Big Buyers Take Their Money to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. While No Shows Keep On Shopping

by Ron Jackson
  

The domains auctioned off at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. (details on the auction can be found in our current cover story) won't be eligible for our chart until final payments have been made and the domains transferred to their new owners. That left the door open for Rick Latona this week, allowing him to share the penthouse suite with his $25,000 private purchase of Offshoring.com. His roommate is Sedo.com who sold Toot.com for the same priuce. Sedo wound up taking 5 of 12 entries on the Big Board and had the only ccTLD on our new list, #8 PerfectMatch.co.uk at �6,756 ($11,992).

SnapNames.com had the only other non .com entry, finding $17,500 with Fiji.net which was good enough to tie USABank.com for third place. Paraguay's Chris Chena picked up the latter domain in a private transaction. SnapNames wound up posting a trio of domains on our new list, including #5 OrganicGarden.com at $15,538. SnapNames also had a rare four-word sale that soared all the way to the Top Ten, #9 BestCreditCardDeals.com at $10,250. Incidently, it was good to finally meet Kjel Holmberg of SnapNames last week at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. He's a big reason that company has such a solid customer service reputation.  

There's also more good news on the new extension front, especially for .US fans. The Ohio food company that seems bent on cornering every food related domain with the American extension was busy again this week. You'll find the details on their latest buys in the New TLD section a bit later on. .US swept the first five positions on that chart and seven four-figure sales were reported overall. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We still have many more mainstream sales to tell you about. Let's start that rundown by giving you a look at the complete Top Ten for the week ending October 23:

Sedo dominated the second half the chart, taking all but two positions. Pool.com got one of those with #7 EJB.com at $14,100. The other one went to Afternic.com with SexGay.com which tied for 10th at an even $10,000. Sedo finished stocking their bulging pantry of prize domains with #6 Gear4.com ($14,500) and pair from that 10th place logjam at $10,000 each; GayHentai.com and FootballSquares.com.

If it takes you a long time to download this page, you can place some of the blame on SnapNames. Their list of solid sales this week is almost as long as some big city phonebooks. Their roster includes CharterCommunications.com ($9,600), DiscountPhones.com ($9,200) and Transporte.com ($6,700). Their list is also dotted with some nice .nets including Samoa.net ($6,488), Images.net ($4,469), Tube.net ($3,600) and Erin.net ($2,803). .Org also got into the act with Alex.org ($3,500) and Nabco.org ($2,000). 

Back on the .com front, Jutaku.com brought $5,210, Bayville.com banked $5,200 and ePlace.com cornered $5,000. HairyMan.com grossed (out) $4,600, HesserCollege.com enrolled $4,478, CreditReportCheck.com uncovered $4,388 and Trill.com added $4,100 to the till. There are so many good sales at SnapNames each week it has become customary to list  those in the supporting cast in a table. Here's this week's edition showcasing the domains they had in the $2,000-$4,000 range:

Afternic scored additional points with Noritz.com at $9,000 and also raked in a $5,555 pot from PokerNightLive.com. Another $5,100 bounced off MattressPro.com, Byko.com brought $3,500 and WeChat.com welcomed $3,000. EXKI.com and PureGames.com played out at $2,500 each, MovieSet.com screened $2,300 and DCSGroup.com ground out $2,288.

When you are ready for some spicy food it's time to turn to Sedo. No one has such a wide variety of ingredients in their sales stew. In addition to their five Top Ten trophies they won ribbons for country code sales from around the world, new extension deals and tasty old line extension entrees. One of their most attractive sales was Beauty.org at �5,200 ($6,274). AllHVACInfo.com added $5,900 and Boohoo.com shed a $5,000 tear. InternetBusinessDirectory.com listed $4,500, TMHS.com commanded �3,500 ($4,223) and ElektroMobile.com rolled in with $3,620. RoyalBingo.com called out �2,000 ($3,550) and another pair of .coms; Lumax.com and AgendaFactory.com pulled $3,000 each. Vaniqa.net notched another $3,000 and ESMI.org posted �3,200 ($3,862).

Sedo's country code winners included SellCar.co.uk at �4,500 ($5,430). Cruise.hu (Hungarian ccTLD) docked with $5,000 on board and British.de delivered �2,600 ($3,137). They also had one I had to look up, having never seen this extension in our sales data before. That was DE.hn which went for �3,300 ($3,982). Here's a pop quiz, can any of you tell me what country .hn represents (without looking it up)? Times up! If you said Honduras you get a gold star and a free year's subscription to DNJournal.com (unless we start charging for access, in which case this offer becomes null and void). 

At Pool.com, DGP.com dropped off $6,600, WomenInc.com was worth $6,200 and RVIP.com racked up $3,300. StapleEasyRebates.com returned $3,250, BlueberryRecipes.com whipped up $3,100 and MarketingDegrees.com earned $3,050. LasVegasGolfReservations.com chipped in $2,988, Scoters.com scratched out $2,822 and JapaneseImport.com unpacked $2,788. ShoeShopping.com bagged $2,501, WebChatline.com landed at $2,300 and AsiaTravelDeals.com flew off with $2,150. SkinEssentials.com and BirthdayPhotos.com snapped $2,051 each and KidsBoardGames.com passed go to collect $2,000. 

At Enom's Club Drop, USHS.com sold for $4,000, TheWeatherStation.com tuned in $3,200 and BeerKit.com quaffed $2,000. .Orgs were featured in a couple of notable sales elsewhere this week. Rob Freeman let FamilyHistory.org (a steady traffic domain) go for $6,500 and GoDaddy's TDNAM service sold Job-Listings.org for $3,505. 

****

Our Year To Date Top 60 chart remains unchanged this week. It currently takes $50,000 to join this elite club and no reported sales in the past 7 days approached that level. It will be a different story in the next week or two with some big sales in the pipeline from the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auction. Here is a look at the 2005 leader board through Oct. 23: 

New TLD Section

If this keeps up much longer they may rename .US "The Food Channel". The Toledo, Ohio food company that had already spent tens of thousands dollars on .US food industry domains in the past month was still in the aisles at the domain supermarket this week. They accounted for the first five domains on our New TLD chart led by a pair at $4,500 each; GourmetFood.us and OrganicFood.us. The seller in the private transaction was Griggs & Company of Miami. The buyer, Natural Foods Inc., also swallowed #3 Protein.us for $2,500, #5 BeePollen.us for $1,800 and #5 Raisins.us for $1,500. Protein.us changed hands at Afternic, Howard Hoffman of PPCIncome.com sold BeePollen.us and the Raisins.us deal was done at Sedo.

The buyer has been so active that their own purchases have been putting upward pressure on prices. As a result, they have understandably started keeping the details of some of their buys quiet. For example, they acquired a real gem, Chocolate.us this week, but the price paid is unknown. They also picked up Almonds.us and many other less common, but good quality names at prices that were unannounced.

Seven of the eight entries on our new chart hit the four-figure mark including a pair of .infos sold at Sedo. Those were #6 Trafikk.info ("traffic" in Norwegian) at �1,000 ($1,207) and #7 Taipei.info at $1,050. Let's take a look at the complete New TLD leader board for the week ending Oct. 23, then I'll tell you about some other new extension sales just off the chart:

Correct.info anchored this week's chart after going for �800 ($965) at Sedo. BulkCandy.biz finished just off the chart at $950 with that domain changing hands at Afternic. Next came another run from the food buyer; Cashew.us at $850 (in a private transaction) and a pair at $775 each at Sedo; Shrinkwrap.us and TVP.us. The latter two were mine and I also sold CommonSense.info at Afternic for $460. In other .info sales, Petlink.info went for $555 at Afternic and Pandemic.info drew $500 at Sedo.

Our New TLD Year-To-Date Top 50 chart gets two new members this week with GourmetFood.us and OrganicFood.us cooking up a tie for the 25th position at $4,500 each. The current entry fee for this chart is $2,750. Here are 2005's highest reported new TLD sales through Oct. 23:

As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies, private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale made through any channel. To contribute information and help make this column better,  just drop a note to [email protected].

We truly appreciate the industry leading companies represented on our charts who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Individuals like Richard Meyer of the American Marketing Corporation also provide invaluable help by sending us data for these sales reports each week.

Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that information and write this report for Tuesday publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. 

We will close with this standard caution. These are not average selling prices - these are top selling domains. One of the biggest impediments to making sales is pricing domains at unrealistic levels. For most of us, pricing domains at the levels achieved on the Top Ten chart will leave us waiting a long time to make a sale! We hope you will use the information presented here as a measuring stick that will help you price your domains at levels that will put more money in your pocket more often!

Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain Sales columns, they are available in our Archive.

Copyright 2005 � DNJournal.com 
A Division of Internet Edge, Inc.
(copying of any material from this site without written consent is strictly prohibited)