In one of the more publicized new gtld auctions back in 2016, Ali Zandi sold Travel.Agency on Flippa for $9,999. There was a big discussion about the sale on Namepros, 79 posts deep.
The winner of the auction was playing with fantasy money. Roman Edmond won $3million in the FanDuel 2015 World Fantasy Football Championship.
It seems now that the buyer is looking to sell the name after holding it for approximately a year and a half. It was on Flippa around 9 months ago but did not sell.
Now the seller could do a better job in highlighting the selling points on the name and listing the premium renewal of $499.
The Namepros thread was interesting, some thought it only got to $10,000 because of the marketing and reputation of Ali.
The post that stood out the most to me was this one from Cdomains:
100% true. Thats why he promotes his site to newbies and offers domaining advice.
More eyeballs on your site more publicity for your auctions. Smart move on this part.
If you are perceived as an expert then people will believe that everything you say is gold.
Many people who appear on the Sherpa show take advantage of their “celebrity” to promote their blogs.
They make a small fortune off newbies who click their affiliate links and buy the recommended domains.
I still think the name is a great name, and valuable, just not now, maybe not worth 10K.
Who knows, five years from now it may be worth 50K and we will all feel stupid for not buying it.
I think Ali works hard and a lot of domain investors think they can just set it and forget it. You can do that when you have Rick’s portfolio or Anything.com or Scott Day. When you have decent names or new extensions, you are going to have to work to get your names better prices and exposure.
The domain was reported sold at NamesCon for $3,000, the name went into privacy, but it is Edmond selling it now, so that sale must not have gone through. Looking at the seller’s notes seems to back up that the NamesCon sale did not go through and should not be on Namebio.
Bought it about 1 1/2 years ago on this site. Paid 10K which was a steal at the time. (See below link for sale) Estibot has this valued over twice that amount. I have not done anything with it as of now so I am going to sell it someone that can monetize this virtual asset. Expect smooth transaction and transfer from me. Questions, hit me up. Good Luck.
There is 1 bid ($2,999 reserve met) and 7 days left, where do you think it sells?
May I just say I love your writing, you are always so thorough giving many sides to a sale. I don’t care about opinions, give me facts, history, numbers. Bravo!
I think the seller takes a loss, maybe two more bids and closes at $4,999.
Should have let Ali broker it and pump the hell out of it at NP again. Just a thought..
Zandi Can sell heat to the devil , I guess him building IT OUT and keeping it for his travel empire was part of the pump and dump on domain sherpa
Is the $2999 bid genuine?
My thought exactly.
This domain should be renamed, PassTheParcel
Wins $3M and 18 months later willing to take a loss on a $10k investment… I won’t speculate but we can all guess why.
The $499 renewal scares the Trump out of me. That alone keeps me from buying any of these “premium” gtld’s.
i thinks brokers are needed for this name, it’s very good but definitely an end user sale …
who knows what the market will be in 5 years. I do know that $499 renewal is way to much for an limited Tld. Excellent domain name none the less. i think currently it is worth $4,999, but a name is really only worth what someone is willing to pay at any given time.
The renewal fee for the next five years is something to think about
The registas should consider a one time lump sum payment of maybe 2 grand to cover the renewals forever . I think that would get that reason oit of the way for not buying the domain
Doesn’t help the registry though.
Sadly, inaccurate previous sales stats influence what some people will spend/offer on a domain. A false sales report could cost someone big time if it motivates them to over-spend and get stuck with an asset they can’t make a profit on (Resellers). That’s a different topic though.
As for Travel.Agency, an end-user should be able to develop it out and generate some revenue. I don’t see why it couldn’t fetch $10k+ with the proper marketing/advertising efforts. I’m not sure that the needed marketing can be pulled off again though.