In the past, some of us decided against cherry-picking domains, we simply gave out availability lists. For free.
Once in a blue moon a quality four letter .com becomes available to bid on; a few weeks ago AKME.com – a 12 year old domain – entered Namejet’s pre-release auction system.
It’s good to follow such auctions in order to determine pricing trends and of course, to acquire valuable domains at a price less than what others would pay for.
That’s Lessons on ROI – 101.
So AKME.com ended up selling for $676 at Namejet – a nice price for this pronounceable, aged and alternative to “ACME” domain.
Fast forward four weeks to the present: AKME.com sells once again – this time on Sedo auctions.
The auction closed at $419
Assuming the buyer paid cash for it at Namejet, thus not incurring credit card interest, the return on investment would be:
– $307 ($419 minus $676 he paid initially, minus the $50 Sedo commission)
That’s $307 in the red in less than a month.
Pretty impressive lesson to be learned here: Flipping domains is the single biggest mistake you can make.
Domains are meant to be held long-term, unless the ROI is guaranteed and substantial. If there was an offer, for example, of $3,000 for this domain then by all means, flip it. But the owner decided to push it to Sedo auctions after he received an offer almost 3 times less than what he paid for!
Domaining is not for everyone, as Charles Darwin once said.
