Update: Surveys.xyz has been sold.
Francois is encouraging people to sell their .XYZ domains via CAX today, so I decided to list mine at 95 bucks each as an experiment: Surveys.xyz (sold), Parenting.xyz, Skateboards.xyz, Programming.xyz, Stress.xyz, Reputation.xyz, Publishing.xyz, Instruments.xyz and Productivity.xyz.
Why?
To see how things stand in terms of reseller market demand for new gTLDs.
This is my first reseller market new gTLD experiment, so I decided to price the domains very aggressively at just 95 bucks each to see what happens.
I own another .XYZ domain aside from the 9 I listed over at CAX but I will be developing that one.
I’m sure all of you agree that the terms on the left of the dot are excellent:
Surveys
Parenting
Skateboards
Programming
Stress
Reputation
Publishing
Instruments
Productivity
How much would they be worth if they were dot coms?
A fortune.
They’re obviously worth considerably less in other extensions but since domainers would only have to pay 95 bucks per domain, there should be plenty of upside potential.
Will be interesting to see what happens.
Here are the CAX links for each domain:
Surveys.xyz (sold)
Parenting.xyz
Skateboards.xyz
Programming.xyz
Stress.xyz
Reputation.xyz
Publishing.xyz
Instruments.xyz
Productivity.xyz
June 19th, 2014 at 9:44 am
.xyz has $0 value, as it is being donated for free into accounts, and the first words have value, but multiply it to the second part of the extension, and this is simple math…
1,000,000 x 0 = 0
Hence the value of .xyz
If you think your .xyz has value, wait for .abc, get it?
June 19th, 2014 at 10:05 am
@JamesT: the less proven an extension is, the less reseller market value is has.
It’s kind of like this:
1) As dot coms, the terms in question (so my 9 domains if they were in the dot com extension instead of the dot xyz extension) would easily fetch well into 6 figs on the reseller market (or of course more through an end user sale)
2) As dot nets, they’d most likely fetch 5 figures on the reseller market
3) As dot infos, based on the recent-ish auctions that took place for one word dot infos, I suspect they’d fetch mid 4 figs.
Now sure, dot XYZ has no track record at this point since it’s a new extension but I think that at 95 bucks a pop for strong one word terms, the risk vs. reward ratio is very appealing.
June 19th, 2014 at 10:34 am
Best wishes for this experiment. I listed a couple of new TLD domains at Cax.com and will let you guys know if it sells sometime in the near future.
June 19th, 2014 at 11:19 am
@Savio D’Silva: please do because by sharing information and helping each other, we’ll all ultimately end up being better off in my opinion. Whenever you or anyone else would like to report a sale, shoot me an email at admin@domainingtips.com.
That was the main goal of this experiment: seeing how much reseller market demand there is for new gTLDs in general and dot XYZ in this specific case.
The domains are very good and the prices low, so I expected sales.
As a quick update: Surveys.xyz has been sold a few minutes ago.
June 19th, 2014 at 11:25 am
I am waiting for new gtld .123 .abc .aaa etc……..
June 19th, 2014 at 11:45 am
@Raymond: I for one think that very solid terms in a memorable extension (XYZ is quite memorable, as I’m sure you’ll agree) purchased at a low price can represent a good investment. There are no guarantees of course and that’s why I decided to start this new gTLD case study.
Regarding dot 123 for example: sure, good domains in this extension would be desirable but as you’ve been able to see thus far, there are a lot of variables involved.
Will keywords of this caliber (surveys, parenting, skateboards, programming, stress, reputation, publishing, instruments or productivity) actually be available or reserved by the registry?
Or if they will be available but the registry wants 4 figures for them, that wouldn’t be good either.
… and so on.
Sure, a lot of gTLDs have been launched and will be launched.
But how many of them are actually worth investing in for domainers?
Not that many.
For example, I think roughly 250-350 gTLDs have been launched thus far, yet I only own 34 such domains at this point (aside from the 100 Dot Berlins I mentioned yesterday which were free, so that was a different situation).
June 19th, 2014 at 12:26 pm
Congrats on the sale of surveys.xyz. It’s a great domain name. Will certainly keep you posted on these sales.
June 19th, 2014 at 12:34 pm
Several of the keywords you listed would have value as .COMs or .Nets though I believe you have overestimated the reseller market for such domains. If you really think a one-word .Net will easily sell for five figures in the reseller market then let me send you a list of one-word .Nets which you can proceed to flip for a huge profit. I even have several one-word .COMs if you believe you can flip them for six figures and sell them to end users for even more. My view is that it is too early to be running such experiments. Wait five to seven years and perhaps they will be worth much more but that is the risk you run by investing in new TLDs in 2014.
June 19th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
It is funny how one’s opinion can shift so quickly when they have a vested interest in something.
June 19th, 2014 at 1:24 pm
Leonard, in 5-7 years how many new gtld’s will have launched, thousands, who will remember .xyz when they can have survey.construction, or survey.expert, a meaning that ends with meaning, not a meaning that ends with nothing.
June 19th, 2014 at 2:00 pm
Smart to dump these now. Since it’s a horrible extension to begin with and it’s over 87% at Netsol and growing, the majority being free, that doesn’t bode well for the extension. Has there ever been a freebie extension that had value on the aftermarket? Or to endusers? For them to hit that 1 million in the first year, it’s going to have to be well over 90% free.
June 19th, 2014 at 2:24 pm
@Jonathan: yep, dot info.
If you remember, lots and lots of dot infos were registered at extremely low prices (not free but pretty close) but that didn’t stop the extension from reaching the 5,736,778 registrations it has at the moment of writing. So end user adoption has clearly taken place and as far as the aftermarket value of dot infos are concerned, the relatively recent one word dot info auctions I mentioned previously illustrated that solid one word commercial keywords tend to fetch mid 4 figs to low 5 figs (though for it to be a low 5 fig reseller market domain, the term would have to be extremely strong).
Don’t get me wrong, dot com was never even close to being challenged.
A *lot* of domains are worth mid 4 figs to low 5 figs in dot com, exponentially more than in dot info. Orders of magnitude more, in fact.
Yet that doesn’t change the fact that those who got solid terms in dot info at the right prices did very well.
June 19th, 2014 at 2:41 pm
Not even a good comparison. .info is better than .xyz and that’s not saying much. .info has meaning, xyz is gibberish. And .xyz is coming out among a flood of other extensions, .info didn’t. Better neutral ones are coming, like .web. Again, over 85% of them are now free. That was never with .info. And once you back out the free domains, .xyz only has about 20,000 regs. Drop in the bucket if you compare that to .info.
Let’s be honest, if you had long term hope in them, you wouldn’t be selling keywords like skateboards for only $95 right now, shortly after release.
Like I said, smart to dump them now.
June 19th, 2014 at 2:54 pm
I would put the better new TLDs such as real estate and geos as comparable to .info – difficult to sell and risky to invest in but if your entry point & renewals are reasonable perhaps over a multi-year period it may work out OK. Just my opinion but I don’t view .xyz as a TLD worthy of investing in regardless of what is left of the dot even at $10 each.
June 19th, 2014 at 3:10 pm
I find it pretty amusing that most of the guys posting replies here are failing to understand this whole new domain extension thing altogether. Seems like you guys have been influenced far too much by Rick.
Look as domain names as food items. First there were mainly chicken, lamb, pork and beef items. Then came the veggies. Further hundreds of additional recipe categories and different styles were introduced over the decades till finally there are millions and millions of recipes in hundreds of food categories. Yes, I am sure that chicken recipes must be amongst the most popular but that doesn’t mean that people don’t eat anything else.
The new domain names are similar. While Dot Com will probably be Number 1, the new domain names will each be registered and renewed over the next 10 years or so. There are many domain extensions such as .mn, .bz, .tel, etc. which some of you may not ever registered but that doesn’t mean that no one has registered them. All those domains still exist and those looking for something different do go in for them.
.xyz and .link were two new domain extensions that were much cheaper to hand register than other ones released. It was easy to invest some money in registering a few of these domain names as I am pretty certain that we will recover the money invested in them.
Unlike most domain investors who frequent domain blogs, we choose to develop domain names bought as well as sell them at far cheaper prices than what others normally do. As a result, our company has sold over 3000 domain names during the past 5 years. Yes, it may seem like pigeon shit to you guys but it’s been fairly decent income and profits for me year after year.
Drop by drop fills the ocean. And a journey of a thousand miles starts off with a single step taken in the direction of your dreams.
Be patient. Don’t thrash the same industry that helps you make money. If you are afraid of taking risks then perhaps this business isn’t your cup of tea to start with. Get out of the water while you still can but for heaven’s sake don’t stop others who are more courageous from moving further in their lives.
June 19th, 2014 at 3:13 pm
@Jonathan: think about it from another perspective, do you remember the discussions that took place back when dot info started offering domains at very low prices (again, not for free but pretty close)?
A lot of people said something along the lines of:
1) This will cheapen the extension and nobody will touch it – years later, almost 6 million dot infos exist
2) There’s no way there will be a reseller market – years later, strong terms are not only selling but actually fetching reasonably good prices
3) People will buy at the low registration price but not renew – had that been true then again, we wouldn’t have had almost 6 million dot infos today
That’s the comparison I’m trying to make.
Do I think dot xyz will reach 5-6 million regs?
No, I do not.
But I don’t care.
The only thing that’s relevant to you as a domainer is whether or not there’s money to be made.
That’s the main purpose of this case study.
There are three main dimensions in my opinion:
1) End user potential
2) Domainer to domainer (reseller market) potential
3) Webmaster potential (webmasters are basically somewhere in the middle, not “traditional” end users as in businesses for which your domain represents a good solution but not domainers either – for example, extensions like dot reviews probably have more webmaster appeal than others)
As far as this update is concerned, the main goal was seeing whether or not there’s reseller market demand and if so, how much demand we’re talking about.
This case study isn’t about me and my opinions, it’s about gathering data and I encourage everyone to contribute. For example, if you’ve started a similar experiment and want to share your experience with others, shoot me an email at admin@domainingtips.com and I’ll gladly facilitate that.
June 19th, 2014 at 3:39 pm
If you own 10 of something and selling 9 shortly after release, that’s dumping, not experimenting. You could experiment and hold on to them and see if you get any offers. Or put up half, save another half. You’re trying to sell practically all of them, shortly after release for very low prices.
Again with comparing these to .info when maybe .cc is better comparison. You can get great keywords for the prices you’re trying to sell, because it’s not a very good extension .cc or .xyz, letters put together meaning nothing.
The problem is you keep trying to compare them to .info, when they’re nothing alike. .info numbers also have been dropping for some time now.
A neutral new extension that only has about 20,000 real registrations. Real being defined as not having some Registrar put them into your account free. .co did 300,000 first week. So .xyz numbers aren’t that good.
at Savio. There’s not much of your post that really makes much sense.
“Drop by drop fills the ocean. And a journey of a thousand miles starts off with a single step taken in the direction of your dreams.”
In a thread about .xyz. Trash fills the ocean as well.
June 19th, 2014 at 4:00 pm
@Jonathan: I listed 9 domains and even with 9, one could attack my conclusions with valid arguments such as “9 domains aren’t enough to draw relevant conclusions when it comes to reseller market demand” and similar ones. The more domains I list, the more confident I can be in my data. The 9 domains don’t represent a large enough sample to make me 100% satisfied (not even close) and by only listing half as per your recommendation (4-5 domains), the data would have been even less relevant.
I’m trying my best to put together a reasonably good case study but it won’t be easy. As time passes and I end up owning more new gTLDs, the data will be more relevant.
June 19th, 2014 at 4:32 pm
Noone has a crystal ball into the internet landscape five to ten years from now. Existing domain portfolios in traditional TLDs could still benefit from massive advertising about branding with domain names. As well, an explosion in demand for aftermarket domains would benefit most domain investors. However, the reality in 2014 is that most end users with reg fee quality domains when contacted about their interest in a better domain will either not respond, say they already have one or think you are insane for asking more than $100 for a domain. Actually .Net was one of the original TLDs so it has existed since 1985 and yet the overwhelming majority of my .Net sales have been $xxx. .TV has existed since 2000 and I do have quite a few such domains. Fourteen years after launch with close to 600k registrations even keywords in .TV such as Menswear, Activewear, Puppies, Leaders, Bachelor, Vestidos (Spanish for dresses), Floristeria (florist in Spanish) have not been devoured by end users when told these domains were available. So what does that say about TLDs which are just launching now when the EAP acquisition cost is $XXX with $XX renewals? I am just saying don’t underestimate the risk of not being able to resell new TLD domains or overestimate the potential resale price to an end user and the marketing effort to do so.
June 19th, 2014 at 10:33 pm
Glad I stumbled on your case studies, interesting…
I hope you have deep pockets to fund your case studies on a wider scale 😉 . Frankly, I don’t blame you in shooting for quick flips right out of the gate. Better to sell the new ones NOW w/ the hype, opposed to waiting years down the winding road (renewal fees).
The new extensions are certainly comparable to .info’s, just not w/ numbers. The problem is, there’s just so damn many of them that comparing 1 solely to an existing is pretty much fruitless. The only comparable attribute is that .info’s AREN’T…Coms, Nets, or Orgs (pick what you like 😉 ).
Anyways, liking the back the forth. Finally registered at CAX to list my .XYZ domain (damn domaining feed 😉 ). Generations.xyz. For ~$9, I couldn’t pass it up :/