Online Workout Routines is still mine. Here's how it went down:
I received an email from Flippa that they were running a 50% off deal for 24 hours. After having just set up my main site, I didn't really have time to set up another website but I wanted to get some quick traffic rolling to it so I went with one of those Gonna-Do-Something-With-This-Some-Day domains that I have in my portfolio which, in this case, is OnlineWorkoutRoutines.com. Granted it's a bit long for a domain name but it's in a huge niche with an obvious video tie-in and is a dot com so I figured what the heck - give it a go. My listing copy was miserable. If I'd had time, I would have taken some time to flesh this out but I was already running late so it just sucked.
I set the Reserve at $65. It's seems a little high but check it out - Flippa gets a minimum $10.00 success fee and $14.00 for this half-price listing with NO upgrades. Add that I would have to pay another $10.00 for the transfer and already paid $10.xx for the registering and then one renewal... I'm already staring at $55.00 just to break even. I wasn't looking to break even but I didn't know what to expect so I didn't want to lose too much the first time out. This is why domain flippers tell you to never hold a domain longer than a year.
With no upgrades, only three people were watching the listing. As usual with these nickel-and-dime listings, no one made a move until the last hour when I had one potential buyer put in a bid at $6.00. If my site was established and I was showing a profit, I probably would have tried bargaining with them, but I can redirect the domain back to my web host again (I had to reset my name servers to Name.com because my Flippa email and my Whois email are different), set it up as a mini site and eventually get my asking price without Flippa.
All in all, it was an interesting experience. The only thing I would do differently is to make sure I create the listing in the morning instead of the evening. With auctions, if someone puts in a bid in the last hour, the auction is automatically extended an hour so everyone who's watching has a chance to put in a counter bid. This is done to avoid sniping and will definitely cost you sleep if you find yourself owning a hot commodity and listed it later in the day.
