Domain Parking

Domain Parking is a simple way to potentially earn money and improve the chances of selling your unused domains.

I started domaining last June 2009 and so far, I have hand-regged 20 domains (very few compared to a real domainer). Most of them are parked at sedo and others at afternic and namedrive. Afternic charges a very hefty escrow fee. I sold my first domain name for $75, but I only received $15 net. Heavy isn't it! At first, I thought there had to be a mistake, but when I reviewed their fees and rules, their escrow fee is 3% or $60 minimum even for an afternicDLS member. Oh well, at least, I was still able to double my investment ($7 reg fee) in less than a year..but still...huh..nevermind.

Last week, I received an offer for my other domain. It was parked at sedo. Price was $150. I was surprised to receive an invoice request from the buyer. I thought sedo handles these things. The whole point of selling through them is to avoid having to deal with the buyer or seller directly in the first place. Now I can expect an extra day or two for the sales proceeds to be disbursed as this slows down the transaction. Good thing I was able to download a basic invoice template from google docs. Google makes it easy to convert the Doc into a PDF which you can then upload to sedo. Anyway, they (sedo) also made some changes in their fees. They charge 10% commission fee before, but now, they charged me $50 minimum fee. The transfer agent told me that Sedo commission is 10% with a minimum of 50 USD, as outlined in their pricelist, and to qualify for a flat 10% commission, you would need to list a domain at a fixed price, and have it parked with them. That's why last night, I changed my price option to Fixed Price on the rest of my domains. I guess I should check their policies from time to time.

UPDATE (6/25/10)

Just recently, I sold one domain name parked at Sedo. I set it at a fixed price of $75. Sedo's commission was 10%, so I received $67 net. Once you set it a fixed price, your domain cannot be auctioned at the marketplace.