Don’t be afraid to pay!

If you really want a good domain name, and it’s available for sale, then don’t be afraid to pay a realistic amount for it.

Because if you don’t, chances are excellent that someone else will! And for the sake of a few hundred bucks – or maybe even a few thousand dollars – you’ll never have to live with the feeling of a missed opportunity.

This applies equally to a domainer like me – or to an end user.

Compare domains to property

Domain names are “cyber property”, and the same rules of supply and demand apply.

As an example, if you want to buy a house in Toorak, Melbourne; or Vaucluse, Sydney; then currently you will be paying top dollar to secure such a property. Why? Because the number of properties for sale is so limited, and the demand is huge (even in this multi-million dollar bracket).

Same with premium domain names. Except the supply situation is even tighter.

There will only ever be one carinsurance.com.au; one carloans.com.au; one weddingdresses.com.au; one spa.com.au; one holiday.com.au; one resume.com.au; one coaching.com.au  – you get my drift!

The same principle applies no matter what industry you are in. Let’s say you’re in real estate in Noosa – the best domain to have is undoubtedly NoosaRealEstate.com.au. And the agent that now has that domain had the foresight to acquire it even though it seemed a big purchase at the time. He has never looked back.

Don’t dilly dally!

I was lucky enough to acquire a very good 3 letter domain last week. It was on all three drop-catching platforms – bids were made on all for mid to high 4 figures.

One of the platforms has a tiered bidding system – every level doubles up i.e $400, $800, $1600, $3200, $6400, $12,800 etc. I tried to get a bid on at the $3200 level, but it was already taken by someone else. “Bugger” I said! I really wanted it, so the fear of loss drove me to bite the bullet and hit the $6400 bid. And it was available – yippee! I only had to think about it for 2 minutes – I just did not want anyone else to have it!

The bids on the other two platforms ranged from high $6000’s (me) to $8888 (not me). Fortunately the platform where I had locked in the $6400 bid managed to “catch it”. 🙂

Cutting a long story short, the following day I was made an offer that I couldn’t refuse for the domain – effectively I more than doubled my money. And the new purchaser is ecstatic.

Where the “dilly dally” comes into it is that had I hesitated even 10 minutes longer someone else would have grabbed that “$6400 slot”. I know this because a friend and fellow domain investor told me that he was deliberating whether to spend that much – and when he decided to do it, the bid was no longer available (because yours truly had it!).

One final thought

When tossing up whether to buy a domain name, ask yourself this question. “Would I want my competitor to have that domain instead of me?”

I reckon the answer to that should be simple!

Good luck. 🙂