As I've been saying for years, this is where the growth is. Com values peaked years ago which ccTLDs are still going from strength to strength. Congrats to all .AU investors!!

Ron Jackson is certainly very bullish on them..

http://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

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CocktailRecipes.com.au ★ Photographers.com.au ★ DebitCard.com.au ★ Hockey.com.au ★ Boxing.com.au ★ DomainName.com.au

The problem is there is 200 different country codes out there. If that market all combined is bigger than .com does it make it a viable market to invest in? Out side of the biggest cctlds I'd say the opportunities are limited.

For example how often do you see dnjournal reporting on someone buying and selling a .com.au's for a profit, have they ever? I'm not talking about fresh reges, I mean buying something for $XXXX and selling it for $XXXX. How can you even liquidate that $1000 name that you've bought? At what venue? How long will it take? Where is the active market that you and me can easily sell into?

Of the .com.au's I've registered the offers are generally a few years revenue at the most. It is typically 3 figure offers for fairly good keyword names.

Even for stuff like 2 character names the offers would barely cover the holding costs over the years. Then when you do sell you've got paperwork for AUDA and transfer fees, it all saps liquidity and reduces profitability. AUDA always did try and configure things so it didn't work well for investing in though (I'm not criticizing on that count though, it is probably a reason why the extension is so ubiquitous in this country).

As far as the .com market peaking, it peaked around mid-late 2007 but it is cyclical. From 2000-2002 it probably lost 90% of its value, then there was another big boom. How many people got rich trading in .com.au over the last 10 years? There was no big boom where .com.au owners were selling names for crazy money.

I'm not predicting .com is about to rise (I don't see it personally) but it is along with selected cctlds are the only markets with real liquidity in them. .com.au is still mainly an extension for development in my view. It is worth dabbling in for investment but historically the performance can't simply be gleaned by growth in cc tld sales generally.

Never thought I'd say it but values are rubbish unless you're setting up a shop front

Hooked!

Agree - there is a minimum size to make searching for opportunuties viable - on a full time basis anyway. But Australia with 1.8m .au registered, strong recognition and an affluent and quickly growing population of 23m, it's got to be in there.
Snoopy, deregulation only happened 2 years ago so of course any aftermarket purchases and resells within that time are going to be few and far between. Hell, even for .com it would be rare to see a domain bought and sold within that timeframe.

And why are you excluding fresh-reg's from your investment analysis. Why doesn't selling a hand-reg domain for a healthy profit count?

I could have sworn you said on another forum that .au's will only ever generate negligible revenue??

Anyway you've stated above that for you, the offers are typically around 3-figures and that equates to a few years revenue.

Can you elaborate? Are we looking at $200/year revenue and offers of $600, say?

If (and of course it's up to you to say whether this is close to the mark) that is the case, isn't that fantastic? Generating a 2000% return every year on your renewal fees without even having to sell it?

Given you got into domains, what 10 years ago, aren't you kicking yourself that you only regged handful of .au domains?

Well my only experience of 2 letter domains is as follows:

Registered LL.com.au around 5 years ago. Sold for $4K about a year ago
Registered CL.net.au around 3 years ago. Sold 2 years ago for $520
Caught XS.com.au on the drop about 1 year ago. Sold for $3,250

Naturally I am holding plenty more that receive regular offers.

You've missed the point. The actual number of people that made money is irrelevant as it's relative to the sixe of the market.

The key question when investing in any market is "What are the chances that I will make money". One good way to answer that is to look at the proportion of people who have done just that.

In .com, you might say there would be what 100 people (?) who 'got rich' trading in .com. But that's out of how many thousand who have given it a shot (but ultimately lost money). 200,000?

Namepros has 172,000 registered members so the figure is probably up around there if not a lot more. 100 from 200,000 means only 1 in 2,000 people 'made it'

Now in .au, how many people. Maybe 5 or so people have done the same. But that's out of more like 200 who have given it a shot. That's 1 in 40.

Hmm... 1 in 40 or 1 in 2,000???


I think you would say that about any domain market. Successful performance should be derived from a mix of sales, monetisation and development.

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I'm sure there is, but I don't think this is some amazing opportunity compared to other areas of the market.

The point is there is a liquid market for .com domains. If you want to invest a certain amount or sell a certain amount you can do it in a fairly straight forward manner. For .com.au I don't think there is any liquid marketplace to sell at. Last time I argued with you about it your best example was the Fabulous auction from 18 months ago. (ie a market that doesn't actually exist today).

Because fresh registrations are hit and miss sales. For every one that sells 100 don't. If I have $XXXX today and want to invest it where can and put it? What can I put it into where I know I can sell it again tomorrow in a pretty simple manner.

......think of 5 people sitting in a circle, they start with a sentence that someone actually said and gradually it changes a little, by the time the whisper has been passed around the comment has changed completely I do remember saying there wasn't a lot of parking revenue in .com.au. I don't remember saying the above though.

Yes, it is that kind of thing.

It is a good think to have names which generating parking income beyond the reg fees, but these names are few and far between.

No because the names I registered in .com.au 10 years aren't worth a lot more than the reg fees & business registration fees paid since that time. In my view the return from .com domains over the same time period has been at least 10 times higher.

To calculate an ROI you need to include all names, not just the ones that sold.

This sounds like fuzzy logic numbers, the kind you make up so it suits your argument. I don't think these statistics are based on anything.

Why should it?

OK I'm not going to quote your responses bit by bit - I thiunk this thread is already looking a little 'stripey'!

However the major points are:

There have been several successful auctions just recently both on Netfleet & Drop. I believe close to $100K worth were sold over the 2 marketplaces in auctions over the last couple of months. Then there's our aftermarket platfrom. It regularly chugs out $30-$50K in sales each month.

These aren't huge numbers but again, relative to the size of the market it's pretty good. You always forget about relativity. Lets compare sales on Sedo with sales on Netfleet for example.

Sedo have about 10m .com domains listed. They sell about 3,000 per month (up from 1,000/month in 2007). That's approximately 1 in every 3,500 listed domains sells each month.

Netfleet have about 30,000 domains listed. We sell about 30 domains every month. That's 1 in every 1,000 listed domains sells each month.

So it's just a question of scale. The few people who do invest in .au will find it to be just as liquid as the other markets.


Regarding my ROI in 2-letter domains, you're quite right. I do need to include all the names. I have about 80 2-letter .au names all up. Held them on average about 3 years so that's another $3K in reg fees over that time. But then parking revenue does offset that cost a little. Say $1,000 over those three years ($4/domain/year).

So total cost $3,000, total revenue $7,770 + $1,000 and I still have 80 domains that are gaining in value. Still think 2-letter .au's have been a terrible investment?


So, you don't like my logic re chances of 'success' in .au vs .com. Would you care to put some numbers on it yourself? You can't just dismiss it as 'fuzzy logic' and offer no contrary idea. Go on, have a stab.


You're last comment I can't work out? How can investment performance exclude sales, yield and appreciation? Standard accountancy, I would have thought

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Are the stated Drop auctions something people can list their own names on? That is why I am talking about. Not places where people can buy but not sell.

What is better, a really bad sales ratio, or a really really bad sales ratio?

Whether it is 1:1000 or 1:3500 suggests to me most of the names are not worth anything, 90% plus.

If your argument is that there is no market for most of the names on Sedo I agree. I'm talking about names that are actually worth something, can they be bought and sold in a liquid market? If you think name xxxx.com.au is worth $1000, can I sell it for $1000 via a pretty simple manner or not?

eg on Sedo you can list in a monthly auction and the name will sell for roughly market price.

I did say they were terrible, I said "Even for stuff like 2 character names the offers would barely cover the holding costs over the years." [following on from your comments on holding .com.au's for 10 years]. A 2 letter .com.au registered 10 years until today would mean approximately $600 in holding costs (domain renewals and business registration fees).

I don't like fact that you've made up a whole lot of numbers to try and make an argument. I could make up a whole lot of numbers as well but it wouldn't achieve anything. I don't have any stats on it and I don't think any exists. Not until domainers start publishing their tax returns each year.


I don't follow the question. You stated "Successful performance should be derived from a mix of sales, monetisation and development." What does that have to do with accounting?

fascinating thread - as a newbie I am taking this all in. Please standby with a telephone in hand - you may need to assist me to get to a hospital soon to have my heart attack treated. There I was sitting there minding my own business about 4 months ago when I read an article about making (easy) money buying and selling domain names, so being a true believer in the written word I invested in this business only to find out that nobody really wants the names I created or indeed any of the ones I have purchased in the aftermarket.

AND NOW ...... after reading this thread thus far I find that when someone does eventually decide they will buy a name they will pay pennies for it and about 10 years after I have paid shillings for it.

Snoopy - I haven't agreed with your take on 3D however I do agree with some of what you have said in this thread - especially about a viable selling venue, albeit the bigger issue is finding buyers, not a marketplace to sell easily and freely to a customer base that doesn't know that it has an interest in buying a domain.

David or Mark - when are we going to be able to sell our domains on your aftermarket sales auction thingamebob? You can have 20% from me when I sell - in fact you can have more, because using simple accounting methodology a penny in the bank is better than a dollar in someone elses bank - I figure the only people making money out of domaining in this country are the registrars.

......... Sorry for the break ......... had a young Indian guy knocking on the door trying to convert me from Telstra to Optus ......... he just didn't see the value in quitting doorknocking in the cold for the opportunity to sit in the warmth of a study and make money selling domain names. Makes me feel kinda sick inside to think that a student from the impoverished backwoods of northern India can see the folly and I didn't.

So my being disconsolate about my new chosen profession presents a golden opportunity for you guys - you can have first refusal on my portfolio of 1856 names and 6 active sites for a measley ............. wait for it ......... first one to send the email gets it ........ the time stamp on the email is the validation of first receipt ........ ready, ........ $1,236,000.78 ......... divided by 1856 = real cheap per domain ....... OOOPS, I used a dollar sign, meant to use Indonesian Rupea

Now seriously ......... I have rugbyleague3d.com.au and 3drugbyleague.com.au listed for sale ........ the state of origin was broadcast in 3d (to a small audience granted) and will be again next year, the year after etc. Do you know what the highest bid I have received so far is ...... yep ... zero bids ....... LOL, not even $50. So I am with you Snoopy ..... I see no commercially sound indicators at all for investment in .au domains but then again I don't see any sound commercial indicators for investing in any domains of any extension, including .com and the new .co.

Smart business is making up their own names and we are picking up the scraps. When I am continually told that a names like cell3d.com or 3dfootball.com.au as examples are of no value beyond the recouping of registration fees I get closer and closer to reaching for the valium

DISCLAIMER: the opinions above are NOT those of the writer when he is having a good day however may possibly be the distorted manic view of the writer when he has had a real shocker of a day. The writer is still deciding whether he had a good day or not.

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Snoopy, you definitely make some compelling points, but the evidence undeniably shows that the Aussie market has been growing rapidly over the last couple of years. I mean look at how far we've come already - a secondary market in Australia didn't exist 24 months ago, whereas this month alone Netfleet has already done over $30,000 in sales.

There's also a lot of data that indicates that there is still a great deal of growth to come just for us to get to relative parity with comparable markets. Take the UK equivalent of this forum, Acorn Domains. They have nearly 10,000 members, compared to DNTrade's 300. Considering the relative population of Australia to the UK, we're behind by a factor of 10.

As for your point about the .au market being relatively illiquid, well you're right about that, no question. But that's something that will change as more people become aware of domaining and web development. It's also something we can influence ourselves by becoming members of Auda and encouraging policies that will improve liquidity (i.e. getting rid of transfer fees, paperwork, waiting times, ABN requirements etc.).

I also agree with your point that 90% of domain names aren't worth anything (it's probably more like 95% or higher), but what exactly does this prove? Domaining in Australia is still in its infancy, and as a result most people (including many on this forum) have no idea what they are doing, so of course most of the names out there are going to be garbage. Even in the more established markets, there are throngs of newbies registering worthless names in the hope of making a quick buck. The difference is that there are also a considerable number of domainers with deep pockets who *can* pick a good domain from a bad one, so if you have quality merchandise there will probably be someone around who is willing to offer you a half decent price for it.

To get back to the original premise of this thread - that ccTLD's are where the smart money is...

I think that's debatable. Some ccTLD's will probably never take off, others have probably reached their peak. But the .au market is, in my opinion, definitely where the smart money is, at least for the next few years.

Why?

- It's a market that was, up until recently, stifled by draconian legislation that has now largely been swept away
- What legislative issues remain can, and likely will, be solved in the not too distant future
- There's been huge growth over the last 2 years and we're still way behind comparable markets (e.g. the UK) in relative terms
- Australia has a healthy, wealthy and growing population that will only get more tech savvy with time
- Pretty much every decent .com.au has now been registered, so those who want to make good acquisitions (whether it's for resale or for development) will have to buy them off the secondary market

This is my line of thinking Snoopy - I'm genuinely interested to hear what your thoughts are about it.

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