It seems like there is at least some sort of interest so keep hacking away.
Couple of suggestions for future improvements:
- Put the recently listed domains right on the main page (maybe below the blue instruction box)
- Instead of allowing users to contact the domain name owners via e-mail, make them flag the domains they are interested in and expressing that interest to the domain owner through the site itself. The owner then gets a notice about a user who wants to trade, and is given the ability to see which domains the other party has for trade. Then they can go through the same process of flagging a domain they might be interested in trading, or cancelling the trade if they don't see anything of interest to them. That could be the start of a basic bartering engine.
Great start though!
I envisioned a mobile app with some kind of a simple barter system. I'd love to be part of a project working on it and can share some ideas I had sketched out.
1) Users pay to list their domains.
Pro: Guaranteed revenue from every user
Con: Low motivation for user to pay up as there's no guarantee for reward
2) List up to 20 domains for free anything over that falls into a tiered annual payment plan Pro: same as 1 but better because of larger free user base who might be more likely to convert to a paying user
Con: Could a user just keep rotating hundreds of domains through their free account? (imposing a limit on how many times a user can list and de-list domains would prevent this)
3) Users pay a flat fee only when a successful trade is made Pro: more motivation for users to pay up as the reward is imminent. Also both users can split the fee making it more affordable for each of them
Con: Revenue is conditional on successful trades. Could the users use the service to simply list their domains then use outside channels to complete the actual trade/transaction?
4) User pays a fee when they want to take a domain they received through trading off of the trading block. This would require the site to actually assume ownership of all domains being traded then hold them hostage for a small fee when a trader wants to take possession of them (or else they are still up for trade/in limbo)5) Maybe the site handles trades as well as cash purchases. Trades are free.. purchases incur a 2% fee.
6) Ads for other internet services. Perhaps the domains could be contextually paired with the ads so that if a user is searching for mma-website.com he/she sees ads for mma training equipment and facilities.
You can actually sell it as a value-add and, from what I understand from professional domain squatters / traders, there's a surprisingly decent amount of money in it. The amount of link juice you could give the main domain probably also isn't insignificant...
Somebody go develop it now.