All posts in Domain Sales

If buyers were to make calculated commercial decisions about the value of .in domains, the values would be a lot higher. .In domains are really cheap compared to the commercial difference they can make to a business over the lifespan of the domain. The impact a good .in domain can make for a business is much, much greater than its actual cost.

So, why aren’t Indian businesses willing to pay more when .in domains can help so much? They are making decisions based on what they believe is acceptable, rather than on the domain’s value to them. What they believe is acceptable is based on several factors, but I think one of the biggest issues plaguing the .in market is poor reporting of sales. This takes many forms.

1. A visible reseller market. Now that domainers are starting to recognise just how valuable .in domains are, there is more and more reseller trading in .in domains. Obviously, reseller prices are significantly below end user prices. These reseller sales are then made public. An end user searching for price information about .in domains is going to find primarily a volume of sales at a massively lower price point than what they are be asked to pay. This is going to skew the end user’s perception of the value of domains.

2. Old domain sales data. .In domains were just launched 12 years ago, and the market has developed rapidly since then, including a significant increase in domain prices, especially in the last 3 or 4 years. This means that even sales data from 3 or 4 years ago is outdated, and sales prices from then are normally too low to use as comparables.

3. Sales not made. Many of the best quality .in domain are in “strong” hands – held by people who can afford to wait until the market realises their value. So, you won’t see a lot of high priced sales at this point. Owners are holding onto them rather than selling them, so as to get a big payday down the line, rather than small profits now. So there is no sales data to report.

4. Sales not reported. A lot of .in sales don’t get reported. That’s true in all domain extensions; however, from what I’ve seen behind the scenes in the .in market, that’s more the case for .in than most extensions. Indians aren’t the same braggarts that Americans are, and one’s personal financial circumstances are guarded more privately.

I think that these issues are coming to a head. I’ve noticed, and so have many colleagues, that the number of inquiries made on .in domains has increased dramatically in the last year. Every day, we are fielding many inquiries, so the interest in obtaining a quality domain is there. However, despite this increased interest, the amounts offered are still very low. Sometimes I know that I could sell the domain to a reseller for more than what the end user is willing to pay! So, end users in India are understanding that there is value in these domains, they just are not willing to pay for it yet.

I’ve been discussing these issues with Stephen R Wilson of Keyword Acquisitions Inc. He has a quality .in portfolio, and has kindly offered to share some of his sales that are not covered by an NDA. Here are the sales that he is able to report (all figures in USD):

alphabet.co.in – $1,999
bsb.in – $7,750
curtains.in – $6,500
cycle.in – $16,500
diapers.in and yoyo.in – $62,000 for both
distance.co.in – $1,100
filmschool.in – $15,000
flirting.in – $2,700
gmat.in – $4,000
hem.in – $7,990
hollywood.co.in – $7,000
letters.co.in – $999
nba.co.in – $5,000
onlinegambling.in – $5,000
onsale.in – $4,400
passover.in – $4,500
pepper.in – $6,500
recall.in – $8,800
specs.in – $3,600
still.in – $2,990
tack.in – $8,250
wash.in – $15,000
wwe.co.in – $1,500

Thanks for sharing, Stephen. There are some excellent sales there, and these are representative of the types of prices that .in sales should be receiving.

Following our October sales report, November was a quieter month in the .in world, but there still were several nice domain name sale.

Headlining the month of November was the sale of eStore.in for 2,000 EUR or $2,905 at Sedo.

There were a few other four-figure sales at Sedo:  Editions.in went for $2,500,  Bounce.in jumped up to $1,100, Marcaria.in sold for $1,000, and B2B.in went for $2,124.

Rounding out the month were Writer.in which published $760, Sav.in which sold for $200, iTax.in which confiscated $750, BlogSite.in which sold for $100, and LasVegasEscorts.in which climaxed at $500, all at Sedo.

On Bido, GreenTea.in brewed $289.

Currently there aren’t any.in domain auction running on Sedo, but there were 7 nice sales today which will be included in the December report.

Upcoming .in sales on Bido include Buddhists.in, DomainTrading.in, InternetGame.in, and Vultures.in.

In October there were several four figure Indian domain sales.  Leading the pack was Roulette.in which won 1,161 Eur or $1,737 at Sedo.

Following closely behind was ForexBroker.in, which traded for $1,500 at Sedo.

Another great sale was Leasing.in, which went for 960 Eur or $1,436 at Sedo.

Rounding out the month was Christians.in, which sold for $1,000 at DNForum.

There were a number of smaller sales as well.  Sexes.in got off at $150, Arts.co.in drew $330, Kompass.in (Kompass is German for Compass) directed 366 Eur or $547, and the geo domain hack Wiscons.in sold for $400.  All of these sales were at Sedo.

There are currently two Indian domains on auction at Sedo – 124.in and BlogSite.in. Upcoming Indian domain auctions on Bido include Tested.in, and BikiniShop.in.

As usual, you can find a complete list of all reported sales over $100 here.

Last week we covered summer sales of .in and .co.in domains.  Now let’s look at what happened in September.  Sales volume picked up quite nicely with summer ending.  September sales included many end user sales, which is always good news and highlights the growing importance of .in internationally.

Headlining the month was a nice LLL.in sale – DAS.in for 3,500 EUR or $5,202.  The sale is an end user sale, with the owner being a German insurance company with several brands, including “D.A.S.”

The category killer forum domains Forum.co.in and Forums.co.in sold for $2,000 each via Sedo.

Other four figure sales included CSS.in for $1,200 via Sedo, Krause.in for 1,200 EUR or $1,797, which was bought by a Mr. Krause in Germany, Data.in via Sedo sold for $1,533 to Data Infosys Ltd., and MovieTickets.co.in for $1,000, which sold to MovieTickets.com.

Rounding out the month was Pick.in for $170, SmartBook.in for $250, Lean.in for 120 EUR or $178, Kredite.in (German for Credit) for $160, iPoker.in for $290, and GreenPower.in for $200, all through Sedo.  On Bido, Trap.in captured $158, SportBook.in won $250 and bidding for MichaelJackson.in died at $416.

There are currently two Indian domains on sale at Sedo – eStore.in and Acai-Berries.in.  There are also some Indian domains coming up for auction on Bido:  Captcha.in, Ruth.in, and DrunkDriving.in.

As usual, you can find a list of all reported sales over $100 here.

Update December 6, 2009: the CSS.in sale did not go through.

It has been a while since I did a sales report, so there are lots of results to report.  While the summer was slow, things have really picked up in the autumn.  Today I’ll cover the summer, and I’ll follow this up with a post of autumn sales soon.

June
There was one more sale in June that didn’t get reported – Zahnarzt.in for $1,470 at Sedo.  Zahnarzt is German for dentist.

July
In July the headliner was Windows7.co.in which browsed to $10,200 at Moniker.

Sedo covered things up nicely with Bra.in for $5,000.

There was also a private sale of Then.in for $1,500.

Webmaster.in sold at Sedo for $1,400 (after previously selling for $2,050 last December).

Docomo.in went for 1,000 Eur or $1,470 at Sedo.

Sedo rounded out the month by selling CasinoCity.in for $800, Mover.in for $500, Hoffmann.in for 250 Eur or $368, AyurvedicMedicine.in for $260, iHosting.in for $100, PlayChess.in for $101, and Lent.in for $180.

August
August saw the entry of Bido on to the Indian domain auction scene, and a number of domains sold there, including Vodka.in which drank $1,159, ComputerClasses.in which taught $508, and GlobalWarming.in, which heated up to $211.

Afternic.com sold SkinCareProducts.in for $500.

Sedo cleaned up with Soaps.in for $180, Kelkoo.in for $1,500, and Banner.in for $510, Govv.in for $150, SpeakEasy.in for $100, Durg.in for $250, MicroPay.in for $330, FBU.in for 100 GBP or $164, and Sce.in for $110.

There is only one domain currently at auction on Sedo – Writer.in.

As usual, you can find a list of all reported sales over $100 on our blog.

It has been a while now since my last roundup of Indian domain sales.  A lot has happened in the .in world since then.

The highlight was likely the Amsterdam cctlds TRAFFIC conference, where I gave a talk about Indian domains.  There were several really good sales of .in domains, both at the live auction and the silent auction.

Here are the sales from the live auction:

Fuel.in – 700 Euros ($995)
Human.in – 1,100 Euros ($1,560)
Wiz.in – 200 Euros ($280)

The silent auction went very well for .in domains – 8 out of the 32 domains that sold were Indian domains.  The results are:

Refrigerator.in – 1,064 Euros ($1,466)
Publish.in – 700 Euros ($964)
Hang.in – 532 Euros ($733)
CricketGame.in – 532 Euros ($733)
LawSchools.in – 360 Euros ($496)
Powergenerators.in – 200 Euros ($275)
Antidepressant.in – 200 Euros ($275)
ComputerDegree.in – 200 Euros ($275)

As I blogged about before, Bido has started auctioning off Indian domains.  So far they have had the following sales:

Success.co.in – $292
Translate.co.in -$375

I’m informed that there are a couple more Indian domains that will be coming up on the Bido auction block soon – namely, Pradesh.co.in and Photograph.co.in.

There have also been a fair number of Sedo auctions since our last roundup, including several four figure sales.

Leading the pack was Are.in, which took $3,716.  Kumar.in sold for $3,250.   Walk.in strode off with $2,500.  Domain.co.in went for $1,450.  Webmaster.in sold for $1,400 (a drop from it’s previous sale price in December of $2,050).

Rounding out the sales were:

Tree.in – 185 Euros ($260)
StellaMccartney.in and StellaMccartney.co.in – 350 pounds each ($576)
Kurse.in – 80 Euros ($112)
GSMHandsets.in – 50 pounds ($82)
TaxReturn.in – $260
Vea.in – 60 Euros ($84)
Wmv.in – 60 Euros ($84)
HealthShop.in – $300
May.in – $311
Prostitutes.in – $275

There is only one domain currently at auction on Sedo – ThemeParks.in.

Although not a .in domain, interestingly enough India.de sold at Sedo for $1,794.

That’s all for this week.  As usual, you can find a list of all reported sales over $100 on our blog.

stellamccartney.in

Since our last Indian domain sales report there have been a lot of four figure .in domain sales.  The market seems to be picking up steam again.

The top seller was ARE.in which sold for €2,600 or $3,458.

In second place was PLR.in, which was purchased by a member of INForum for $3,400.  He will be using the domain to develop a website about Private Label Rights.  It’s always good to see a domain developed, but especially so when it’s a premium .in domain.  Good luck with the website!

In a tie for third place was the big sale of BIG.in for $2,500 and also the sale of Parallels.in for $2,500.

Rounding out the list of four figure sales was BAER.in for $1,855, AdultFriendFinder.in for $1,610, TXT.in for $1,060, HotelRooms.in for 750 EUR or $1,014, and IndiaGov.in for $1,000.

Here are the remaining sales:

T-shirts.in – $835.
Graffiti.in – 500 EUR or $676.
EST.in – $500.
BusinessNet.in – $455.
Jumbo.in – $450.
Buch.in – 331 EUR or $447.
TTTT.in – $400.
VirginiaBeach.in – $300.
Charlotte.in – $300.
MiniClips.in – 150 EUR or $202.
Alarms.in – $200.
Irvine.in – $200.
Alex.in – 110 GBP or $167.
Insects.in – 100 EUR or $135.
ULY.in – $100.
MVM.in – 60 EUR or $81.
Davanagere.in – $60.

We also found out about an old sale that had not previously been reported – Tshirts.in sold for $2,000.  It was sold to the same end user who just purchased T-shirts.in.

In our last sales roundup we noted that RobotShop.in had been sold.  It is now in use and redirected to RobotShop.com.  In our forum you can find a list of reported .in and .co.in domain sales that are now being used by endusers.

There are currently two .in domains on auction at Sedo – tree.in and kurse.in.

That’s all for this week.  As usual, you can find a list of all reported sales over $100 on our blog.

Here is a report of the publicly known Indian domain sales since our last report.

The top sale was Gay.co.in which sold for $2,550.  It’s rare to see a .co.in take the top spot.

There were two other four figure sales – RobotShop.in, which computed 1,500 Eur or about $1,971, and Color.in, which sold for $1,750 through Afternic.  It’s rare to see a .in sale at Afternic and hopefully this is the start of a positive future trend.

There were a handful of smaller sales through Sedo as well – RentApartment.in let for $100, BadGirl.in sold for $90, Level.in went for an even 225 Eur or about $296, Erde.in took 100 Eur or about $132, Leg.in kicked in at $312, 416.in went for $65, and Jaa.in sold for 110 Eur or about $145.

We had previously reported the sale of KKR.in in September 2008.  The purchaser turns out to have been the popular Kolkata Knight Riders and they have launched their new website.  It’s good to see an LLL.in developed by such a popular enduser.

There are currently a lot of .in domains on auction at Sedo, including BusinessNet.in, Irvine.in, Charlotte.in, VirginiaBeach.in, Uly.in and Mvm.in.

Finally, as more and more domainers get into development, INForum has now opened up a Webmasters Forum where you can also discuss and learn about the development of websites.

It has been a while since our last sales roundup.  There were a few larger sales, as well as a steady flow of smaller sales.  Compared to the battering that many other domain extensions have taken, .in seems to be holding up reasonably well in these difficult economic times.

The highest sale was RedTube.in, which sold for 2,000 Eur or about $2,605.

There were a couple of other four figure sales – Sridhar.in named a price of $1,000 and a quality .co.in WebsiteDesign.co.in went for $1,000.

Other .in sales included Stellenangebote.in, which closed at $220, Memory.in, which recalled 380 Eur or about $495, BuyComputer.in, which booted up $60, InternetVideo.in, which streamed $270, Lecturer.in, which instructed $60 and MotherNature.in, which harvested $110.

There were several LLL.in sales.  The best one was EBA.in which was bid up to $650 in intense last minute bidding.  OBF.in sold for $70, XIO.in went for $100, HGD.in closed at $70, OCW.in took $80, FBN.in commanded $80, and OBV.in sold for 290 Eur or about $378.

There were also some decent .co.in sales.  In addition to WebsiteDesign.co.in which we previously mentioned, ILoveIndia.co.in sold for $250 and Webmail.co.in delivered $560.  TravelGuides.co.in sold for $250 in a private sale.

There are a couple of upcoming auctions for Indian domains on Sedo:  RentApartment.in and BadGirl.in.

INForum continues to grow – we have now surpassed 10,000 posts!  There are lots of interesting discussions going on, so if you haven’t been there for a while, make sure to pop in for a visit.

Since our last sales report, there have been a few decent Indian domain sales.  The largest one is IKA.in, a great three letter domain beginning with “I” for India, for $1,500.  Trivandrum.in, the English version of Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala and with a population of about 750,000, sold for $1,000.

A number of smaller sales rounded up these larger ones.  Coconut.in ate $200.  FMX.in closed at $245 in heated bidding.  UIU.in sold for $70.

There are a few upcoming sales of Indian domains.  Stellenangebote.in, which appears to be a German term is on auction, as well as ILoveIndia.co.in (don’t we all?).

The Indian market continues to grow despite global economic turmoil.  INForum has now hit 2,000 members and continues to grow as does the interest in Indian domains.

As well, remember we are on Twitter at http://twitter.com/indian_domains/