Hi, I have been asked to sell off a lot of my companies old domain names, apparently they may be worth something. Some of them are fairly good, but the way people price domain names is a little random and I'm not sure what the best way to sell them is.

I've seen lot of people start threads about their domain names and try to encourage people to bid on them, but this seems like a lot of work and that the chances of finding someone with a genuine interest is rare. I have been looking at services like Sedo and Afternic. Has anyone tried out these with any success?

Any advice gratefully received!

I have owned ... for years ... the .net version of a domain name. The .com version was already taken but I would have preferred it.

Last month I received an email from the owner of the .com domain name ... offering to sell it to me for $89.00 USD. It was out of my budget range ... but I decided to check on the domain name status anyway. Apparently, the domain name had lapsed and was available to be registered by anyone. So I did ... through my usual registrar.

Moral of the story ... if you want to sell the domain names ... DON'T LET THE REGISTRATION LAPSE.

Peter

Domains sell themselves if they're quality and priced right and the end user knows it's up for sale.

You can also sell to resellers or list them for sale at all major domain name forums like DNForum and Namepros.

Has anyone approached competitors to sell a domain? Thoughts on this approach?

Good one Peter!

Careful there on how you establish contact. People react differently to "cold calling". Some will easily clasify you as a spammer.

That's been my reason for delaying contacting LDS about the "myheredity" domains that I think I want to sell. (another thread in Appraisals)

Sure don't want to come across as a spammer

Agreed. As well, be careful not to break any anti-cybersquatting laws. For instance, if you own domain123.net and you happen to approach someone whose company name is domain123 or close to it, you could get into some legal troubles since you were the one making initial contact.

Vito

I heard of an instance (but don't know how accurate it is) that say a company domain123 CO. LTD., with trademarked products called "domain123" ... successfully took someone to court for owning a domain for their Registered Trademark items.

It was about 5+ years ago I heard this

Peter

Trademark law and Internet law have settled down quite a bit. For complete advice you should consult a lawyer buy in summary if the business owning the trademark existed before the domain was registered, they are entitled to the domain name and can legally force the owner to relinquish it.

Nowadays, the best advice is to get your domain name and company name at the same time and make sure both are legally available to you.

Could you explain that? Do you mean if I own domainABC and approach companyABC and offer to sell the domain I could be in trouble?

sorry to go off topic...

Yes, basically that is correct. Let's say hypothetically that you were able to register cocacola.com. Then you contact the Coca Cola Company and ask them if they are interested in buying the domain. They could sue you for cybersquatting. It has to do with dealing in bad faith, as you clearly bought the domain with the express purpose of then extorting a higher price from them for a domain related to their tradmarked name.

Vito

Here are a few examples:

http://advertisinglawyer.wld.com/news-1999-02.htm

Basically,

"Any person who deliberately registers a domain name on account of its similarity to the name, brand name or trademark of an unconnected commercial organization must expect to find himself on the receiving end of an injunction to restrain the threat of passing off, and the injunction will be in terms that will make the name commercially useless to the dealer."

Vito

answer to the inital question:

sedo and afternic wont sell you anything, thats why people advertise them on forums. Best way imo is to make an object at ebay. then advertise it on dnforum and namepros and other forums with link to ebay.

You can try sedo, afternic etc. Afterall, it foesnt cost anything to list it there. You have to pay only if someone contact you through their service. So, you have nothign to loose.

Other alterates like the forums mentioned above also can be good.

Godaddy's domain auction is one option. Ive seen hundreds if not thousands of domains on ebay as well but i wouldnt recommend that. It really just depends on the value and how fast you want to sell the domains.