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Domainers immune from the lockdown bump?

Kevin Murphy, July 30, 2020, 17:27:13 (UTC), Domain Sales

While the can be little doubt that the domain industry saw a boost in the second quarter due to the impact of coronavirus lockdown mandates, the same may not be true for those playing in the secondary market.

Data out from Escrow.com last night shows the weakest quarter for secondary market sales since the company started publishing its data two years ago, with average prices and overall sales volume down.

The company, which acts as a trusted intermediary for domain transfers, said it processed $55.2 million of sales in Q2, down from $85.8 million in the first quarter.

All of the primary geographical markets saw a decline apart from Hong Kong, with the US suffering the worst dip.

The US obviously has taken the biggest dose of the virus and has little in the way of a social safety net, so it’s perhaps not surprising that buyers are being more cautious with their cash.

The declines fly in the face of data and commentary from the primary market, where registries and registrars have generally been seeing unexpected boosts to sales as lockdown-impacted small businesses rush online.t

It’s tempting to speculate that while the virus has created more customers for domain names, fears over the incoming recessions have made buyers less likely to want to splash out on a premium domain.

Escrow.com said that the median price of a domain name without associated content dropped from $3,000 to $2,500 in the quarter.

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Comments (2)

  1. Kevin
    I’d suspect that there’s been less money for aftermarket purchases.
    A lot of the small businesses we’ve seen registering domains over the last couple of months are either branching out or second sources of income for people impacted by lockdown etc., They wouldn’t have the cash to pay 4+ figures for an aftermarket domain
    We’ve also seen quite a few existing businesses pivoting to offer products and services both during lockdown and for the re-opening.
    Michele

  2. Rubens Kuhl says:

    In our aftermarket process, average value decreased to half in March but got back to its normal value in April. May and June actually saw increases in the order of 50% compared to historic figures, with July returning to historic trends.

    And this is from a country that is been heavily affected by C19.

Leave a Reply to Rubens Kuhl