Behind the Sale: GeekSpot.com – from $500 purchase to $5,255 sale

Welcome to the seventh post in our Behind the Sale series on the Efty blog. In this series, I talk with domain name investors who share all the details behind a recent sale. You will learn how they bought low and sold high, how the negotiations went down and much more.

Today, I am chatting with Joshua Reason a part-time domain name investor from the United Kingdom who’s been living in Los Angeles since 2014.  He’s the founder of BrandConsultants.com

Joshua, tell me a little bit about yourself.

I started investing in domain names during my senior year of college (early 2014). I went to school at Auburn University in Alabama and was looking for a way to make money online. I purchased and registered a lot of rubbish in the first 6 months and probably owned about 100 domains total by the end of 2014, so nothing too excessive. Ultimately I dropped or sold cheap 80% after year 1 and focused on more quality domains. I’ve gradually rebuilt my portfolio to about 250 quality domain names and have been selling roughly 2 domains a month. I don’t specialize in a specific niche and try to diversify my portfolio across different niches (4L.coms, 3L.coms, Two-Word Brandables, Made-up Brandables, Descriptive keyword .coms etc. I invest in 99.9% .com.

What is the domain name that you’ve sold?

I sold GeekSpot.com after an inquiry through its Efty landing page. I list the high majority of my domains with a Buy It Now price on GoDaddy and Afternic, but do not put a BIN price on my Efty landing pages. When someone inquires through a landing page, I’ll normally raise the price on Afternic/GoDaddy, and then quote the price listed with a link to the marketplace listing. I’ll offer a discount ranging from 10-20% on the buy it now price if we complete the transaction through Escrow.com which is what happened with this sale.

How much did you pay for the domain and how much did it sell for? 

I purchased it at GoDaddy auctions in March 2016 for $500 and I sold it for $5,250 in November 2017.

Can you share how the negotiations for this domain name went down? 

This particular client claimed to be choosing between multiple names, so there was about a 2 weeks negotiation period in which the client was both consulting with his team and with me. I try to create value and mention comparable sales in most of my negotiations. Client’s initial budget was roughly 3K, but we managed to agree on a price closer to the BIN which I set at $7,888. The transaction was handled through Escrow.com

Thanks for sharing Joshua, is there anything else you like to add? 

I can be reached at [email protected] or on the NamePros forum – I’m always looking to both purchase and broker domain names. I’m currently brokering Mgmt.com among other great domains and have sold a handful of names for mid five-figures this year for both myself and clients.

Do you have a noticeable domain name sale that you would like to share? Drop me an email at [email protected] as I would love to hear from you!

Disclaimer: Efty does not have access to user’s sales data. We, therefore only share information on sales that have been publicly reported. Read our full governance here.