At the end of the day, numbers talk. Sales volume numbers, to be more precise. For example, the fact that in August, NameJet only had 69 $2k+ sales (a grand total of just $339,000) speaks for itself. And yes, I know August is a slow month but still…. three hundred thousand dollars. That’s it.

Just let that number sink in, please.

This is a very, very serious problem.

Because sure, we all want juicy end user sales. But a robust reseller market gives us *options* and, frankly, liquidity brings about financial security. While we all hope a well-funded end user will come knocking at our door, that might take a while. And in the meantime, life happens!

For example, people get sick.

I had to deal with just that, huge illness-related medical expenses (family member) and let me tell you, it sucks!

The same way, your house might burn down. Or something else might go wrong, you get the point.

It’s reassuring to know that a reseller market exists. That if the need to arises, you can sell to a fellow investor and generate liquidity very quickly. Will you get end user-level prices? Nope. But you get instant cash and therein lies the true value of the reseller market. When there are discussions about the current state of the reseller market, some investors shrug it off or roll their eyes. They say selling to other domainers is silly, when you can just wait for end users and extract maximum value.

In an ideal scenario, that’s a fair point.

But in the absence of a robust reseller market, domains become illiquid assets. Assets that might generate high returns but which are useless if you need money right away. In my opinion, that would be a shame and I really do believe the reseller market deserves more attention.

Otherwise, domains as an asset class will suffer.

I’ll do my best to contribute to the conversation we all need to have about the current state of the reseller market. A no-bs discussion about how things currently stand, why/how we got here and (most importantly) what can be done. For what it’s worth, I don’t believe domaining is “dead” and have a hard time envisioning such a scenario. However, the reseller market is in zombie mode and something needs to be done. Today, my goal was just raising a little bit of awareness and perhaps setting some creative juices in motion. It’s not a problem that can be fixed overnight through a few blog posts but collectively, there’s definitely stuff we can do!