“Hey bro there are many sales that are not reported!” That seems to be the mantra of half the commenters when a post is published regarding reported sales data.
This is not news, everyone knows this, the posts I am referencing never made any implication that these are the only sales, or run your business by these numbers only.
Some people ran with the numbers, such as a post I wrote on what domain extensions sold in 2019?
Rick Schwartz took to Twitter
Do you want to be a SMART domain #investor or do you want to be/remain a DUMB domain investor?
— Rick Schwartz 👑 The DomainKing® 👑 Since 1995 (@DomainKing) January 4, 2020
I suggest you STUDY this chart and stop spitting in the wind in 2020. DUH!#Domains #newGTLD #ccTLD #branding #realestate #marketing #sales #selling #internethttps://t.co/M5C7woTXR2 pic.twitter.com/0x2EgYPnyU
This upset some people who left comments on the post. Rob Monster called Namebio swiss cheese on this post.
No one can comment on the unknown, the unreported, what’s the point? The data literacy of many in the domain industry may be low.
I mentioned in one comment that many years ago while watching “The World’s Strongest Man” competition, a friend said to me that he knew a guy that was stronger than the winner. I said who cares, he did not compete, he did not have his feats of strength recorded. On top of that, I don’t believe you know someone stronger than this year’s strongest man, you might not care that I don’t believe you same as I don’t care about things that can’t be proved.
One of the battles taking place in these “many sales are unreported” are between new gtld proponents and old school .com domainers. That makes sense because if you are big on .chat and there are no reported .chat sales for 2019 you need some way to bolster your investment/belief. Hey man trust me I know a guy who sold 100 .chat domain names, he didn’t report them, why would he report them?
He would reported them to give some kind of baseline to .chat sales, show there is a pulse. Many years ago when I started the .tv subforum everyone made sure to get .tv sales reported to show some sales volume.
You also can’t have it both ways, I am a very private person, but oh I will post every place I can and talk non stop. Thought you were a private person? Either you are doing something in private and amassing a wealth of names in a certain extension you believe is going to do well or you want to get into public spats everyday.
The other thing to consider when talking up unreported sales to make your preferred new extension seem stronger would be the following: If there are x amount of unreported .whatever sales how many unreported .com sales do you think there are?
When covering companies and extensions and sales, the reported data is the data that matters. How will someone comment on something they don’t know?
It’s the same with sales announcements, some want to say I just had a great sale, sorry can’t tell you any details but trust me, it was great. Some say congrats others dislike the post, or say they don’t believe.
Some do what happened today on Namepros, one member Dosebuy of .cx fame, posted he brokered a name for 6 figures, can’t give any details. Rob Monster chimed in because Epik was used, Rob mentioned it was a two word brandable and an example of shooting the moon.
Another member made what I believe is a troll post saying they sold a brandable for $2million, but of course cannot reveal any data.
Right after Rob Monster called Namebio swiss cheese here, I believe commenters were trolling him by saying they sold 8 figure and 9 figure domain names.
So this all seems stupid, either we analyze data or we all just talk shit. A great way to dupe a new investor is to say, “Hey thanks for your interest in my .LOL, I know there are no reported .lol sales on Namebio but trust me one guy I know sold 300 last year, don’t mind Namebio they are Swiss cheese.”
It goes without saying that there are many unreported sales. What we need to determine is the value of the reported sales, how data, known or unknown can be manipulated, especially to take advantage of new comers, and how does it affect domain investing strategy?
