After having lunch with YummyName’s Bill Sweetman a few months ago, I posted “5 Ways to Increase Your Domain Sales”, and after writing the article I took his program to heart and went out and implemented two key points from his 5-point program:

1) I started getting my inventory listed with the networks, in this case starting off with Afternic.

and

2) I raised the minimum price on all domains.

What made me think of this today was that I woke up this morning and saw that overnight I had sold another  name in a string of sales via Afternic since I implemented the program. But something about the name seemed hauntingly familiar, like deja-vu.

Fearing that perhaps I had already sold the name or even worse, let it lapse by accident (as with the cobbler’s children, it can happen to the best of us, even those of us who wrote The Definitive Guide To Never Losing Your Domain Name Again ) I first checked my database. Nope, it was still there, still listed, and then the whois record: relief! It’s still mine.

Then I went through my email records and found it:

The domain was purchased through our aftermarket storefront for a bargain $75, and then the buyer emailed me that he was hopelessly confused by the automated follow-up email he received outlining the transfer process (surprise, it was a .CA) and could we please just call the whole thing off?

I refunded his money and unset the “sold” bit in the database. Later, after my lunch with Bill Sweetman, this was one of the domains whose price was lifted to the new minimum pricing level of $499. So it was a pleasant turn of events to see the same name that was bought and returned by somebody for a pittance, go on to sell for 6X that amount.

Since implementing “The Sweetman Protocol”, or at least part of it, I’ve increased my transaction flow via the aftermarket networks that are increasing the reach of my inventory, and I’ve increased the average transaction size by bumping the minimum ticket price. I think Bill’s right: when it comes to an aftermarket domain name,  pricing it at $75 or $499 makes little difference to somebody who actually wants that name.

Next step for me is to add a custom whois message to all of the .com and .net domains that they are for sale, perhaps even listing the BIN now price in that message. (I know a nifty domain registrar who includes custom whois messages for free 😉   )

Update:

After I left the office I realized there was a third aspect of Sweetman’s 5-steps which I also implemented, and that was setting (realistic) BIN prices on most of the inventory. After I did that there was also a noticeable uptick in sales from the aftermarket store itself.