Last time I spoke about recent LLLL.com sales was on April 23rd and at the time there was plenty to be excited about in the short domain market, so… How’s the market performed since then?

Well, it’s only been 4 days and there’s already some big sales to report — YUQI.com sold for $12,001 on SnapNames and Tego.com saw $7100 on NameJet. GUDI.com has been an interesting domain to watch over the past few months, having sold for $2600 on February 14th, $1850 on March 10th, and now $3101 on April 27th. Clearly the CVCV market is rather unpredictable on any particular day — as an average, prices have been pretty stable over this timeframe, however we see that individual domains can fluctuate quite a bit. If there’s something to take from that, perhaps it’s that CVCVs are not the kind of domain you should be auctioning at no reserve unless you can stomach what may amount to a large loss. Alternatively, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised, as I’m sure the March 10th buyer did,  realizing a 67% profit in well under two months — not bad at all. Now tell me, is there any market other than domaining when you’re going to see that kind of ROI in that kind of timeframe!?

Topping out the LLLL.com sales above $1000 were KAZY.com and WIGY.com, reaching $1101 (Sedo) and $1025 (TDNX) respectively.  You may or may not have noticed that all 5 sales above $1000 happen to be CVCVs. Something which has become somewhat obvious over the past year has been the increased desirability of good CVCV domains with domainers versus bad LLL.coms. It’s somewhat difficult to compare one pronounceable domain to another when we need to consider subjective factors such as pronounceability, however it’s pretty clear that if we make any reasonable attempt to control for overall quality, we’ll see that CVCV domains have weathered the economic turmoil much better than LLL.coms. When Microsoft’s Kumo launches in approximately 40 days, it’ll be just one more CVCV being used by one big enduser

In other news, we witnessed one  particularly strong AAAB sale, with ZZZR.com reaching $510 while GGGP.com could only pull in $400 — both were Sedo auctions which ended on April 26th. ECAZ.com saw $500 on Sedo — double the $260 it reached on NameJet on January 30th 2009.  We’ve also seen a few very respectable triple premium sales lately — WSCM.com selling for $109, YNMT.com pulling in $81, and HGHJ.com pulling in $135. Leading the lower quality LLLL.coms, FJTZ.com was worth mentioning, realizing $150.

It’s always interesting to try and understand the psychology of a domainer and domainers in general.. How could ZZZR.com outsell GGGP.com at the same venue, on the same day, when the latter is clearly better than the former and both buyers appear to be domainers? Why does one double premium struggle to see $5, while one of comparable quality sees $50 or even $100? Why do LLLL.coms sell so much more individually than even in small lots of say, 20?  The unpredictability of the LLLL.com market really is what makes it exciting.

Related posts:

1. NameJet and CVCVs
2. Some LLLL.com Data
3. eBay LLLL.com Market Trends