1. The domain name trading market is still expanding.
2. We do not hear many Singaporeans doing this yet. We will, soon.
(This is for my Singaporean readers. I think many Singaporeans are born traders so there must be someone in Singapore already making lots of money quietly trading domain names.)
3. Everyone who starts an online business needs a good domain name eventually.
Reason: You don’t want to put your income at risk because someone in Google decides to close down your BlogSpot.com blog.
4. People are willing to pay several hundred dollars upward for a domain name they fancy.
5. It’s a truly global business, you target people from the USA, Europe, Japan, India, Middle East and Asia who are looking for domain names because of the
- letters and words in the domain name
- pagerank
- existing traffic
I started to trade domain name seriously only last September. I registered accounts with TDNAM.com and Afternic.com. So far, I’ve lsted about 40 domain names at Afternic and sold a domain name recently for US$500. To replenish my inventory, beside registering new domain names, I also buy expired domain names at TDNAM.com. I had spent over US$300 over the last 4 months on expired domain names.
In fact, I traded my first domain name about 2 years ago - IndexFuturesTrading.com for US$150 on SEDO.com. I guess I could easily sell it for US$500 today.
What You Need to Get Started Trading Domain Names
MONEY
You’ll need to put aside US$500 to US$1,000 to start this online business and build up your domain name inventory over the next 12 months.
DISCIPLINE
You are not about to go on a shopping spree and spend all your capital in a weekend. For a start, you MUST NOT buy more than 5 domain names a month - no matter how cheap they are. There are always better domain names coming to the market if you look hard enough.
DON’T BE CHEAP
You are in the business to buy and sell good domain names - NOT cheap domain names. Do not buy a domain name because it’s cheap. If people are selling cheap, very likely, there is no buyer for that name. Buy a domain name because you have done the research, and opinion based on your own research, the domain name is undervalued.
SPECIALIZATION
Deal with a specific category of domain names. Start with only .COM domain name. This is most in demand and you can expect to turn over a profit quickly. You want to specialize in a certain industry e.g. real estate, finance, health or etc.
CASHFLOW IS MOST IMPORTANT
Domain name trading is different from domain name speculation. In trading, you focus is on the cashflow - as long as you make a profit, you will sell your domain names to increase cashflow.
In domain name speculation, you focus on the profit margin and hope that you will make the most money with a domain name - you have to be lucky all the time.
Would you want to become a successful domain name trader?
If you are already making money trading domain names, do not stay quiet, we want to hear from you.
Update Jan 9, 2007: Here’s an article by Mercanti Group, an investment bank, on Virtual Land with some interesting statistics on e-commerce in relation to the rising prices of domain names.