To Flippa, Or Not To Flippa...

[DomainVP]

To Flippa, Or Not To Flippa... That is the question...

I have 4 names that I am considering listing on Flippa. By 'considering' I mean I am just going to take a general leap and see what happens.

Lil Wayne says, "scared money don't make no money," and I tend to agree.

So I will go test the waters in Flippa and report back to the NP community in unbiased fashion.
Here are the names I will be casting into the Flippaverse

Law School Degree
Dark Lipstick
Labiaplasty Cost
House Remodelers

All .COM

The last time I sold on Flippa the results were underwhelming, walking away with a $1,000 profit after selling three domains for $3,500.

Some outcomes were very hard to understand.

For example... I couldn't sell "Childhood / / Diabetes" (d0tc()m) with an $8,100 EstiBot appraisal (don't start with the Estibot conversation we all know). The search phrase has 2,900 SV, 68% competition and $3.61 CPC.
It was owned previously by a large pharma company since the 90's.

With those metrics and knowledge, it is at least worth $4k+ to an end user, or a couple hundred to an investor.
Listed it at Flippa.... got a $1 bid, good thing I set a reserve.

Yet... Baby / / Storage (d0tc()m) recieved 44 bids and sells for $500 with only 880 SV and a $0.61 CPC.

??? Makes Very little Sense ???

So with that said I noticed that they have dropped their prices and that they offer more services, so I am going to give it a shot; setting a 7 day auction and buying a 'premium' package for one of the names... can you guess which one?

Anyways, I will update the thread with the results in 10 days when I find out the final outcome.

In the mean time, how has your flipping on Flippa been?

 

[tomcarl]

Well, "Baby Storage" is more commercial and could have been seen as more 'flippable' than Childhood Diabetes, IMO. ChildhoodDiabetes although a good name, is a .COM of a disease which would more likely be a informational site, Information sites are a harder sale....although a *smart* developer/investor who reads between the lines also knows medical supplies and supplements could be sold on the info site therefore giving it commercial value and it could be pitched that way.

You said the last time you sold on flippa you walked away with $1,000 profit so I guess you're familiar with the whole process already. I think your domains should be sellable on there but for how much will be a raffle and your best bet would be a roll of the dice and start at open bid $1, I find these are the most successful. As with any auction, bids attract bids, high bid amounts attracts eyes. G'luck with the sales.

 

[SlimPickins]

and.... how did the auctions go?

 

[DomainVP]

Terrible... I would never use Flippa again.

Unless you have a 1 word premium domain I would steer clear of Flippa; otherwise you are just taking your chances with 'premium' listings etc...

I've sold more domains directly emailing end users; I'm going to stick with that.

 

[SlimPickins]

sorry to hear it but thanks for the update. Shoot, I was just looking at putting up a few keyword domains and 4-letter domains.... was hoping to find a better alternative to sedo and flippa sounded interesting, despite the upfront charge and their hands-off payment/transaction system while still getting 10% of the sale price..... but, if there is perhaps more active buyers there (and looks like it given the number of bids, and way more auctions), AND as a seller we have actual control whether to accept bids made by each person or not, maybe it is still worth an initial "ain't scared money" test of a few domains....

 

[DomainVP]

That's exactly what my mindset was going into it... I gave it three tries with a series of names, and it was a break even venture.

Be careful as well, there is a great deal of shill bidding going on over there; their sole goal isn't getting that 10%, it's for you to buy that promotions package that they will be very reluctant to refund.

If you have some really good generic aged 1 word domains, give it a shot. That's what the Flippa marketplace craves.

Also, if it's a drop don't even bother. No matter how good it is.

They won't show the archived age, and prominently display the whois date. So even if it was a great domain, buyers see a recent reg date and run.

 

[SlimPickins]

thanks for the additional info, very good to know. Curious about the shill bidding though.... seems counter-intuitive since a seller can SEE who has made a bid and decide whether to "accept" the bid or not... so unless a sellers friend/etc was using a username deliberately unknown to the seller to avoid detection and be able to have an influence on the auction, it seems that a seller accepting "questionable" bids by a potential buyer (be it the seller themselves with a secondary account, a friend or whatever) it is automatically clear that the seller is complicit in the shill bidding.... as compared to sedo where a seller has no "on site" way of knowing who placed a bid or choice to approve it or not etc. And not seeing the connection between possible shill bidding and an incentive to pay to upgrade to a promo package.... are you saying that somehow, by someone, paid promotion listings seem to get a lot more bidding action, even if the domain quality doesn't really seem to justify it? So encourages people with similar low quality domains to pay to promote to hopefully see similar unexpected success? Or do you mean something else?

and would have "thanked" your last few posts for the great info but apparently not an option in this forum.... anywho, THANKS!

 

[DomainVP]

A lot of the sellers and sales on Flippa are bid up by the sellers using secondary accounts; in the hopes to get someone interested in the auction.

Flippa promotes how 'great' they are, and if you buy their promotion package that you will have even greater success. This just isn't true.

Most of the sales done the could have been easily executed via some lead research and direct sales.

Flippa is definitely not a 'shortcut' to success.

 

[SimpleDomaining]

I am testing flippa too. What i have noticed so far is when i am placing a domain there for auction, when there is not one other similar domain on auction for bidding, out of sudden the next day there is about another 10 of them in similar niche being placed.... just interesting fact.

 

[Edward Smeu]

Yep, started using Flippa too and seen what @SimpleDomaining is talking about.

Listing on Flippa is not equal to brokering a domain as Kevin mentioned in another thread. They have quite a nice end user database but doing your own work is also important. Visibility is most important and that is why listing on homepage (it will stay there less than 24h so be careful) or spotlight listing are most efficient. The upgrades are quite expensive but I can see they are willing to work on those and I personally got some free upgrades ( after I purchased ultra premium pack ).

Still not convinced if the investment is worth it, will know more on Tuesday after the auction in my signature will be over.

 

[jamesosix]

I like how Flippa staff are active on here seeing how they can improve the platform. Always a good sign imo.

 

[Edward Smeu]

Ok, let's do some numbers. The name was sold for $1,899 and Flippa's fees were $539 for ultra premium and success. Will keep using them while I will try to be more selective in upgrading.