Hi drumbum,
I feel for you on this. The domains I own, I got them for the following reasons:
A thoughtful, respectful and informative response. Thank you! Seems we have a lot in common in the methodology of how we approached buying. Here are some of the ways I bought my domains:
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Drumming. Because I'm a pro drummer and my first retail store was a drum store, my ultimate goal was world drumming domination (grin). I bought a LOT of drum domains and plugged many of them in and started getting them working content-wise for the bottom line. It worked beautifully and we have over 20,000 visitors a day. For a small niche, that's not half bad... but I did get a little carried and bought too many (there isn't time in my lifetime to develop all of them) so I'll be selling some off.
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Gift-specific. Because the gift market is my second area of expertise, I ran with this one. I had a lot of ideas for building a similar gift network and I planned for it by reserving quite a few gift domains. I've been plugging them in for years and they are a huge part of our success with regard to online exposure. But there too I got a little carried away and over-bought. There isn't time to work with so many and I'll be selling some.
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Slogans - When I caught the domain bug, I was looking for anything that wasn't taken. I started at looking at slogans like ActNowandSave or KidsGetInFree, etc. and that's some of what I have. Of course now I know that, as you described, proof-of-concept might have to be initiated to help move them but I see a lot of big businesses using slogans like this these days so with time, they might be very valuable to the right company. We'll see.
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Random - This is when my OCD really kicked in (lol). I started to believe that, because AllThingsDancing.com sounded better than DancingAndThingsLikeThat.com, I must really have a good domain name. I'm now finding out that these names aren't quite what I thought they were. Yes, I knew that how people type things in was important (I own several keyword-rich domains that are working for me like GuitarGifts.com, DrummerGifts.com etc.), but I thought the AllThings.. would still have marketability based off of the fact that it could represent that genre. I still think they're good domains for the right party but yea, I get it. I might be 80 years old before that right party comes along and at that point I'll have spent hundreds on annual renewals.
Also, people have tried to convinced me that I made mistakes, without being the case. I have passed on interested buyers many times, and sometime feel I should have went through with some of the transactions.
This is why I think some people in here need a dose of humility. Many laughed when I told them 10 years ago that I was going to start a drummer's gift shop. Well, we've made millions through the years. Likewise, just because one domainer doesn't have luck with a domain doesn't mean others won't. The most valuable lesson I've learned in business is that there are many different ways to skin a cat.
---------- Post added at 07:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:26 PM ----------
Hi DB,
I do not think there is a ready market in the 'domaining sphere' for these domains, however some may well be able to find possible end-user purchasers. From this perspective I can see forum or information sites being developed on these in particular:
Boxing
Dancing
Magic
Marriage
Movies
Romance
Sailing
If you have an interest in any of these areas then you could decide to develop it yourself.
Sorry but I cannot give you an end user value on these.
Hope this helps.
It does help Billbo, thank you very much! I'm learning a lot.