Late last week I purchased the Phpbay Pro eBay affiliate plugin for Wordpress and have been playing around with it the past several days. I built 3 sites and also installed the plugin on DotWeekly to play around with it here as well, so I wanted to share a little review about it. Phpbay offers more than just a Wordpress plugin btw, they offer API options and PhpZon which is an Amazon affiliate.

So what is PhpBay Pro? It is a plugin that allows you to display products listed on eBay on a web site you create to help you make money with your site. The plugin works through the EPN or eBay Partner Network affiliate program. You will need an EPN account if you use the plugin, and it is free to sign up.

Cost? I paid $79 for Phpbay Pro for Wordpress.

Install? Installing Phpbay Pro via Wordpress is likely "harder" than most plugins you may have installed if you used WP before but is manageable

I just purchased an advance copy of XHeaderPro (being released tomorrow) and thought I would take a few minutes to highlight some of its features.  The program is made by the same company which makes XSitePro, a turn key web site building program which sells for $297.

XheaderPro ($47) is a much simpler program which does one thing and does it well - it lets graphically challenged users (like me) create professional looking headers in just a few minutes.   It’s basically a turn key web site header designer which works as follows…

Just opened an account with SmartName last week and have been experimenting with their SmartShops offering.   It’s too soon to see revenue or search engine rankings, but so far I’m impressed with the quality of the storefronts it creates.

SmartShops looks to be particularly suited for exact match product domains (both .com and alternative extensions). The main benefit of SmartShops is that it automatically creates good looking ecommerce minisites that look more like ‘real’ sites than traditional parking or Adsense filled mini site pages.    Here is an  example of a site I created today in less than five minutes…

Shared by JohnH
An education in the comments as well.

At first, I was a bit hesitant to post this because I keep just about all of my sales and sales prices private. However, I don’t mind revealing some of my recent sales, albeit without sales prices.

• Danvers.com
• GolfBooks.com
• BoroughPark.com
• ParkSlope.com
• GunCollection.com
• RittenhouseSquare.com
• UniqueInk.com
• iCookbook.com
• DeepWrinkleTreatments.com
• ChristmasLawnOrnaments.com

If you’d like to post some of your recent sales with or without sales prices, feel free to do so. It’s an interesting look at what the aftermarket is doing.

Related posts:

1. What Domains Have You Bought Recently? It’s always fun to share new acquisitions and new registrations....
2. Where and How Are You Selling Your Domain Names? After posting yesterday’s article discussing what names have sold recently,...

Aaron Patzer, who founded personal-finance site Mint.com and sold it to Intuit for $170 million last year, might tell them that the company name might be the first place to make changes.

"Choose something with meaning, even if it's expensive and difficult to acquire, rather based on domain name availability, because otherwise, you're going to kill word-of-mouth," he told CNET on Monday, a day before his scheduled keynote at the FOWA conference, called "How to Take Your Start-Up to the Next Level." He said this was particularly crucial for Mint, a product that isn't a social site and therefore can't plan to rely on viral spread.

I made the mistake of going to valuate for personal justification (I know, I know don’t do that) and saw the $5300 value and started thinking too much.   I started thinking that my gut feeling that this was a 25K domain was wrong.  What did I know.  I’m just a guy that buys and sells thousand dollar domains.  Maybe I don’t know the difference between a $5000 and a $25000 domain.  I bid it up a few more hundred and dropped.  Two minutes after the auction I was already kicking myself.  I felt I should have taken it to 10K.  Who knows, the winner had a proxy bid that always seemed to kick in so maybe he had a 25K proxy and I never would have gotten it.  I was only mad because I didn’t try.  A few weeks later was started out as shoulda turned into a mental “I told you so”

Three weeks later I saw the domain up for sale at the DomainFest auction and with a 25-50K reserve.  My initial thought what great timing.  A huge auction right after a pickup is a fantastic way to flip a strong name.  That being said, many of the good names were being passed lately in the live auctions.  TRAFFIC had a ton but DomainFest seemed to be a little more active.  Low and behold, FederalAid sold for 40K.  A nice $31,200 profit in 23 days.  Well played sir, well played.

I was chatting with a friend today who let me know about a Sedo policy I find disappointing. Sedo charges an additional 2.5% to their sales commission to keep a sale private. I thought this was funky, but it was confirmed by a Sedo employee. I know it’s only 2.5% more from your gross sale, but it seems like highway robbery to me. I hope Sedo reconsiders this additional fee, and I encourage people to simply avoid the fee by asking Ron not to post the sale.

Whenever you buy a domain name from any domain venue, you should proactively request privacy before finalizing your transaction. If the company won’t honor your request (or charges you to keep it private), you should consider your other options.

Here lies the fun and games.  I feel that Sedo auctions represent the closest thing to the true value of a domain. Sure, there are good and bad deals that pass through but in general, it’s worth what it sells for on Sedo. When you get an offer at Sedo you can negotiate.  At any point you receive an offer from the other party you can send it to auction.  If you counter offer and they don’t respond or cancel the negotiation, you cannot send it to auction.  Once they have made an offer you can either counter, take the offer, or send it to auction with the guaranteed sale to the original bidder  if the domain doesn’t receive a higher bid.  This sounds like a no brainer if the offer is high enough.  You would think you have nothing to lose….except that 50% of the time if you send it to auction and get no bids, the original offer never pays….ie backs out.

This where the art of the Sedo negotiation comes in.  

Shared by JohnH
One domain owner's leasing terms. HatTip to ProductDomains.com

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