closed Advice? PrintableCoupons.Com - Pending SEDO offer of $75,000

[Zurio]

I run a popular printable coupon site. I also own about 500 domains, and normally most of them point to my site to boost my traffic.

Recently I decided to try an experiment to see if some of my other domains, such as PrintableCoupons.Com could earn enough revenue to justify earning money by parking, then use that money to buy traditional advertising such as radio, print and TV to boost traffic.

As it turns out, PrintableCoupons.Com started earning about $1500 this month using Google Adsense parking revenue. I did lose a some traffic, but I'm hoping to tinker with using that money to advertise the "real" domain.

Before parking with Google, I tried parking with Sedo, and it only earned about $200... peanuts. However, I started to get offers on the domain, including an opening offer the other day for $75,000.

Based upon the revenue from my real site, $75,000 is a fraction of it's true worth to me for two reasons... it exactly describes my product, printable coupons, so it's valuable to me, second, if a competitor can afford to pay me a big wad of cash for the domain, they also can afford to use it for better market position and compete with me. I assume they plan to compete either way, but giving them a good domain makes them even harder to beat.

I think I'm obligated to either accept the offer or at least make a larger counter offer within 7 days, so I need to decide what to do... what do you guys think I should do?

One side of me wants to offer them another one of my domains... one that doesn't *exactly* describe my product..., but I doubt Sedo would allow me to do that. Some of my other coupon domains actually are better sounding and appraise higher than that one, but losing them doesn't seem as much of a direct match.

 

[DN BROKER]

$75K for this domain? Sell it!

 

[amplify]

@HOPE, I hope you didn't just cost him $75K by posting that. If I were the buyer and found that forum posting, I would hold out and do a little more research before a purchase.

 

[DN BROKER]

This is a public forum, your going to get an answer if your going to ask!

 

[amplify]

This is a public forum, your going to get an answer if your going to ask!

At least do some research yourself into the keywords it could rank for, etc before you speak on the name alone. It has 200k exact, in the right hands, it would be killer.

Imagine for every 1 coupon printed the owner received as little as a penny?

That could be a 37 month return if those 200k just print ONE coupon if they have good SEO/SERPs. That's a minimum of it's potential.

Look at sites like Fatwallet. You may think it's a crap name too, but I'm sure they push a lot of product.

I think this is a 6 figure name in my opinion. I would take 75K if it's needed and you have a good ROI.

Or, put 10k into it yourself and contact big chains: Wal*Mart, T*arget, etc and push their coupons on your site live. Could make much more than that 75K in a year.

 

[DN BROKER]

This is a public forum, your going to get answers you may like or dislike.

If the domain is making $1500 a month on a parked page, thats $18000 a year, he is offered 4.2 years revenue for this domain name, take it and run! Not to mention this guy only has 1 month to show for revenue, who in the world would want to risk their money on 1 month stat? GET REAL DUDE and do your homework yourself.

I own domains that get 2 million + exact user search per month, i can't find a end user that would settle for $$$$, search is just a search! If the domain has TYPE IN TRAFFIC - then the value of the domain goes up, the OP has listed not much for us to appraise with and you jump in here and think your smarter then a 5th grader?

The OP is risking a deal by posting such question... its very silly to come on a public forum and ask such questions during a potential sale!

 

[amplify]

I own domains that get 2 million + exact user search per month, i can't find a end user that would settle for $$$$, search is just a search! If the domain has TYPE IN TRAFFIC - then the value of the domain goes up, the OP has listed not much for us to appraise with and you jump in here and think your smarter then a 5th grader?

I'm sure you didn't look at the Compete either. It already receives 4K/mo type-ins/organic searches.

You have my valuation and development idea. Good luck with the sale however it goes.

 

[bvesh]

4.2 multiple is crap for such a generic name, dont sell out for only 75k. For such a valuable generic you should be asking for atleast 6 years revenue.

 

[Zurio]

I make a living entirely from my web site. I came to this forum because I have deep respect for my peers, and I hoped to hear from them rather than from outsiders. I didn't mention the name of my site to make sure people don't think I'm here to promote my site or for SEO links. I'm here for advice.

After I received the first reply, with Hope's remark about selling my "lame" domain and my first reaction was that I went to the wrong place for advice. I decided I would be better off just deleting my post and essentially cancelling my membership.

Thankfully, I waited ... and the next responses from Amplify and Bvesh proved to me that there are still members who understand my question.

Amplify, you are correct. The printable coupon market is massive and I do get about 4 cents per printed coupon from national sponsors, and a flat fee per year for local merchant coupons, and the numbers to add up quickly. With a relatively small sales force, we have signed up over 20,000 local merchant listings and we get thousands of national prints per day.

That translates in between $500k - $1 million a year in revenue selling a virtual product... no tangible items to ship, and no cost per goods except for commissions to agents who sell the ads.

That said, the "lame" printable coupon market is not about search engines, SEO, affiliate links or click- through payoffs. I earn my income when people print my coupons and bring them into brick and mortar stores.

The majority of my traffic has always been directly typed in URLs, which means they either know who we are because they have seen or heard about us through print, radio, TV or word of mouth. So, believe it or not, a lot of people looking for printable coupons just type "PrintableCoupons.Com", "InternetCoupons.Com", "BabyCoupons.Com" or something similar into the URL. I have a lot of those kinds of direct

When I started this "experiment" by moving that and a bunch of other domains to a parked page, I did get a pretty noticeable drop in traffic, but as I said, the parked page revenue was also measurable enough to potentially earn even more back by increasing my print, radio or TV spots.

$75,000 was the opening bid, which is generally low ... to feel out the seller. Prior to this, the best opening bid was only $10,000. This tells me they could be a threat to my main business, hence the reservation in responding to them. I'm not simply looking for a higher second offer. Assuming they can afford to up the ante, giving them a domain that directly speaks to their product is something that can potentially hurt me later.

Of my 500 domains, about 140 are coupon related. Had they bid on a more generic name such as "ShoppingCoupons.Com", "CouponShopping.Com" or something even more generic like "CouponFactory.Com"... or"CouponLovers.Com", then it would simply be a formula to decide how many years worth of parking revenue would be lost. But this is not about what domains can earn by parking them. It's about what placing my developed code on them could earn as a second brand, and more importantly ... what my competition could take away from my market share with a better domain.

I'm already rejecting the offer. I'm obligated by Sedo, to respond... odds are they will increase their opening offer. The issue remaining is where I may draw the line and have to consider selling it. In one prior offer, the buyer also offered to link back someplace on their home page for a few years. That would help, but they still could be a big competitor.

Thanks to all for responding... even HOPE. As I mentioned, the initial reaction was to give up on this post, but for what it's worth, I shouldn't assume everyone who replies knows anything about my niche.

 

[bmugford]

Zurio, I apologize for the comments to your post. You came here for some advice and got irrelevant crap in return.

I can tell you from previous sales Coupon domains are always popular. You don't sell a popular category killer term like that in .COM based on a revenue multiplier that is so low. There is value in the domain itself outside of revenue.

It is one of the top coupon related domains, and when you factor in revenue it is worth more than $75,000 to your business.

Brad

 

[draggar]

If you have an appraisal for the domain, feel free to post it. If you have reasons for your appraisals, feel free to post those.

If you just want to argue over someone's appraisal and post comments that don't contribute, don't post them here.

If the site is making $1500 a month parked I think $75K is a little low. The site could easily make a lot more if it was developed properly

 

[shiffy]

Zurio, If this domain is directly related to your main business and this potential buyer is a competitor, have you thought about selling the domain + business as a package deal? If not, then I would definitely not sell the domain to a competitor unless you are in desperate need of cash.

 

[csitenet]

You have a very repectable offer, see if you can bump it upto 100k, then i suggest you sell. Honestly i can't see how this can be worth any more than 100k as is, if you had some SEO equity, it would be a diffrent matter.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

Heres the thing...

Looking at this simply as a domain name sale would = sale it at $75k

If you were to look at it as a business or revenue stream with some development it would then be based on a fair multiple which could range from 7 yrs-15 yrs+ and depending on whom is interested maybe much more as the end user will not base value on your current multiple but their desire to purchase.

In some cases the end user offer will outweigh the multiple so keep that in mind. If you loose that end user/buyer at $75k you have to have faith in yourself to make at least $7k+ a year to even have hopes of reselling it for similar funds down the road should you choose to and even than how you make your money will dictate the multiple +/- as adsence etc is NOT as strong a multiple as parking.

You only have one question to ask yourself, can you do more with the $75k NOW or with the stream of revenue.

 

[draggar]

That's a great domain especially with how popular coupon sites are but there are some questions that could be HUGE factors if you're looking for an appraisal based on traffic / revenue.

Do you have other domains pointed to this domain? If so, what % of the traffic goes to this domain? You can safely assume that the the same % of the revenue is coming from the pointed domains.

You also said that "recently" you parked it - how recent? 1 month? 6 months? People who want to buy it based on revenue will want to see at least 3 months revenue (usually 6-12 or even 24 months) to be able to make a good guess on how much to pay for the domain.

How much did the revenue drop from your main site when you stopped forwarding this domain to it? Would it be worth taking the revenue hit on that site when you sell this domain?

$75,000 for one sale is probabaly more thn what most "domainers" would see in a year though domain sales and it's not an offer anyone would take lightly. On the domain itself, I'd say go a little higher but if the revenue is consistent (averaging $1500 a month for 6-12 months) then I'd day a bit higher. 4.2 years worth of revenue is a little low for a domain like this.

You only have one question to ask yourself, can you do more with the $75k NOW or with the stream of revenue.

That's probabaly also the best question to ask about this one.

 

[picassoface]

Why not just sell the name sans the business and use one of your other great coupon names for your main money making business ?
I think the name alone is worth $150,000. You can use that to further build/promote your main site. Doesn't matter who the
competitor is as long as you can achieve Top spot on google. 150k can get alot of SEO done


(ps: thanks for the post, it inspired me to reg a similar coupon name. maybe it'll sell one day, but it'll be a fraction of what yours is).

 

[valeria]

Sell it. $50k would be good for this domain. $75k is really good. As probably some of your type-in visitors bookmarked it, thinking they bookmark your website.

150k searches is not much, considering it is low-mid CPC.

I'd sell if I were you.

 

[Dirty SEO]

Zurio, ask yourself one question... Are you more of a marketer or a domainer? Unless you NEED the money right now, go with your stronger skills.

 

[JB Lions]

I wouldn't sell it at that price, way too low. I have a coupon code site myself for the last 8+ years and know couponers that make more than that per month. Printable coupons are a little different animal than online coupon codes but that's a very nice domain, some big players like coupons.com, smartsource, etc with printable coupon sites.

 

[Theo]

After going through 5 pages of Google for "printable coupons" I gave up. Your domain isn't there. Sell.