Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I’m not exactly impressed with Flippa’s current performance. Have any of you guys sold anything over the let’s say past 2-3 months there? I’m especially interested in hearing input from people who have used Flippa a lot. To me, it seems there are waaaaaaaaay too many listings and not enough buyers.
I had two listings on Flippa: a domain and a website. For the website, I spent $300-ish on featured homepage listings and as far as the domain is concerned, I didn’t invest in upgrades at all. The result is that the website listing had 652 views, 19 watchers and 4 bids from 3 bidders. The domain had 70 views, 5 watchers and no bidders.
Hardly results one could consider spectacular.
I’ve heard a lot of great things about Flippa but then again, I’ve also heard not-so-good aspects, especially when it comes to its recent performance decline. I don’t have enough data to draw any informed conclusions but my best guess is that the people behind it are investing too much time/money/energy in attracting sellers and not enough in attracting buyers. This may sound logical, as sellers basically represent guaranteed cash machines for Flippa but in the long run, the platform cannot work if there aren’t enough buyers to keep sellers incentivized to list.
Have you tried Flippa recently? If so, what has your experience been?
Are you a long-time Flippa user? If so, what comments can you make about the current performance of the platform?
Time for some brainstorming 🙂
August 4th, 2015 at 3:17 pm
Paying $300+ up front for extra exposure is a ridiculously high fee. No other auction sites come close to that type of fee. That said if you don’t pay the $300+ then you get basically no exposure and probably will not sell. Point being if you have something very premium it is worth the $300 since that will be a drop in the bucket to what the ending price will be. If you have something middle of the road or lower then it is not worth paying the fee and probably not even worth even listing on Flippa.
And there were people talking in the forums about Flippa giving certain sellers preferential treatment by giving them free upgrades so the times you pay the $300+ your listing can still get buried because other people are getting it for free and diluting your auction’s visibility.
I put my domains up there in the portfolio section because why not, but I’m not submitting them to Flippa auctions anymore.
August 4th, 2015 at 4:12 pm
I used Flippa and now mainly use DomainNameSales.com I find the DNS system gives way more information on the buyer and their brokers do a better job following-up for the money.
August 4th, 2015 at 4:12 pm
Personally, my experience with Flippa has been extremely underwhelming. I have listed several domains there over the past few months with lackluster results.
Last month I took a leap of faith and spent $300 on “premium” upgrades to ensure maximum visibility for what I consider a pretty decent and relevant domain that should capture mid to upper 4 figures. Over the course of 28 days I garnered less than 1000 views and 22 watchers. I got several tiny bids and one almost acceptable bid that was just a few hundred shy of my reserve. That was the last bid I ever got on it, despite reducing the reserve to only $1 above the high bid. I spent $100 on paid Twitter advertising over the course of a month marketing the listing, along with sending numerous highly targeted emails to potential leads. In the end, the auction closed $1 below reserve at only $2000. I then sent offers to every watcher including the high bidder offering the domain for $2000 and didn’t get one response. No more paid upgrades for me!
I’ve sold a few LLLL dot coms in the past month on flippa for low to mid 3 figures, but I think I could have sold those anywhere and saved the 10% commission. They just don’t seem to have the buyers, aside from folks looking for domains on the cheap.
I’m just about done with Flippa. I think it’s too much to ask me to pay $9 to list a domain, and then spend hundreds more for upgrades to get even moderate exposure. Then they want 10% of the final price in the rare event it actually sells. I do better finding my own leads and communicating directly, and I can skip the commission.
August 4th, 2015 at 4:22 pm
Most people looking to buy domains on flippa are domain investors and not end users, people looking to buy cheap to make a roi.
Also the majority of decent names have pretty high reserves which leads to a lot being unsold.
August 4th, 2015 at 5:32 pm
The summer has been pretty slow for me for domains, not much action especially in July. Now today, start of August, one domain inquiry and one inquiry to buy a Twitter handle. Good start to the month, hope it continues, but it will probably be in September when things start moving again. Flippa will probably pick up again in the Fall and Winter. Too many people on holiday now or enjoying the summer weather.
August 4th, 2015 at 10:01 pm
i used Flippa last month and will NEVER use them again.
they have over million domains for sale and no real buyers…
Your Flippa auction will only work if YOU send couple of serious buyers to your own auction and they have a bidding war…
Don’t expect any good results from Flippa without advertising your own Flippa auction and sending buyers to your own Flippa auction…
I am very glad you made a post on this…
Don’t waste your money buying upgrades on Flippa…it’s NOT going to work…
too many domains and not enough real buyers…only domainers looking for great bargains…
August 5th, 2015 at 1:01 am
It’s my first time I try. I list 3 domains auction and pay $9 each for standard listing.
No luck at all. Only one domain name got 1 bid for $10, hopeless…..waste my $27.
I am not going to list anymore at Flippa. Wasting my time and money……
Too many domains out there but no buyers…..they all look cheap and the results are always lowballs….
August 5th, 2015 at 7:06 am
If you want to atract more buyers to your auction at flippa, only pay $9 for standard listing and contact endusers (companies on google) by sending them the link to the auction.
This is how i do and the last domain i sold there was Royalties.info for $1k
August 5th, 2015 at 8:19 am
seriously. don’t waste you money. flippa sucks. they just milk investors for as much as they can without providing any serious value. and the website itself is often dysfunctional to boot.