Ebay isn’t a great place to sell a domain name if you want to make money, but if you take the time you can find some steals 
there. Keep in mind, there is a lot of crazy stuff in the domains department so you will want to keep a sharp eye on what you are bidding on. Here are a few things to watch out for:
- Crappy Domains. You may even get a chuckle when you see some of them.
- Domains that Violate Trademarks. Stay away from them… far away from them.
- Domains With Typos. And they won’t always be easy to spot.
- Domains with Numbers in Place of Letters. In my book, that’s a crime.
- WAY Overpriced Domains. If you search by price and sort by highest, you will get a kick out of how many people think that the average domain buyer is uneducated. At last check, there were at least a dozen in the $21 Million dollar range and several dozen in the $1,000,000 range, and I don’t think a single one was even a candidate for a 6 figure sale.
- Worthless Appraisals. As I was preparing this post, I viewed a listing that said “$4,700 appraisal from Estibot”. The domains was not at all worth anything near $4,700. Maybe $470 on a good day.
- Scammers. They are out there, so beware. If you pay a large sum of money for a domain, I would not trust PayPal either. I would use Epik, Dan, or Escrow.com to complete the sale.
As far as bidding, here are a few tips.
- Don’t get overly excited about winning your first domain auction at eBay. Especially if you are new to eBay, take some time to learn the system. Most of all, know what the domain is worth to an end user, and you would sell it to before you buy it.
- Don’t overpay for a domain. You will see some “Buy it Now” listings, but you can often get those same domains for less if you just put in a bid that is higher than the reserve.
- Beware of Sniping Software. It has been a while since I was on eBay and when I went to bid on a domain, I was all happy thinking I was going to get a great dot com domain. Well, I forgot about the old sniping software and within the last few seconds, I lost it. For those not aware, sniping software is designed to bid up an auction towards the end, and at the last minute to outbid the highest bidder who may just be sitting back thinking he is about to score on a domain deal (that was me.) The way to get around this is to make realistic bids and put them in early. The sniping software won’t take the bids higher than the bidder wants to pay. In my example, if I had upped my bid by $10-$20, I may have won it (I didn’t even bid $8).
I could easily get addicted to buying domains on eBay and the app makes it easy to follow your auctions wherever you are.
Not sure what to look for in a great domain name? Visit DN Academy to learn the ins and outs of domain name investing.
Who has an eBay domain success story to share?
