Domain Valuation, Netregistry Clients & Spotlight Listing Applicants

Published Thu 12 Feb 2009 09:06:36

While the financial crisis continues to deepen, there's one area of investment that is still picking up speed - domains. To ensure you make the most of your domain investment, in this article we will cover domain valuation, a welcome to our new Netregistry clients, and how to get your domain name listed in our Spotlight Section.

Target Pricing/Domain Valuation

Probably the most common question we get at Netfleet is "What is my domain worth?" The second most common is "Why am I not getting any offers on my domain?" The answers to both of these questions probably lies within the 'Target Price' for your listed domain which is the single most important factor to drive activity and therefore sales.

The reality is that 90% of the domains listed on Netfleet have unrealistic target prices (or worse still no prices at all). It's understandable because the lack of comprehensive sales data and the fact that domain trading in Australia is still in its infancy creates uncertainty on the part of domain owners when it comes to valuing their domains. That uncertainty naturally leads to conservative estimates rather than aggressive target prices. There is also the fear that by setting the target price too low, you are limiting the chance of getting that one-in-a-million top dollar offer. However, it's important to recognise that this scenario is indeed one-in-a-million and to meet the market you have to be realistic. Doing otherwise is like trying to sell your $500K family home for $5,000,000 because it is theoretically possible that someone might one day come along and offer to pay that much money.

Here are a few thoughts to help you value your domains....

1) The three top selling .au domain names of all time are jobs.com.au, cars.com.au and flowers.com.au for $300,000, $141,000 and $153,000
2) The general consensus is that typical generic .AU domains are currently worth between 1/50th and 1/100th of their .COM equivalents.
3) The average sale price on Netfleet is around $1,200

However, despite the fact that few .AU domains are worth more than a few thousand dollars, the .AU market is booming!! It's just a case of measuring it in terms of return on investment. If you register a domain, hold it for 5 years and then sell it for $800 that would stack up to a return of around 70% p.a. For example, one Netfleet member bought a domain for a total of $85 in our recent live auctions, and has just sold it to an end-user for $720, less than two weeks later.

Welcome to all Netregistry Clients

Since the Netfleet domain sales channel has been incorporated into the Netregistry clients console, we've seen a dramatic increase in new memberships, domain listings and general activity within the site. This is great news for anyone with an interest in Australian domain names but particularly for those that have listed their domains for sale. Just like anything, the more eyeballs on a listing, the better chance of a successful sale and a great result price-wise.

This activity is flowing through into more offers and sales with prizewinner.com.au and holiday.net.au selling just last week for $3,000 and $5,000 respectively. Things will really step up a notch when we integrate Netfleet listings into the public Netregistry interface and drive thousands of targeted end-users to your listings. Stay tuned!

Spotlight Listings

From March this year, we are introducing fees for all spotlight listings. Whilst this will be a welcome source of revenue for us (we haven't changed a cent since the business started in July 2008) it is also, in our view, a fairer way to determine who gets their domain name on the front page rather than our current rather arbitrary selection process. The fees for listing will be a $10/month with a three month minimum and $50 for a six month listing. Spots will be allocated on a first in best dressed basis with a maximum of five domains per member. Domains must also display a realistic target price and low minimum offer threshold.

As ever, if you have any questions, please get in touch

The Netfleet Team