OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Just sold the domain name Hong-Kong.com. Money is in the bank.
It was time to cut my losses so I sold it. Well actually I made some money selling it but not what I was expecting when I bought it in an auction 9 or 10 years ago. At the time it was the most expensive domain I had bought. I had paid just above $6,000 for it in an expired domain auction.
I had high hopes for it but nothing really happened. The domain got low traffic and almost no inquiries. I probably got 4 or 5 inquiries over all these years. I have junk domains that get more than that! I think that hongkongchina.org, that I also own, has gotten about the same number of inquiries.
The truth is that hyphenated domains don’t sell well. I did a search at Namebio only to find 12,932 domain sales with a hyphen. Namebio has a total of 424,164 sales in its database so that is about 3%. And only about 90 hyphenated domains were sold for $15,000 or more. So sales are low but also prices for these sales are very low.
I did a search at Namebio for exact match “hongkong” and “hong-kong” domains and I found these 7 domains:
hong-kong.se 1,360 USD 2007-10-02 Sedo
hongkong.cc 14,800 USD 2016-01-03 Guta
hongkong.de 13,978 USD 2007-09-20 Sedo
hongkong.it 3,100 USD 2008-08-12 Sedo
hongkong.it 2,900 USD 2008-09-09 Sedo
hongkong.me 1,200 USD 2012-03-07 Sedo
hongkong.net.au 101 USD 2011-09-15 NetFleet
A few months back I had contacted George Hong, CEO and president of Guta, trying to ride the China tide and asked him about Hong-Kong.com. His exact words were: Typically Chinese buyers don’t like domains that contain ‘-‘.
After that I was determined to sell even for a small profit as I was disappointed with the domain.
So when a $3,000 offer came 2 weeks ago I negotiated a bit and accepted a $15,000 offer and sold the domain. I thought that a $9,000 profit is not bad for a failed “project”.
I think the buyer is another domainer. I wish him good luck with the domain. Not sure if he reads my blog. 🙂
What do you think about hyphenated domains? Was I right to sell at this price?
Congratulations on the sale, not a small profit despite your higher expectations.
George is right about the nuances of the Chinese market. The new owner has at least 87 domains with a dash, and also Hong–Kong.com 😀
I’ve sold dashed domains that were two word composites but not for five figures. Some dashed domains that were developed and acquired traffic can fetch high figures on residual traffic as well.
Thanks!
The new owner bought another dashed domain from me. That one has good traffic.
And would be the other ‘dashed domain’?
If it can be revealed.
Sometimes you win by losing something….
You made a great sale and congrats for that Konstantinos 🙂
“The truth is that hyphenated domains don’t sell well.”
Rightly said. I too find it very difficult selling them and the worst part is almost no inquiries on hyphenated domains.
On the other hand, I think you overpaid considering the time (way back) you bought but eventually you ended up selling for a decent profit. If he is a domainer like you say so, it will be nearly impossible for him to turn into profitable investment. You did great job by selling for 15K.
HE didn’t overpay at that time, in hindsight yes, given what has happend to the hyphen market, but hyphens had better sell thru back then
I see… I might be wrong because that time I wasn’t into domaining if we are talking for around 15 years back.
I think it was 10 years ago.
BTW Hong Kong is a great city! I would love to go back there sometime.
George is useless, unless you give him a 2/3Lor 2/LN .com he doesn’t want to bother.
With all the Chinese hype, and the price of HK EVERYTHING, if he is as well connected as he says he is, he could have found a buyer.
Congrats, you bought it, you held it, you monitored the inquiries, you made the right deal at the right time.
I don’t blame George for being selective. Higher prices bring higher broker commissions and LL/NN/LLL/NNN .com domains deliver that.
Then again, the Germans love 2/3 dashed word .de domains 😀
Kostas,
Congrats, great sale!
Don’t like hyphenated names, very hard to sell, that’s why we don’t own any.
IMHO you overpaid for it, good in the end you managed to get a good return, great job 🙂
i think you did quite well. there are a number of domains that are sold at a loss, you made more than double what you paid.
I think I have never sold at loss. Probably because I don’t do many 5 figure purchases and I can afford to keep underperforming domains like this one for years.
Congrats!…The two happiest days in a dash owner’s life are the day he buys a dash, and the day he sells a dash….
Congrats, it’s a nice domain. I didn’t know you owned it.
Congrats on a Fantastic Sale and — A Super Negotiation — When the Pressure Was ON — You Rolled the the Dice — Kept the Buyer — and made a Great Profit…
Congrats, Konstantinos. I’m most interested to hear how you turned a $3k offer into $15k!
$3,000 offer
No thanks
Price?
$25,000
We took it from there…
Congrats Konstantinos. Another example that sometimes it takes time, but a nice return. I’ve never sold a hyphenated name.
Congratulations Konstantinos.
You have done fantastic job! $15k is not bad.
How did you find this buyer? Inbound? or Outbound?
They found me by email with a $3,000 offer.
Congrats ????
Great sale! I hate hyphen domain…
Congrats Konstantinos !!!!! very nice profit.
There is zero wrong with this “-” did you forgot this co. “T-Mobile” just one of many.
Hong-Kong.store is reserve
HongHong.store is reserve
HongKnong.shop is reserve
Hong-Kong.shop = ?