OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
I don’t know about other domain name investors but it seems that I have stopped getting receiving decent offers that don’t lead to a sale.
I mean, I am still getting offers but there only 2 types. Those that lead to a sale and those that are absolutely ridiculous, laughable or plain insulting.
I can only remember one $5,000 offer on a .org that I thought of taking but ultimately refused and have a firm price at $8,000.
Buyers either make serious offers that after negotiations lead to a sale or I am just getting “take it or leave it” $10 offers on average domains or $200 offers on one-word .com domains that $150k to me.
Of course there are some domain inquiries from people that are too nice that are afraid to make a $3,000 offer when I have send them a $6k offer. And these offers can easily lead to a $4,500 sale. But I have to persuade them that I will not be insulted by this offer.
Generally people are sort of afraid to negotiate and are either too polite or plain rude.
Update: I wrote this post a couple of days ago and today the 31st of December I got an offer from a buyer that had inquired in October. He offered me $5,000 that is away from my $35,000 asking price but it is still a decent offer.
Maybe you need to reconsider your asking prices..
Hmmm, not really. If you want to buy a 1-word .com from 1997 for $1000 then you are out of luck.
And I don’t consider anything below $500 an offer.
A friend of mine was interested in opening a small restaurant. She inquired about the rent for a small space in an area with good pedestrian traffic but also ample competition from existing restaurants who likely have somewhat loyal customers. I don’t know how negotiable the price was or if it really represents what other local restaurants are paying but she was quoted US$15k MONTHLY. That means after paying for food plus payroll plus some marketing and spoilage you would need to clear $500/day (not revenue but margin) just to pay the rent. And yet domain inquirers insist anything above low $XXX is extorsion.
To someone that doesn’t know restaurants (or doesn’t know anything about running a business and the related expenses) even a $5,000 rent would seem like an extortion.
But I am sure that $5,000 at the street you are referring is very cheap.
People who own restaurant space always quote ridiculous prices since they hope to catch a person ready to pay outrageous rent and if they own other restaurant spaces nearby they hope to raise the prices for existing restaurants since comps have risen thanks to the people saying yes to the ask.
50%-75% of the asking price is usually the rental level from the ask price unless it is really high traffic location and other existing restaurants are creating a feeder system:
“Hey, let’s try that new restaurant next time”
Ha! Yea. Go back to sleep.
Although I don’t actively push my domains (pay what I want or I don’t care), I have noticed a new trend happening that you’re right about; the under a $1000 offers. Seem like buyers are playing hard ball. I get emails like these “$300 is my final offer or i am going to use the new domains version. Thanks for you time” I said to the buyer that I won’t accept anything less than 50k and then he ups this offer to 10k cash and 20k in consultancy services as if I asked for any. He really played me during the negotiations but I ignored all the good buyer bad buyer him and his cofounder played on me.
Googled around and I notice they launched their startup on a .it
I din’t any time or money on it as I did all the talking while walking down San Pedro beach in Belize. I think they are taking their time hoping that gTLD’s might offer them the best alternatives.
So tell them to use “the new domains version” and you’ll capitalize on the world going to the dot com. 🙂
I am getting low $XXX offers as well and yet they seem to be unwilling to up their offer price. There are plenty of new TLDs available now so feel free to register your .whatever domain.
Best auction site for .info in your opinion? Thank you and Happy New Year to all.
Flippa has been the place to auction .info domains in the past year.
But that I haven’t used them yet.
At least some of you all offers are in the $XXX to $XXXX ranges. We do get many offers that are in the $XX range when they already know the price roughly. Loads of them are either trying to lowball or simply have no idea how much a domain is worth. I think mostly are the earlier
I am getting and I am selling but all the $xxx offers are being rude as well.
They seem to think they are making me a favor paying me $100 for a domain making $150 per year.
So it makes no difference whether GoDaddy discloses auction results or not – as a means of educating domain buyers and the general public 😉
Καλή χρονιά!
Go Daddy is playing the shill bidder’s game.
ΚΑΛΗ ΧΡΟΝΙΑΑΑ!!!!
I hear you, but the best new gtlds are either registry reserved, have xxx or xxxx annual renewal fees, or have owners who also want an xxxx or xx,xxx price. There are plenty of crappy domains out there but you get what you pay for. Good domains, whether legacy extensions or new gtlds, will still command top dollar.
When the equivalent of my domain in a New gTLD has a xxx or xxxx annual renewal fee, I don’t buy it of course.
I just raise the .com value. My price is still cheaper over a 10 year period.
“… or i am going to use the new domains version.”
Go ahead and use it, so I will get all your traffic with my .com 😀
I can understand people who don’t understand how much a domain is worth, that’s a question of education, but some lowballers, especially corporate guys, are really pathetic with their tactics … they won’t get anything that way … lol
BTW, Kosta.net was on GD auctions closing today 🙂
Happy New Year!!!
Hmmm, it is not that good. Kostas is the proper name.
We only say Kosta when calling someone. It is a bit complicated but I would never consider using such a domain name.
And I have stopped scanning the Go Daddy auctions since they removed final auction prices.
So I don’t use them at all together with Namejet and Snapnames…
lol
That is what I said to the last “buyer that said that to me.
I own the .com since 1999. He told me that he doesn’t care about my domain and that he got the same domain in .biz for $30.
He is clueless because even the .biz is registered since 2005 by an end-user and he certainly didn’t buy it from them.
I thought I pissed away a deal that could have have something come of it but i am glad I told him to go use the .it and then he added me to his linkedin about 3 weeks after I ignored him. Yeah education is the best way but my mindset is that “if I own something, the prospective High-Valuing owner has to step it up to get my attention. So I paid $50 and renewed for 5 years…why would I care about a corporate schmuck who thinks i am cyber squatting or stealing from him anyway.
May I say, as the newly arrived to the market, that there are too many factors, first is the lack of transparency.
All of you are pretty aware of that awful issue, a few distorting the market and taking advantage of others. Frankly, they commit white collar crimes, into a practically unregulated market.
Secondly, too many people working inside big companies or as brokers, that have no respect for themselves, the work they do nor the clients as their source of income.
Third, lack of good common front.
Perhaps, if every one that buys a domain has to pay 5 cents to improve and clean the market. Also, to tell clients about the domain industry.
Self respect and respect for the all domain market, brokers, sellers and buyers.
Let us take as example, diamonds market.
They do not fight in front of the clients nor disqualify the goods of other traders.
As all the markets have issues from time to time.
Nevertheless they manage to keep prices up, good incomes and mostly self respect for their industry.
Perhaps, open us to new alternatives, like renting, % incomer renting. In such a case, there is no good companies like Escrow for renting overseas now.
You are right.
Especially on the “lack of good common front”.
Unity is strength!
Regarding this, I just realized that you share our websites. Thank you, for that.
It is a very remarkable example.
Verobrain – Great comment!!!!!! ..
Thank you Aaron!
So many corporate buyers are making a fool of themselves in negotiations and have absolutely no clue that I scratch my head thinking WTF.
I try to educate but some people just can’t be reached because they think they are so smart and many “bloggers” outside of domain space give clueless advice about domain buying and domains in general.
When I get frustrated about them having absolutely no clue I always remind myself that because of their cluelessness I can still buy domains worth 1000 dollars for 100 dollars and domains worth 10,000 dollars for 1000 dollars.
For every clueless corporate type who should be fired on the spot by their boss there is always the corporate guy from a different company who gets things and buys the premium domain for 3k-10k and brings more business for their boss and gets a raise and promotion for their “vision” that I patiently educated him/her about.
small business people are finally starting to wise up. even the new gtld’s are overpriced. just use the 12# ipv4 of your server and you won’t even need a domain. oh sure… it might take several hundred million dollars to teach them the mental tricks to remember this number but after that it’s all gravy. seriously… it just amazes me that nobody wants to spend a few thousand dollars to instantly establish a worldwide brand that any human on earth can access immediately from their own home. jmo… others opinions may differ.
You’re not alone in experiencing this, Konstaninos. I decided to count the offers I’ve received below $20 during 2014:
10 offers at $1
3 offers at $2
1 offers at $3
2 offers at $4
8 offers at $5
18 offers at $10
1 offers at $14
3 offers at $15
3 offers at $17
These were all unsolicited offers where someone approached me out of the blue. I’ve excluded cases where they ended up going higher.
In at least half of these cases, I’ve had conversations with the people. Some were uninformed about the domain market. Some were time-wasting domainers. Some ended up calling me a cybersquatter, saying that I should be “ashamed of myself” – even when I hadn’t even mentioned an asking price but had only provided a link to DNJournal! That last one was Monday.
This morning I had 2 inquiries. One person mistook me for a Korean interpreter, owing to the domain. The other person offered $20 then $50. I haven’t even begun to count the offers in that range!
Getting anything like a reasonable offer these days is like pulling teeth. Maybe 1 inquiry out of 50 starts out by making a serious effort.
If these were through a form on the domain you might want to consider setting a portfolio wide minimum bid of 200-500 dollars.
Then these ridiculous offers will come less often but some people will still input the minimum bid but write in the comments that their final offer is 25 dollars.
(for a domain which earns 30 dollars through parking every year 🙂
Way to go Jay. I hear that. I used to list my domains with a price in mind lets say 6k and have a best offer button and run a plugin that will not accept to submit a form under 30 percent of asking. Then I realized that most times clients where expecting to pay a little more so I removed the price all together and asked for a best offer but with the plugin still sorting and rejecting offers on the fly.
Are you sure you’re not being trolled by some punk who knows you and is trying to piss on you?
Good hunch. I get trolled all the time by disgruntled domainers. But those guys are easy to smell.
These were real inquiries. They came through a variety of channels, for a variety of domains, spread out over 2014, and differed quite a bit in terms of style … even language.
Hopeless, yes. Rude, frequently. But sincere … sincerely hopeless. I’ve had enough conversations with the people to feel sure of that.
The volume of offers below $20 is a smaller than the volume between, say, $20 and $100. There’s a sort of skewed bell curve distribution. And the approach (apart from the numbers) is pretty much the same until you start looking at people who open in the mid hundreds or above $1k.
I’ve debated for a long time about excluding low initial offers with forms. Every time I think I’ll be more rigid, I end up converting some $10 initial offer into a mid 4-figure sale by educating the person. So it’s a tough call. Ridiculously low offers are a definite down side to being friendly / tolerant!
I have discovered that the more content i publish, the less offers I receive. I think its because people self eliminate and assume that it is not available whereas a blank or parked page they think is for sale.
Can anyone else confirm or deny this observation?
Buyers contact less for domains which are developed so it is a good idea to offer the website for sale on the website itself if you want to sell.
If you want to hold out for big bucks and the domain is really-really-really nice then having the website on the domain will usually make the potential serious buyer offer more for the domain if they really-really want it.
As a bonus a developed website completely eliminates the 25 dollar final offers from clueless buyers that I received again today.
I got an offer for OnlineDomain.com but didn’t sell. 🙂