Yesterday, I asked domainers how much they’d pay for Stocks.xyz and today, I’ll be sharing the results of my little experiment.
It turns out Stocks.xyz seems to be worth about 400 bucks at the moment of writing, that’s how much one of those who commented (Mike) would have been willing to offer and even that offer has a “maybe” attached to it.
There seems to be some interest in the $250 zone and that’s about it.
Not exactly very exciting.
Is this because the sales venue wasn’t appropriate?
I don’t think so. The post was read by a lot of domainers and had 20 comments, I’d say that’s more than enough exposure.
Is it because the term on the left of the dot wasn’t strong enough?
Definitely not, “stocks” is a huge term.
Perhaps the right of the dot was the culprit but again, even with the drama surrounding the Network Solutions situation, dot XYZ is clearly one of the most popular new extensions.
So, why is Stocks.xyz only worth 400 bucks?
Well… because, just because.
The market has spoken.
At this point in time, it seems that even “the best of the best” in terms of new gTLDs have difficulties attracting bids on the reseller market.
If Stocks.xyz is only worth 400 bucks to other domainers, it seems safe to say the reseller market for new g’s is close to non-existent.
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, it would be very easy for Stocks.com to attract a $1,000,000 bid on the reseller market.
At $400, we’re looking at 0.04% of the corresponding dot com value.
If we’d be talking about BuyStocks.xyz or lower quality terms on the left of the dot, the reseller market value is zero.
The bottom line is this: if the corresponding dot com is worth seven figures, expect to sell your new gTLD for three on the reseller market.
Will I sell at $400?
Nope, I’ll keep it and see what happens in the future, it’s not like I’m turning down a fortune š
But this little experiment makes it clear that any business model which revolves around the reseller market potential of new gTLDs is doomed to fail… at least at this point in time.
Would it surprise anyone if an end user would pay let’s say 5 figs for Stocks.xyz? Probably not.
As far as the reseller market is concerned however, the potential is just not there.
The main conclusion that can be drawn is therefore this: don’t expect new gTLDs to be liquid because they’re anything but.
Maybe things will change, maybe they won’t.
At this point in time however, I see little reasons to be excited about new g’s as a domainer.
September 16th, 2015 at 2:47 pm
No doubt end users can pay a lot more than you will ever get out of the resale market. However, even in 2015 many companies and website developers place little value on branding so their domain budget is $XX. As an accounting/finance professional I have seen how much small and large companies spend on IT projects, marketing, legal and other professional services and how little they spend on domain names.
The problem with waiting for that end user while one keeps paying renewals on hundreds of domains is that they never show up and years down the road one is forced to sell into the resale market.
Discussion for another post but to think about…
-median SEDO sales price ~$600
-typical domain industry turnover 1% annually
-.COM/.Net renewals around $9 per year in bulk
-industry commissions on major platforms 15-20%
-renewals on other TLDs can be much higher (keyword quality might be better but does the higher renewal yield an improvement in turnover or sales price to offset the higher cost)
What ratio of median sales price, turnover, average acquisition and renewal cost is necessary to merely break even? How much to make a living from domain names?
September 17th, 2015 at 1:12 am
Andrei, it’s not what domainers think of the price of stocks.xyz !! or any domain for that matter. Your ‘research’ is not broad enough to be evidence based and lacks data and validity.
September 17th, 2015 at 3:13 am
@Howie: I agree 100% that what I’m doing is more of an experiment but at this stage in the new gTLD game when there’s so little data available, a lot of readers find my experiments useful because anecdotal evidence is better than no evidence whatsoever š
September 17th, 2015 at 6:20 am
Oh Ok, that’s fair enough if it’s just for your readers. But, you do have sales data such as deals.xyz $8,100 cloud.xyz $6.600 8.xyz $81,741 and do the usual analysis and valuation; research in domain sales via various subdomains and TLDS, gTLDs etc, current world DM market, future world DM market, non domaining market interest, branding. Never fully trust expert advice, never use Estibot etc!!