By: Raymond Hackney
We are talking today with Ophelie Lechat from Flippa. Ophelie does a great job keeping
track of everything going on Down Under and she is also responsible for cranking out a lot of content for the Flippa Blog.
We wanted to ask Ophelie specifically about domain sales on Flippa.
1) I know people think of Flippa as a website auction platform, but you guys do a fair bit of domain sales each month as well. Do you find that "Domain Only " listings are on the rise on Flippa ?
Ophelie: There's been a slight increase in the number of domain listings on Flippa in the last year, yes. Since our launch, we've really specialised in being a marketplace to buy and sell websites, but domain sales are a different, sometimes complementary offering for our users.
Part of the shift to domains being sold on Flippa is that they are more likely to be sold to an end user on our platform, compared to some of the big domain marketplaces. This might reflect a change in the domaining industry; either way, we're happy to see great domains being listed.
2) Could you tell us the 5 largest domain only sales that were completed and paid for on Flippa ?
Ophelie:Sure thing,
3) How is selling a domain on Flippa different than a website, are there different strategies employed to get more people looking at the auction?
Ophelie: When people come to Flippa, they are generally looking for either a money-making website, or a piece of web property with some phenomenal potential. Domains fall under this second category: when selling a domain, you don't have past revenue or traffic figures to rely on, so the quality of the domain name, and the quality of the niche, matter much more.
Domains also won't appear in custom searches where buyers are specifically looking for sites with established traffic or revenue, so it's beneficial for domain listings to appear either in our list of Premium Listings, or on the front page at Flippa.com. Both of these options are available as upgrades.
Finally, remember that domains on Flippa tend to be sold to end users, not other domainers. The estimated value of the domain isn't relevant: it's all about how much money a person can make with the domain.
4) Would you have any sense of which is the best day to end an auction on Flippa ?
Ophelie: This is a very interesting question. The day of the week on which the auction ends matters less for long sales (as opposed to short, 3-day auctions), since the listing will have had more visibility over time. Broadly, though, we see slightly higher success rates on Tuesdays.
5) What is the shortest and longest time frame someone can run an auction ?
Ophelie: Auctions can run for a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of 30.
6) $29 is a bit steep to list a domain that may only sell for $200, are there any plans to lower the listing fee for domain only listings?
Ophelie: No, we don't currently have plans to reduce the listing price for domain-only listings. You're right that $29 is steep for a $200 sale (and don't forget, there's a 5% success fee on top of that).
In our view, a site (or domain) should be of a high enough quality before it's listed that the seller can be confident it will fetch enough at auction to cover listing fees and the time/effort required to build the website, or register the domain.
Thanks for your time Ophelie, you can follow Flippa on Twitter @flippa or Ophelie @OphelieLechat
Thanks for the info Ophelie. I never knew a two letter .com sold on Flippa, odd venue for that kind of name.
I think $29 is definitely too expense for a domain only listing but Ophelie counters that with a great point. You could almost see the high listing fee as being a mechanism to deter people listing poor quality names. That said, it doesn’t seem to be working too well of late. There is some utter garbage in terms of domain names at Flippa these days.
Also I think there needs to be some verification process on the reporting of these sales. It seems highly implausible to me that the domain name Olympic-games-london2012.com sold for $45k. I know some domain sales are total headscratchers but a domain like that does not sell for that much having met reserve after one bid. I call bullshit and I see that kind of thing going on frequently at Flippa.
I appreciate the platform and I have had some very welcome success there lately with my own names, but they need to tighten up if they want to contend with the other platforms.
Thanks for the comment Flippa User and Deano.
I specifically asked Ophelie that these be verified sales that Flippa got their 5% success fee and that sale was listed as verified and paid.
Excellent info. We have just listed some names via the Premium domain option to see what Flippa is like versus the other auction marketplaces. We’ve heard a lot about Flippa recently so we’ll see what its all about and maybe we’ll make a crappy infographic about it.
Holy smokes that hyphenated Olympic name is pure junk. Very hard to believe
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I’d be happy to answer if you have any more questions.
Re: that hyphenated Olympic domain — it’s not my favourite either (and I wouldn’t put $45k on it), but it did go through as a sale, and the success fee was paid.
Thanks for verifying Ophelie and thank you for some great info on selling domains on Flippa.
I have to agree that I was shocked to see $45k for that hyphenated olympic domain. Just does not make sense to me. Are there really no better, cheaper alternatives for something in that arena?
olympic-games-london2012.com is no longer even registered. Whoever paid $45k for that domain was an utter fool. And the seller got a once-in-a-lifetime lottery ticket.