Depending on your background and experience, negotiating can either be a great part of the job of a domain investor or it can be one of the worst aspects. I think it is expected that negotiating with a buyer or a seller is one of the most necessary aspects of domain investing. People have different negotiation strategies, and there are many factors that go into choosing the right strategy.
As a domain investor, I am accustomed to hear a prospective buyer tell me “the price is too high.” While they may actually be right about that, more often than not, I think they are stating that as a fact when it is more a matter of their opinion. Alternatively, they may have set a maximum budget in their head, and the asking price is beyond that.
I want to share a response that could be effective when dealing with someone who tells me the price of my domain name is too high: I simply ask them to share some examples of public domain name sales and prices that they believe are comparable to mine to prove that the price is too high.
I just started to do some research on my flight and hotel for NamesCon in Austin. After a date change was announced, NamesCon Global 2020 will be held from January 29-February 1, 2020. Conference organizers also announced a special conference discount is available for the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown (not to be confused with the similarly named Omni Austin Hotel at Southpark):
I don’t check my corporate mailbox regularly because I don’t receive a lot of important physical mail. Just about everything I need comes to me via email. I visit my mailbox every once in a while so it isn’t overflowing to the point they have to package it up and ask me to wait in line to retrieve it.
On my last trip to the post office, I had a Priority Mail envelope waiting for me in the box. I opened the envelope and it had a letter from someone offering to sell me a domain name. The letter was pretty much a full page, and it had information about the domain name. The owner wanted nearly six figures for this domain name. To be frank, it is a domain name I would not even hand register, so I would never buy it nor could I recommend that someone else buy it. This is not the first time I have received a letter like this before.
When negotiating to buy a domain name, I have sometimes made a “best and final offer.” This offer is typically the most I am willing to pay for a domain name at the time, and the idea is to induce a sale because the domain registrant believes he will lose a deal if the final offer is not accepted. I don’t think this is necessarily the best approach for me.
When negotiating a deal to buy or sell a domain name, I think it is important to set deadlines with the other party to ensure the deal is done in a timely manner. I typically set deadlines on offers, on payment date, and on the domain name transfer. This is important for me because I don’t like leaving things in limbo for an extended period of time.
