Domain Sales

If you’ve been in the domain industry long enough, you’ve probably had someone back out of a deal. Whether it’s a buyer rescinding an offer or a seller deciding not to sell you a domain name, it’s frustrating when a deal you’ve consummated doesn’t come to fruition.

Based on some personal experience, I want to share some advice regarding closing deals, specifically when you shouldn’t close a deal.

One of the worst (if not the worst) time to close a deal is on a Friday afternoon or evening. After a long week, some people aren’t thinking clearly and the decisions they make during that time are ones they come to regret. Since payment can’t be made until the following Monday, they have over 48 hours to contemplate backing out. With this extra time, there’s added risk they will re-evaluate the deal over the weekend and back out.

Another bad time, although it’s less  controllable, is after business hours. When someone sleeps on a potential deal, they may reconsider the deal and cancel the transaction in the morning.

If I am thinking about an offer or mulling over a purchase, I always try to make the decision in the middle of the day and usually in the middle of the week, too. The buyer can initiate a wire transfer that day, and if I am buying, I can set up a wire before the close of business. If Escrow.com acknowledges my payment (or the buyer’s payment) before the end of the day, the deal can be done ASAP.

When closing transactions, I almost always use a sales agreement an attorney crafted for me. If the buyer or seller has agreed to a deal and it’s in writing, I have the option to litigate if the counter party backs of the deal. If I can help it though, I try to get my deals completed as soon as possible.

Yesterday morning, I wrote about purging domain investor contact emails  from sales lists since they rarely end successfully, and they tend to annoy the people who receive them. I want to share a suggestion for LeadRefs, Estibot, and any other services that suggest email contacts for domain sales.

In addition to including domain names and contact email addresses on results pages, these lead generation providers should also include DNS information as well. I think this will help people find domain investors and scrub them from their lists to avoid annoying them and/or being accused of spamming.

Many domain investors own portfolios of domain names, making it easier to scrub the list when you see multiple domain names owned by a single entity, especially when the entity is familiar (Name Administration or Most Wanted Domains as examples).

However, there are many domain investors whose portfolios are not as prolific, and whose email addresses are more difficult to spot. If you can see a domain name is parked at Sedo, TrafficZ, DomainApps, Internet Traffic, Voodoo, Bodis…etc., it’s a good bet that the owner is a domain investor and likely should be avoided when trying to sell domain names to end users.

Knowing where a domain name resolves can help domain sellers remove domain investors from their email lists.

Most people who send end user domain sales emails use Whois information to contact potential buyers. People use services like LeadRefs and Estibot to “harvest” email addresses of potential buyers, and while both of these services are valuable, without purging some of the email addresses, you run the risk of annoyance.

Although most people have sold obscure domain names for high prices when people have inquired, it’s rare that you’ll be able to sell an obscure domain name to a domain investor unless there are extenuating circumstances. Unless a domain investor has a great interest in a particular topic, it’s unlikely that he’ll be interested in a very specific domain name (like ReconstructiveOrthopaedics.com for example).

I’ve personally found that most domain investors these days are generally only buying great domain names on the aftermarket. From this experience, I generally shy away from sending emails to other domain investors on names that are for niche verticals and would only excite people who are in that line of business.

One thing you should do if you are selling domain names using Whois email contacts is to learn the Whois information of domain investors (like Mike Berkens and Frank Schilling), privacy services (like Go Daddy’s Domains By Proxy), hosting companies (like BlueHost), and large domain investment companies (like Huge Domains and Buy Domains).

I don’t usually mind receiving emails offering very good domain names for sale, but there are some people who constantly send me crap, and I don’t even read their emails anymore.  If someone marks you down as a spammer, they will likely ignore all of your emails.

With tough economic times and domain investors rarely buying average names on the aftermarket, I would become familiar with their Whois information and purge their email addresses from your sales lists.

To be successful with domain investments, I believe being a good negotiator is essential. You don’t need to be slick or anything like that, but you need to be able to convince someone a domain name is worth your asking price specifically to a potential buyer. There are many people who aren’t good negotiators, but they can still be successful at selling domain names.

I’ve noticed that many people have a “this domain name may be for sale” message on their landing pages, and there’s generally a link to a contact form. I would guess that most people have the form set to email them, although parking companies generally allow clients to set a specific url for inquiries.

If you aren’t a great negotiator, if you don’t like negotiating, or if you can’t stand conversations with people who may be uneducated about domain names, I recommend changing the url on the sales form and having it go to a broker’s website or sales listing to open negotiations. You can also forward contact form emails to a broker if you want to manage the process to be sure nothing slips through the cracks.

Working directly with a broker will allow him or her to negotiate on your behalf. You can also bounce pricing off of the broker, which is beneficial if he or she is an expert at doman valuation. Some brokers and brokerages may even give you a better rate on commission since you brought them a potential buyer as opposed to their platform generating the lead.

I’m not very good at some things like coding and programming, so when I need something fixed, I ask an expert. If you aren’t great at negotiating or you just don’t like the negotiation aspect of domain sales, I recommend reaching out to a broker who will likely produce better results than you, and the cost is minimal.