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Thought
Convergence Selling Off Their
Top Tier .Com Domains in NameJet/SnapNames
Auctions
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Over
800 domains
from one of the industry's best
portfolios of premium domain names
are going up for sale in a series
of auctions on Newfold
Digital's NameJet
and SnapNames platforms.
The landmark sale is the result of
a decision by Thought
Convergence
co-founders Ammar Kubba and
Kevin Vo to liquidate the
remaining assets of their holding
company and distribute
the proceeds to their
shareholders.
The
term "premium" tends to
get over-used when it comes to
domains, but in this case the term
is a perfect fit for the
collection that includes
Beer.com (part of a fabulous
lot of 27 domains that includes
"beer" in other popular
languages around the world,
including Cervezas.com
(Spanish), Biere.com (French),
Beoir.com (Irish), and many
more).
Then there is AKA.com, NonStop.com,
Aftermarket.com, Trainer.com,
Illustrate.com, HelpLine.com
and hundreds more. Most of the
auction lots are being offered with
a low or no reserve.
You
can place pre-release backorders
on the various domains before
their specified deadlines (those
are staggered across three nights
beginning Friday night,
December 3). The live
auctions will follow once the
backorder period closes. You can
view the domains on either NameJet
or SnapNames using the
following links:
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Beer
Portfiolio: NameJet
~ SnapNames
/ Individual
Domains: NameJet
~ SnapNames
The
liquidation of the Thought Convergence
portfolio does not mean that veteran
domain investor/entrepreneur Ammar
Kubba is exiting the domain space.
Far from it. Earlier today, Ammar told DomainInvesting.com's
Elliot Silver, "My company, afterTHOUGHT,
Inc., still owns thousands
of domain names, and we continue to
invest and acquire on a regular basis.
Without a doubt, I’m incredibly
bullish on domain names and other
emerging digital asset classes (cryptocurrencies,
NFT’s, etc.)."
|
|
(Posted
November 30, 2021) To refer others to the
post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2021/dailyposts/20211130.htm
*****
|
America
is celebrating its Thanksgiving Day
holiday today. At DN Journal we
are especially thankful for all
of our readers around the world.
Many of you have been regularly visiting
us online for almost 20 years now (January
1 will be our 19th anniversary)! While our
daily interaction has mostly been in the
virtual world, we also loved spending time
face to face with thousands of friends
across the globe until the pandemic halted
in-person conferences. While Covid
continues to cause problems for many,
this too shall pass and we will be on
the go again. In the meantime, we are
wishing you all happiness and good
health and and can't wait to see as
many of you as possible in person again
soon!
Image
from Bigstock
(Posted
November 25, 2021)
|
$400,000
sale of Overview.com Gives Braden
Pollock Another Good Reason to
Give Thanks Thursday
|
|
Looks
like
we have another
interesting bi-weekly domain
sales report shaping
up this week. I just got a note
from veteran investor/entrepreneur
Braden Pollock at LegalBrandMarketing.com,
letting me know that he has sold Overview.com
for $400,000. We will be
charting the sale when our next
report comes out Friday
evening, November 26. The
report normally comes out every
other Wednesday but one of
our primary sales data suppliers
let us know there will be a short
delay in sending out thieir data
this week. That, coupled with
Thursday being America's national Thanksgiving
Day holiday, will push
publication of the new report back
two days to Friday evening.
In
addition to going on the next
all extension Top 20 Sales Chart
(at or near the top), Braden's
Overview.com
sale will be added to our YTD
Top100 Sales Chart
where it will rank among the upper
third on the elite list.
|
Braden
Pollock
LegalBrandMarketing.com
|
|
(Posted
November 23, 2021) To refer others to the
post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2021/dailyposts/20211123.htm
*****
|
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NameCheap
Launches New Domain Market With
Buy It Now and Auction Options
|
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Namecheap, the world’s second-largest domain registrar and one of the fastest-growing companies in the space,
officially announced the launch of
an all-new domain market
this morning.
The Namecheap Market,
developed
by the
company's
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technology
team, gives buyers a state of the
art platform to quickly search, find, and purchase high-value domain names via
in-house auctions or Buy it
Now listings.
|
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The
NameCheap announcement said the new market is designed for entrepreneurs looking for the perfect domain name for a startup or new project or
domain investors striving to expand their portfolio, noting " The new marketplace is the ideal destination for discovering untapped, unique, clever,
brandable, and memorable domain names."
|
After
being quietly launched in beta a few weeks ago, the Namecheap Market is now available to everyone and currently features more than
300,000 domain auctions, as well as millions of Buy It Now
listings.
NameCheap
CEO Richard Kirkendall said, “When I started Namecheap way back in 2000, I truly believed that domain names were the digital real estate of the future, and I wanted to make the process of finding and buying them accessible and simple for
everyone. Now more than two decades later, many domain names have indeed become
valuable digital assets, and we are once again making the process of buying and selling those assets a seamless and easy process with the new Namecheap Market.”
With more than 20 years of highly rated customer service and 14 million domains currently under management, Namecheap
has continued to increase its market share in the growing domain
industry and the new market is likely to accelerate that trend. |
NameCheap
CEO Richard Kirkendall |
|
|
(Posted
November 12, 2021) To refer others to the
post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2021/dailyposts/20211112.htm
*****
|
|
Why
New High End Domain Marketplace
Graen.com is Making Privacy Its
Top Priority
|
|
If
you have been following
our bi-weekly domain
sales reports over the
past couple of years, you are very
familiar with the extraordinary
boom we have seen in
aftermarket sales. The surge has been
accompanied by the emergence of
several new sales platforms and
services that see a huge
opportunity in bringing buyers and
sellers together in new ways that
will cut their expenses, speed up
transactions and provide solutions
to problems they may have had with
previous options they have
tried.
DAN.com
has been the most visible newcomer
in the space, having rolled out an
ambitious platform designed from
the ground up to appeal to the
widest possible audience. However,
there are also some new operations
that put stock in the old axiom
that says there are riches in
niches. Recently launched
aftermarket sales platform Graen.com
may
be a textbook case of
that. Graen founder Neil
Bostick is
laser-focused on the high end of
the aftermarket and he believes
he
has the solution buyers and
sellers at that level are looking
for.
|
Image
from Bigstock
|
|
Neil
Bostick
Founder, Graen.com |
Bostick
told us, "I’ve
been a buyer, seller, & broker in the domain market since 2014 and
I’ve done millions in deals since then. Since the beginning, my
focus has always been on private deals (not disclosing prices) as
I work extensively in the high value investor space (where
confidentiality makes or breaks investments). A lot of my business has
been selling super premium domains to top investors reselling
2-letter, 3-letter, & 1-word .COMs to end users, so by
differentiating through private deals I’ve kept a low profile in
the interest of the buyers & sellers I work with. Graen.com
was formed as a higher technology alternative to what I do at my
brokerage, QEIP.com, that
specialize in the same types of domains that Graen.com does - 3-letter
.COMs and better. For more background on my brokerage business, see qeip.com/testimonials
for a small list of past clients and deals I’ve executed."
That's
the high altitude overview of where Bostick and Graen are coming from,
but the nuts and bolts of how the new platform can stand out among so
many well established options is |
|
where
the rubber will meet the road. "I
agree," Bostick said, adding ,"there are way too many domain
marketplaces currently, so it’s valid to ask me ‘Why in the heck
would I start another one?!’ My answer is that out of the
50-100 marketplaces that exist, none of them do the single thing that
I (and most other high value domain investors), want them to do: be
private & not disclose sale or offer prices. In this, most
marketplaces and brokers disclose offer prices and make sales public
(for their own marketing value) and it is often at the detriment of
the buyers and sellers that trust them to represent them. In this, if
you are a seller offering a 3 letter .COM domain for a good deal on a
marketplace, broker, etcetera, and it doesn’t end up selling, the
offer price is still public and is liable to used against the seller
when a future buyer comes along." |
As
an example, Bostick said, "A
future buyer may say that you had ???.com priced at 50k two years ago,
so I can only offer 40k now, even though your price is 100k (and the buyer
might have paid that 100k if they didn’t know about the previous
sale). Beyond that, as a buyer who is making a big investment, if you buy a 3
letter .COM or better and the sale is public AND you try to resell in the near
future, all future buyers will use that sale price as a gauge to it’s value
(irrespective to what the domain’s true investor value is) so your
investment potential would be massively limited."
"So privacy is the first thing we changed," Bostick continued,
"but beyond that, we just tried to develop the perfect platform in
general specifically designed for high value domains. In this, we have buyer
exclusivity (no seller exclusivity), buyers need to accredit themselves
(via identity or fund verification) to unlock more than 5 listings, and we do
everything on the platform (appraisals, seller vetting, buyer sourcing, &
escrow) so that we can do deals faster than anyone else. We’ve closed
a couple deals safely in the 5/6 figure range within 24 hours (from offer
accepted to seller paid) using these methods - out of the 50-100 marketplaces
that are out there, not many can claim to be able to do such big deals so
quickly (or offers such full service for the fees we’re charging)."
|
Asked
for more details on how Graen's buyer exclusivity (rather than seller
exclusivity) policy works, Neil said, "If
a buyer uncovers a domain, they sign an NDA and agree to not
share any details about the offering (or try to go around the
platform) for fear of legal action. We just ask that if the seller
lists their domain on other marketplaces (or with other brokers), that
they price their domain better than it’s listed with anyone else -
because of our low commission and private placement, most sellers are
able to. If we find a domain on our site with a price listed lower
somewhere else, we will likely take it down until pricing is changed. Exclusivity
is important as it maintains a place where buyers and sellers
take |
Image
from Bigstock |
|
the
platform seriously - we just switched the model in being the first
platform to make buyer exclusivity a main differentiator. As
it is a huge ‘sellers market’ in domains right now, to be a
marketplace that is competing, you need to put your sellers first
and foremost. That is exactly what we are doing and why we have
almost 500 users on the platform already, within one month of
launch." |
As
we noted at the top of this article, Graen is not designed for everyone. Bostic
said, "To be clear, our
superior marketplace experience for high value domains comes at a cost for
other users - it is not a good match (or very helpful) for people selling
quality domains right now (and is especially not good for people trying to
list a lot of domains at once). That said, in the near future, we will be
offering new premium services for the everyday domain investors including
exclusive landing pages with broker representation for only 3-9% success fees
with no caps on prices or quantity of domains listed."
|
Image
from Bigstock |
"We
are not a marketplace with brokerage options, we are a curated
marketplace (or application-only marketplace). This is a core
part of our strategy that differentiates us as it allows us to
maintain quality on our marketplace like no one else can. Another
problem with almost all marketplaces as a buyer (and as a seller) is
that they have too many bad quality domains. The effects of this
are that buyers don’t spend the time finding serious deals on there
and sellers won’t list good deals because they know that chances of
buyer coming through the cracks is low. Since we limit the amount of
listings, we can automatically get more serious user exposure to
each individual listing. Beyond that, since I still have my
connections and network as a broker, I see all domains listed and work
to get them sold outside of the platform (based on who I know is
buying). Through this model, we can maintain a sell-through rate light
years higher than any other domain marketplace will be able to,"
Bostick said. |
Though
Graen has just launched, today's Graen is unlikely to be the final iteration.
"Since launching a month
or so ago, we’ve changed the platform a lot based on buyer & seller
feedback," Bostick noted. "For example, we previously didn’t give
any ‘freebie’ investor passes (the things that allow you to uncover
listings), and we now we give 5. We also now have implemented new value
attributes (including comparable sales on each listing) and we have
implemented an affiliate program to incentivize users to band together
as a community and mutually benefit from referrals. We are still taking
feedback as one of my main assets is our full time development team that
includes our CTO and two full time coders - so if anyone has any suggestions
for the platform, if it fits our model recommend it and you may be able to
see it live within a week!"
|
|
(Posted
November 11, 2021) To refer others to the
post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2021/dailyposts/20211111.htm
*****
|
|
IT.com
Put Its New Domain Registration
Platform in the Spotlight at
WebSummit 2021
|
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Over
42,000 people,
representing leading tech companies
from around the world, gathered in
Lisbon, Portugal this week
for the massive Web Summit 2021
conference that ended Thursday
(November 4). Intis
Telecom, the new
owners of IT.com (just
purchased in a $3.8
million
transaction we
told you more about earlier this
week), was there to showcase their
new prize acquisition.
Intis
is now using IT.com to sell
third level domain
registrations under the marquee
name. For example, names like
keyword.it.com can be registered
at a retail cost
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of
$49. Intis also owns UK.IT and
throughout this year the company
has been buying up two-letter .IT
domains in other extensions
including .hn, .to, .ax, .sb, .uy,
.tn, .by, kz, .ae and .broker
with the prices they paid for
IT in those TLDs ranging from
$2,000 up to $25,000.
The new 3rd level registration
service will be offered on all of
those extensions as well.
Above:
Web Summit 2021 attendees visiting
the IT.com booth at the
international event held this week
in Lisbon, Portugal.
Below
(left to right): Dignitaries in
this shot from the IT.com booth at
Web Summit are Munir
Badr (Owner,
AEserver.com), Andrey
Insarov (Founder and
CEO, IntisTele.com and IT.COM), Sergey
Nesmachny (Business
Development Director, WiFly.net)
and Alexey
Sergeev (Founder,
sigmasms.com).
Web
Summit won't be the last place
where IT.com will have a high
profile. The company plans to
sponsor, exhibit and meet
attendees at a variety of key
events in the
telecommunications and domain name
industries over the course of the
upcoming year.
|
|
(Posted
November 5, 2021) To refer others to the
post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2021/dailyposts/20211105.htm
*****
|
|
Measuring
Success: Domain Registrations Are
Surging But What Happens When It's
Time to Renew?
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Life is good
for a lot of people in the domain
business these days. Aftermarket
sales are booming, savvy registry
operators are seeing total
registrations rise in their
TLDs and competitive registrars
are watching their domains
under management (DUM)
soar.
While
sales, registrations and DUM are
the metrics we hear most often,
there is another one that is especially
critical in measuring true success
on the registration side of the
business. That is domain
renewal rates. If most
of your customers, whether they are
investors or developers, are
consistently renewing their domains
that's the best news of all for a
TLD operator. Renewal rates are especially
important for new gTLD (nTLD)
registries that offer a low,
|
Image
from Bigstock
|
|
introductory first year price
before trying to collect their regular rate at renewal time. That's
when the rubber meets the road and registries
see if
customers see value in
their TLDs.
|
|
We
got some extensive data-based
insight from Neha Naik,
Sr. Director of Channel
Partnerships at Radix,
into what one of the more
successful operators of multiple
TLDs has been seeing on the
renewal front.
Neha
noted, "When Covid hit in early 2020, domain names, along with all
sorts of digital products and services, saw a sharp boost followed by a
sustainable acceleration in growth. A report by McKinsey claimed that
10
years’ worth of progress in terms of ecommerce
transition was achieved within the first three months of the
lockdown. IBM said it was worth 5
years of digital progress. Adobe said that's between 4
to 6 years.
With
this came heightened activity in new business formations and existing
businesses going online to maintain continuity. This led to a direct
increase in the demand for domain names and other products related to
building websites.
The
overall domain market saw a significant jump in new registrations in
the first few months. At Radix, we saw that .online and
.store had the most uptake, growing by over 60%* between 2019 and
2020. Our other TLDs including .site, .fun and .tech also
saw a spike in registrations."
|
Neha
Naik
Sr. Director of Channel
Partnerships
Radix |
"Historically,
major events like this have been the trigger for disruption and change,
Neha said. "This time around, the pandemic ushered in a new spurt in
doing business online to the extent that owning a website was no-more a
good-to-have. It was a must. After all, do you even exist if you are
not available online in a post-pandemic world that we live in?
It
has been over a year since we witnessed these major market shifts. Looking
at the domain registration and renewals data since then led us to some
interesting insights about the market in general and our TLDs in particular.
When reviewing 1st time renewal rates for nTLDs registered in
the Jan - June 2020 period, the aggregate first time renewal rate remained
steady, very similar to 2019. Details of the collection of data and the
methodology used is explained in the notes below.**
The
nTLDs that make up the top 10 in terms of absolute renewals (based on a
monthly average) also remain the same. Most of them, however, have seen significant
growth in their 2021 monthly renewal numbers (absolute count of
renewals). Specifically looking at Radix TLDs, we see that .online, .store
and .site have seen a 60%+ increase in absolute first-time
renewals, and .tech has seen a growth of 35% for the same
period."
Putting
this into perspective, below is
a stacked view of the first time
renewals for .online in
comparison with other nTLDs, and
ranked by the absolute number of
1st time renewals.
.online
has 60% higher first time
renewals compared to the next
ranked nTLD. Other
Radix TLDs make up for over 30%
of the top 10 renewals market
share.
"As renewals and renewal revenue are much more concrete indicators of market success
versus sheer registration volume, we took our study one step further to determine the renewal revenue generated for
Registrars," Neha said. "In order to do this, we used the 3rd party renewal data and applied standard renewal costs across registrars, assuming that the margin across TLDs will be more or less the same. We then stacked up all nTLDs in the order of those that generate the most renewal revenue for the
industry as shown in this graph:"
|
|
|
".online
leads the charts by adding over $2.3 million in first time renewal revenue (this does not include the registrar markup on registry cost), followed by .store
at rank 2, adding over $1.2 million in first time renewal revenue.
This revenue only includes 1st time renewals and doesn’t account for annuity premium renewal revenue
either," Neha added.
|
"It is worth noting that
.online alone accounts for
26% of overall renewal revenue amongst the top 10 nTLDs. And the 4 Radix TLDs that appear in the top 10 above account for
54% of the total renewal revenue generated by the top 10 nTLDs,"
Neha noted.
"While these are promising numbers, we will continue to track the performance of renewals through the next few months as well. We are eager to see how things shape up as we move beyond the peak of the pandemic."
Neha commented on why Radix
examines their renewal results
in such detail. She said, "At Radix, we have a fundamental belief:
you cannot improve what you don’t
measure. Constantly looking at the scoreboard is how we track the health and growth of the business. That the domain industry is the most measurable industry in the world only makes data tracking a lot more comprehensive."
"We understand that a TLD’s renewal performance is also
an indicator of the quality of its domains under
management. Ultimately, the true measure of success for any nTLD is qualitative usage, a goal fulfilled by marketing strategy and focus on renewals.
This philosophy has led to many innovative marketing initiatives that are reflected in the awareness campaigns we have executed in the recent past. From startin.tech to
pitch.tech to academy.get.online, Radix’s marketing campaigns are about enablement of new businesses."
"After all, the
growth in the domain industry is dependent on the growth in
businesses, old and new, going online. For us and the industry on the whole, it’s a unique opportunity to be at the starting point of the web presence of a business and
we’re excited about the times
ahead," Neha said in
closing.
Notes:
* This compared new registrations numbers between 2020 and 2019, and excludes registrations from Chinese registrars.
* All data excludes data from Chinese registrars. Given that the China market has differential pricing and other market nuances, the geo has been left out of this study. |
|
|
|
(Posted
November 2, 2021) To refer others to the
post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2021/dailyposts/20211102.htm
*****
|
|
Update
on $3.8M IT.com Sale Including
Payment Plan and New Use of Domain
to Sell IT.com Sub-Domains
|
|
Just
minutes after
we completed our latest bi-weekly domain
sales report we got a
quick note from veteran broker James
Booth letting us know he had
closed a $3.8 million deal
for IT.com - the highest
publicly reported price for a
domain sale so far this year.
Since then I have gotten more
details on the transaction and am
able to tell you that James served
as the broker for the seller. The
buyer was represented by Igor
Furdyk who, in addition to
being a veteran domain
broker, is a Project
Manager at Intis
Telecom (the domain
buyer) and also Head of Sales
for the new domain registration
service that, as of today,
began operations on IT.com.
IT.com
follows the model that CentralNic
has employed for years with top tier two-letter .com domains -
which is using them as the
|
Image
from Bigstock
|
|
base to sell third level sub-domain registrations. For example, with the
IT.com site now open, names like dnjournal.it.com can be registered at a
retail cost of $49. IT.com is launching an ambitious marketing campaign
including a high profile presence at the 2021 WebSummit
conference in Lisbon, Portugal that runs today (November 1) through
Thursday.
UK-based
Intis also owns UK.IT and throughout this year the company has been buying
up two-letter .IT domains in other extensions including .hn, .to, .ax, .sb,
.uy, .tn, .by, kz, .ae and .broker with the prices they paid for
IT in those TLDs ranging from $2,000 up to $25,000. The new
3rd level registration service will be offered on all of those extensions as
well.
Igor
also provided us with documentation showing that full payment for IT.com is
being made over a three-year period that follows a $1.5 million down
payment. While the $3.8 million deal is the biggest one publicly report so
far this year, we don't chart sales until payment has been fully completed,
so Hippo.com at $3.3 million will remain in the #1 position on
our 2021 YTD Top 100 Sale
Chart. No matter how you slice it, it is a terrific acquisition
for UK-based Intis Telecom and a major feather in the cap for brokers James
Booth and Igor Furdyk.
|
|
(Posted
November 1, 2021) To refer others to the
post above only (and not the full Lowdown column) you can use this URL:
https://www.dnjournal.com/archive/lowdown/2021/dailyposts/20211101.htm
*****
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|
