Don’t Vastly Overprice a Wholesale Name

Someone from the industry reached out to me early this year offering to sell a domain name to me for more than $100,000. I passed on the opportunity because I thought it was vastly overpriced. I didn’t counteroffer either because the amount I would pay was far lower than the asking price.

Months later, I saw the domain name sold for very low 5 figures. I can’t turn back the clock, but had the asking price been around $25k, I probably would have countered at or above the eventual sale price. Perhaps a negotiation would have made it even higher.

The fact that the initial asking price was far too high made this deal impossible. I am not going to waste someone’s time or bruise their ego with a lowball offer when they reach out to me unsolicited trying to secure a wholesale deal.

If you’re pitching a domain name to an investor, the price needs to be a good wholesale deal so the investor can make money on an eventual resale. By pitching a wholesale deal to an investor, you are forgoing a strong sale price in favor of liquidity. If a domain name is worth $100k retail, most investors would be looking to spend $10k +/- depending on the quality of the domain name and chances of selling it.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

3 COMMENTS

  1. You got to start at $100K+ with certain domains

    I currently have two deals where the prospective buyers have come up from $5K to $10K to $25K via afternic brokers, I have another direct with me. I still put a $100K+ value on it.
    As far as deals involving brokers, remember they are not just order takers and generally have the experience to feel out the prospective buyers. And if they are maxed out at $25K – as in my case, its time to walk.

    That said once an offer gets to $50K+, you got to start thinking about it, and reinvesting the proceeds.

    No doubt – certainly I wish I could say I currently have a dozen deals like that going on – but three – well I will take that.

    • I am strictly talking about investor to investor wholesale deals. It sounds like you are talking about retail deals with end user buyers. In that case, go for a home run if you can.

  2. A few domain investors will pay greater than “wholesale” if they believe it’s a super domain
    I’m thinking Dharmesh and Andy Booth
    I’m sure there are others.
    I try to buy as low as possible, of course, and I lose out on acquiring some great domains
    But even great domains can take many years to sell at “market” price
    Some recent domain sales indicate it took almost 20-25 years to get the “asking prices

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