which I think is important. I had the 10% in the price and think using the service helped close the deal.
Side note 2: The last 2 domains I sent out "Emails to End Users" to sell a domain (FoamCore.com & Irrigators.com) were both purchased by companies that have Nice domains already. ArtSupply.com purchased FoamCore.com and DentalDepot.com purchased Irrigators.com . So a little hint, don’t be affraid to email companies that already have good domains. It’s a sign they know domains, and may be more likely to buy if your offering a good one at a fair price.
~ That first micro post almost turned into a full post… but I wanted to make sure to include the info that I did!
~ My past 4 sales, have been 4 figures each! 2 of the 4 sales, I found the buyers sending out an email to a selected small group of companies. 1 domain was sold at a live style domain auction and the final one was listed on SnapNames, but the following day after the auction ended with no bidder, an offer came in at Afternic, which I accepted. One thing in common with all the sales… I had to take some kind of action to move all the domains!
~ I wanted to send a quick Congrats to Dr. Tony for his purchase of MiniLaptops.com . Great Domain! Dr. Tony is a long time DotWeekly reader.
~ Ugly domain of the day… 5cmShoe.com . It’s not the ugliest domain in the world, but just the ugliest one I had seen today. I saw the domain on a T-Shirt on ShoeMoney.com which I read from time to time. 5cmShoe.com offers a shoe insole that raises your height by 5cm. I like the idea (since I’m short) but the domain doesn’t clearly discribe the product offered by looking at it. It’s an insole, not a shoe.
~ My default home page when I open my FireFox browser is…. Google.com . Not sure why I wanted to share that, but I figured why not.
~ The Raspberry.com auction that I wrote about yesterday is @ $15,499 with nearly 2 full days left in auction. I really like this domain, but it’s to high for me to bid. I think Blackberry.com should buy it personally!
Have a good rest of the night!
Steven Ellis
Congrats on the sales! Very nice domains and it looks to be a win-win for all parties.
I’m curious how the negotiations went re: foamcore.com. How did you know who to contact and did the estibot valuation of $52,000 ever come into play? Or don’t you place much value on estibot?
Keep up the great posts, Jamie!
Leonard Britt
Congrats on the sales and interesting to hear that the buyers already had good domains for their businesses. Perhaps marketing to companies with inferior domains means they don’t see much value in generics and thus aren’t the best prospects. Have a good weekend.
Tony
Hey Jamie,
Congrats on the great sales! I hope you get to reinvest some of the proceeds and repeat the cycle.
Thanks for the public “props” on my purchase.
Jamie Zoch
@ Steven,
I never looked at the Estibot appraisal. I’m not a fan of any appraisal really. This posting I wrote should be able to help you on the “end user” part of your question: http://www.dotweekly.com/2009/03/18/domain-sales-marketing-and-finding-an-end-user/
Gordon
Great point about the buyers already having a great domain – I just had my 2nd biggest sale ever and it was to someone who had the #1 name for the industry – they ended up buying my name, which was probably the 2nd or 3rd best name in the industry.
Andrew
From your prior post it sounds like you contact the whois contact for company you want to sell it to? I’ve always tried to find a marketing or biz dev person in Jigsaw.com, but I suppose for smaller companies the registered whois contact may be the right person.
Jamie Zoch
@ Andrew,
Yes, I use Google.com or ThomasNet.com to find the site / business based on keywords that fit to the domain I am selling. Then I use Whois contact info for that domain to send my email.
jorge
The Dental Depot angle is a good idea. Some more available dental domains: http://hotnamelist.com/search/dental
Care to share an outline of your sales email?
Thanks,
Jorge.
Jamie Zoch
@ Jorge,
Please see the link in my # 4 reply. It gives a general idea of the email I use.
Bruce Alan
The first domain name I ever sold was a cold-call sale, but somehow I drifted away from that method and eventually from domain name sales altogether. One of the few domain names I hung onto was ocard.com which actually felt like an albatross hanging around my neck. Then one week couple years ago I saw several TV commercials for a strickly online store that obviously was beginning a marketing campaign around its beginning letter “O”. On impulse I sent a feeler to the store, which promptly responded with interest. In retrospect the halfway to $30,000 I received was probably negotiated poorly by me. On the other hand, who was going to buy it any time soon for that kind of money, which I needed badly at that time.
Dave
I wish you could give us an exact template fo you
sales letter. I have tried selling domains with info you provided but have not had any success. I have more success selling domains with less detailed information.
Jamie Zoch
@ Dave,
A sales letter could be the best written piece ever, but if the domain name that is trying to be sold is “so-so” or not even that… it’s going to be a hard sell no matter what you do. Contacting the correct people, also helps greatly. Send me an email and I will help you out. Send me the domain you are pushing, and the companies you have contacted already.