If you have domain names listed for sale on any of the major platforms, you’ve probably received many lowball offers. Whether people are uneducated about the value of good domain names or they think they can get a great price by playing the “poor” card, it seems that there are always going to be ridiculously low and uneducated offers.
I was browsing through some domain names at Sedo, and I came across the sale listing for DAR.com, which is obviously a high value domain name. While contemplating whether or not to submit an offer, I saw the seller’s description and wanted to share it with you because I think it is great.
“We receive numerous very low offers on some of our domains. Please do yourself and the domain community a favor and educate yourself on the value of short domains before wasting our time. If you’re a ‘small business owner’ – ‘poor student’ or the ‘very poor startup company’ do not even think about contacting us.”
I am not sure if that description / disclaimer is working, because according to Sedo’s domain statistics, DAR.com has previously received 229 offers. This figure does include negotiations, so if someone made 5 offers in a negotiation, that would be counted. It likely counts the number of offers received prior to putting up that message.
One way to prevent these lowball offers (aside from a great disclaimer provided by the seller) is to set a minimum offer price. It does not appear that the owner has done that, so every $60+ offer that is submitted goes through.
In any case, I thought the disclaimer was funny and wanted to share it with you.
Elliot, You are as always right. The seller must set a minimum offer price if he want to discourage lowball offers.
By not setting it right, he is wasting his own time too.
@Irfan, the seller is somewhat appropriate here. Due to low ball offers and 3 character .com domain sales around he ought to set a comment rather than minimum offer.
I have an eye on the sale of dar.com
Allowing $60 offers encourages $60 offers. Kinda the reverse of how “or best offer” immediately negates the asking price.
People who cry about lowball offers yet don’t bother to set a price floor are stupid. Even $1000 or $2000 minimum eliminates 99% of the time wasters. Getting an offer of 1K may not be in the ballpark but at least it tells you’re dealing with someone somewhat serious, somewhat capitalized.
We all know the ‘loser price’ is $500. Always. Doesn’t matter what domain name, John Q Tard is prepared to pay upwards of $500. By setting your minimum price at a grand or two, you cull them, which means that any offers that come in are at least more likely to be from someone who lives in the 1st world.
Elliot,
Buydomains.com gets my vote for listing asking price for their domains.We need to stop asking potential buyers for offers on domain names they want to sell.Buyers should just respond “SORRY I DON’T MAKE BLIND OFFERS.(NBO)
anon “People who cry about lowball offers yet don’t bother to set a price floor are stupid. Even $1000 or $2000 minimum eliminates 99% of the time wasters. Getting an offer of 1K may not be in the ballpark but at least it tells you’re dealing with someone somewhat serious, somewhat capitalized.”
I have a $2500 price floor at DomainNameSales.com. Guess what happens 99% of the time. They walk an offer up to that price and then stop there. Some even get mad when we say that is our minimum acceptable offer, thinking that they’ve finally found our price. I’ve had very few offers come in above a floor or negotiate any much higher from there.
I have sold many names that aren’t on DNS (or any marketplace with a price) for far above that 2500 floor I would have put on them. IF I had put a minimum price would I have gotten them that high. . . who knows. I know I have received higher offers and negotiated up deals on domains that I would have sticker-priced in bulk at much lower.
You also have to deal with people who submit an offer of your floor price and tell you they won’t pay you that much but couldn’t submit their lower offer.
What if you dont know what to put as a minimum price? For example, i have the domain cloudcomputing.tw listed on Sedo. To me personally it is a fantastic domain for taiwan because taiwan wants to become a major player in the space. I feel that in time this could become a valuable domain name. I want to sell it at a “nice” price to an end user but i haven’t got a clue as to want to set the minimum offer at on sedo. I dont want to scare any potential buyers away by setting it too low but i dont want to short change myself either. Any suggestions on what i can sell this for to an end user? I have both domains cloudcomputing.tw and cloudcomputing.co Thanks for any advice!
Amiable comment. DAR.com owner looks like wanted to force for a nice sale and he may have got lower ball offers previously, pretty damn sure.
Woop i meant to say, “by setting it too high”.
Nice.
I also like the one here:
dogsalon.com
Don
I like it, too, but based on my experience in the pet vertical, I think it’s unlikely that a business owner will spend a significant amount of money on that domain name. I’ve had an especially difficult time getting advertisers in the grooming space. That’s a big reason for why I was the underbidder in that auction.