How Sedo, SnapNames, and Afternic helped me sell a domain name twice

This article is about how Sedo, SnapNames, and Afternic, helped me sell a domain name twice over the course of a decade, for several thousand dollars in total.

During this Coronavirus pandemic, sharing positive news about the domain industry is a must! The domain market deals with intangible assets, and no-one needs to wash their hands after managing their domain name portfolio! Of course, you should wash your hands anyway.

Here’s the timeline.

In 2008 I utilized the services of SnapNames to backorder a .com with a Greek theme. My cost at the time was $59 dollars.

In 2011 I sold that domain via Sedo to an Italian company for several thousand dollars. The buyer used it as a storefront for a gourmet food line, effectively branding themselves under a Greek name.

In case you’re wondering, there’s a long, historic tradition between Greeks and Italians since the era predating Rome. The entire Southern Italy and Sicily were Greek colonies starting all the way back in 800 BC and through Roman times. To this day, both countries acknowledge and celebrate our shared heritage and culture, and I assume that’s what influenced my Italian domain buyer at the time.

As I follow up with my domain sales later on with an intention to see how the domain is being used, I did check on the domain name on several occasions.

For some reason, the buyer stopped using the domain in 2016 and put it for sale on Afternic the following year. I seized the opportunity to buy back the domain at a price that I considered a bargain – less than $300 dollars.

The Greek distinctiveness of the keyword made it very appealing to any Greek company or startup, and my hunch was right when I started receiving inquiries at the Uniregistry Market, last year. Wanting to test the one page domain sales landers at Sedo, I moved the domain there, adding a note about its qualities and a price range.

This week I received a sizable offer that I could not refuse, as it arrived from my homeland, Greece, and in euro. The buyer’s credentials indicated that this is a new account, and therefore most likely an end-user buyer. The amount offered confirmed that.

I communicated through the exchange with Sedo’s account managers, and the transfer closed tremendously fast – in four days from offer to payment. It doesn’t hurt that capital controls in place during the Greek financial crisis of 2015 were lifted in 2019.

Today I received payment from Sedo and I’m very happy with the fact that the domain is in Greek hands: A company that produces high quality, extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) in the region of Sparta, Greece, and exports it worldwide. They will be upgrading from the matching .com.gr domain.

Selling the same domain twice at Sedo makes me appreciate their domain brokerage services as well, and I’ll be making several more such experimental transitions in the near future.