New Kids on the Block

When I first started acquiring domain names back in 2005 I was approached by someone who'd been in the game a lot longer than me & one of the things he said was that over the years he'd seen a lot of people come into the game and drop out. He advised me that New Zealand domains are hard to market and I listened. I've never really tried actively marketing my portfolio, sure I occasionally get approached by people interested in my domain names, but generally I try covering my costs with advertising and the occasional sale helps fill in the deficit.

As I reported in my last post, I pretty much dropped out during the worst of the recession and at the moment am only acquiring names I feel have a pretty good chance of being developed into small sites in the next few months.

While I was away the turn-over of domain buyers has continued and given that nature, as they say abhors a vacuum, several new faces have stepped into the field. Sometimes domainers talk to each other, sometimes we don't. As another domainer pointed out to me a couple of years back domain portfolio owners don't really compete on sales. Most businesses deal in fungible  commodities. Rice is rice (assuming variety and quality are the same) and your local rice merchant has to compete on price, service and location with other rice merchants for sales but can buy as much rice as he can afford from wherever he gets it from. Domain names aren't fungible I have cambodia.co.nz, anyone wanting that name has to get it from me, my competitors & I compete like crazy on purchases of good names, but after that we can (and do) cooperate a bit, buy and sell from each other and exchange information.

Recently I've been talking to Laini Inivale a fairly new entrant in the market. He seems pretty sharp and has already acquired some nice generic names. If you're in the market for a good name his portfolio of names at  NZ Domains For Sale is well worth checking out.