On Wednesday, Liao.com fetched $118,888 over at NameJet, with 8 $50k+ bids. Today, Yin.com ended at $71,100 (Reserve Not Met) after 404 bids from 368 bidders (once again, several $50k+ bids) and at the moment of writing, Liu.com is at $39,100 after 339 bids from 329 bidders.
As you’ve probably noticed, Chinese domainers are becoming more and more active on the reseller market and in my opinion, its future will be influenced in a meaningful manner by this fact. As such, understanding how Chinese domain investors make decisions is extremely important.
In my opinion, domains that Chinese investors find attractive will do *very* well from now on.
If you think this is just a temporary situation, you are mistaken.
We’re talking about what is still the beginning of a long-term trend.
The reseller market is driven by supply and demand, I’m sure I’m not telling you something new.
As a domainer, the ability to understand for which types of domains there is likely to be increased demand in the future can make the difference between having a strategy that makes money today and tomorrow as opposed to living in a perceived reality that is no longer as relevant as it was a few years ago.
To simplify things, what I’m trying to say is that if you don’t adapt, the likelihood of making money on the reseller market diminishes considerably. Don’t live in the past.
November 29th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Some names sounds Japanese to me…
November 29th, 2012 at 6:57 pm
@William: Japanese investors should definitely not be eliminated from the equation either but Japan’s financial situation is tricky after their lost decade or better said lost decades.
By analyzing the economic reality of the two countries (China and Japan) from a reseller market perspective, I’d say that for now, it’s very likely that investors from China will become more and more active.
The same thing can’t be said about Japan or Europe unfortunately.
Of course, there can and will be successful individual investors from all countries but I’m referring to the overall trend.
November 29th, 2012 at 8:53 pm
As a Chinese who have lived in Japan for many years, I can appreciate the differences in the languages. Japanese use a lot of Chinese characters, but they pronounce them differently, resulting in different domain names. Even within the Chinese culture, you need to be aware of the differences among Cantonese (mostly popular in Hong Kong, Macau, and used to be in overseas Chinese communities), Mandarin used in China, and Mandarin used in Taiwan. Again, the same Chinese character may be written differently in English depending on where you are from these places. I’ll put more weight on domain names written according to Mandarin used in China.
November 29th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
As a broker from the largest domain aftermarket in China, I have to say that ‘and I agree with you’!
November 29th, 2012 at 11:17 pm
I think what William means is that since China invaded Japan and occupied it that some names that might seem Chinese actually lean Japanese since characters have been intermingled with the Japanese language ever since the occupation of Japan by the Chinese. The two languages now have similarities.
Regarding Chinese, they hit NameJet and GoDaddy in a big way in the last couple of years or so. From my perspective, they seem to come in waves. I have no idea why, but I believe those waves will combine to one big constant wave. There are just so many Chinese. They will really be in influence in five years from now.
You are very right. Prepare!!! They will be buying ASCII doamins also.
November 29th, 2012 at 11:32 pm
Agree to add to your post we believe Chinese and Asian market like Singapore will be home to many valuable .com domains and specifically all numerical .coms
December 3rd, 2012 at 10:14 am
The important question these bids raise is – “Why are Chinese bidders bidding so high for .com domains?”
You’d think that they’d be primarily interested in .cn or .com.cn
Therein lies the whole story.
December 3rd, 2012 at 1:36 pm
@AndreiSays
@ZK
@Eva
Do you actually know some (good) Japanese domain broker? I never heard of any. Maybe because there are no Japanese domainers and Japanese domain investors? Or maybe Japanese corporation do not like other than their own ccTLD?
December 3rd, 2012 at 2:23 pm
@William: there are Japanese domainers as well as domainers who weren’t born in Japan but live there atm, I don’t know any brokers from Japan though.