To liquidate your domain names — 7 ways

Here are seven ways to turn your domain names into cash quickly.

A lot of people need cash (or might need it soon) due to the economic shutdown. Here are seven ways you can sell your domain names quickly—at a significant discount to what you would demand from an end user.

DNWE – Domain Name Wholesale Exchange is a curated marketplace of domain names offered at wholesale prices. You can learn the ins and outs of it in this podcast. Sellers submit domains for approval and pay a 9% fee if they sell. The minimum price is $299. Listings last for 30 days. They are sticklers regarding what they approve. They’ve accepted one of my submissions so far but only if I lowered the price to $305. (I bought it in an auction for $670.) Another domain I bought in an auction for $5,250 was rejected outright. [Update: the latter domain wasn’t supposed to be rejected, just required a lower price. They resolved this issue. I ought to also point out that you could argue that the liquid value of these domains is less than I bought them for at auction many years ago.]

NamePros – Domain forum NamePros has a “for sale” category. As a forum, it’s a bit unwieldy. If anyone has had recent sales success on NamePros, please comment on your experience and best practices.

DomainCapital – DomainCapital lends against domain names and also buys domains. They are a good avenue to try if you have premium domains. Everyone has a different definition for this, so I don’t know what to tell you except that unless you have received multiple five or six-figure offers on your domain, it probably isn’t premium enough.

NameLiquidate – This is a service of domain name registrar Epik. It runs reverse auctions that start at $998 and decrease to $9 over 168 hours. Given that your name might sell for just $9, this is a service if you are truly looking to liquidate of a domain. [Update: you can set a reserve/minimum above $9.] In fact, the service lets you list domains that have by now expired so long as they can still be transferred if someone buys it.

Sedo Auctions – Unless you have an active offer on a domain, you’ll need to pay to start an auction in Sedo’s primary auction system. It’s $59 plus the commission if you sell. So only list domains you are confident will sell. There used to be a site to “push to auction” at Sedo. People would list domains they’d sell at the minimum offer amount. People would place the minimum offer and then the owner would start an auction at Sedo. It was a good concept.

NameJet – NameJet still accepts private party submissions. Don’t put reserves on your domains if you really want to liquidate. I know many domainers ignore reserve auctions on NameJet.

GoDaddy – If you have tens of thousands of domains, it’s worth contacting GoDaddy. They are the only buyer I know of (publicly) that has purchased sizable portfolios.

And, of course, just letting some domain names expire is like getting paid the registration fee. If you realize some of your domains are real stinkers, let them go.