It has been approximately a month, but I have finally sold my first domain through BargainDomains.com! Sure, the sale was only for $60, but this represented over a 200% return on investment. When it comes to completing the transaction, I must say that Francois Carillo, of Domaining.com infamy, is extremely organized and very professional. Once the domain was sold, Francois quickly collected payment and then provided me with the contact information of the buyer. After a quick and friendly email exchange the the buyer, ownership had changed, Francois had been notified, and best of all…I was paid!
What is BargainDomains? BargainDomains is one of Francois’ recent creations that takes advantage of automatic domain appraisals performed by one of his other sites, Valuate.com. If your domain appraises for great than $1000 (actually, $500 as of today), you may list your domain for sale at a fraction of that appraised value (5 % to 15%) at BargainDomains – as long as it meets basic requirements such as quality, ccTLD relevancy and others. Once the minimum bid is received, a public 3-day auction is held with the reserve set at the first bid price.
As great as my experience has been with BargainDomains, I was previously disappointed in a mid $xxx sale that involved a fraudulent winner (yet there were other bidders). This domain was once again re-listed, but has received no activity. Fraud is something that any auction site needs to deal with and Francois seems to be taking it quite seriously by requirement micro-payments when initial bids are placed.
If you are looking to move some of your domain portfolio I highly suggest checking out BargainDomains.com!
“Bido is ceasing operation as of May 5, 2010. All transactions and accounts will be gracefully finalized and closed.”
It is one of those sad days in the world of domaining – Bido.com is officially closing on May 5th. As any of my frequent readers are aware, I was one of Bido’s cheerleaders. Always posting about my success and the professionalism the Bido staff exhibited. While it is still too early to speculate what exactly has happened to result in such a quick closure, DomainIncite.com reported that they received an email from Bido COO, Jarred Cohen, an email stating that “The reason is nothing beyond obvious, the volume wasn’t sufficient to warrant operation.”
As with many frequenters of Bido, I occasionally did some quick math and continued to wonder how Bido could operate on minimal revenue. My hope was always that the quality of domains at Bido would increase and help them turn a healthy profit, but it turns out my hoping was for not.
As new developments occur, I will post updates to this story. All the best to the Bido staff – you were always wonderful and professional.
Hiya folks! Quick update here. I have two domains in auctions ending today.
RXZ.net – Still available! Please contact me directly if interested.
SOLD
After a couple of months of buying dozens of domains, I am starting to come down with something. It may be the warm weather, it may be the lack of money…either way, I think I have the development bug. After I wrap up a community project (redesign of a simple PHP site I made a couple of years ago), I intend to focus on simple one-page landers that will help potential domain buyers contact me directly.
That’s all for now! Have a great weekend everyone!
Sorry for the lack of posts recently, the past couple of months have been extremely busy from both a work and life standpoint. As the domain resell market has been picking up I have continued to gobble up as many deals as possible. In addition to buying, I have had much success selling new acquisitions in the $x,xxx range – including one via Twitter!
While the past couple of months have been profitable, I am most proud of the connections I have made across the domaining industry. Not only have I sold domains to some major players in the industry, I had the honour of helping Bido out by creating a short video promoting their VoteForProfits program. I also had the opportunity to finally use the services of Escrow.com and I must say that I am more than impressed at the ease of their service.
As both the quantity and quality of domains in my portfolio continue to grow I am always looking for new sales avenues. As such, I have a few domains listed at BargainDomains.com. BargainDomains allows sellers to market their Valuate-appraised domains at a fraction of their appraised value.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a regular post without listing some of the best domains I have for sale. Also, be sure to check out my domain portfolio page for a more complete listing and do not hesitate to contact me if interested in any domains.
