discussion If You Owned 1,000 Domains, Would You Build Your Own Marketplace?

[Kaelisk]

I've noticed something interesting in the domain industry.

Many investors spend years acquiring great domains, but very little time building a recognizable brand around their portfolio.

A buyer may remember:

• A company
• A marketplace
• A personal brand

But they rarely remember a random listing page.

Do you think personal branding will become more important for domain investors over the next few years?

Would you rather:

A) Focus entirely on acquiring better domains

or

B) Spend time building a recognizable marketplace and brand around your portfolio?

Curious to hear different opinions from the community.

 

[nicenicnicenic is verified member.]

If I owned 1,000 domains, I would build a simple branded front door first, not a full marketplace on day one. Once the portfolio is serious, a recognizable brand helps. Buyers feel more comfortable when they are dealing with a real operator, not just a random parked page.

 

[HariSeldon]

A buyer may remember: A company, A marketplace, A personal brand
But they rarely remember a random listing page.

Do you think personal branding will become more important for domain investors over the next few years?

Would you rather:

A) Focus entirely on acquiring better domains

or

B) Spend time building a recognizable marketplace and brand around your portfolio?

Curious to hear different opinions from the community.

My portfolio size has varied between 1,000 and 10,000 domains over the last 20 odd years and I'd say 99.99% of buyers are interested in one and only one domain name that I might own - putting time and effort into building a brand would be a complete waste of time and money.

 

[sjpals]

When I reached over 100 domains, I tried that. I used escrow for my payments. But its like anything, it depends on how much you market it, whereas marketplaces such as afternic and sedo have everything built in. There are also other options such as efty, that for a monthly fee, you can have your own shop (Like shopify for domains).

Ive tried many different landing pages and market places such as my own, my own mini sites, bodis, brandpa, namepros, atom and afternic and sedo. The only places I have sold domains have been namepros, afternic and sedo at wholesale prices.

 

[HelmutsHelmuts is verified member.]

Yes, at this level (1000+ domains), I would probably build my own marketplace + integrate it with most major marketplaces + would experiment with monetization

 

[accurate]

I would just use WLM from Atom or something.