They Don’t Always Come Back

A couple of weeks ago, I received a $4,000 offer on a domain name I acquired in auction for $69 in October of 2020. The domain name was priced at just shy of $20,000, and I have not received any other offers or inquiries for it in the last year +. I offered to reduce the price a bit and the prospective buyer came back with a best and final offer of $5,000 as he had an alternative option as a backup. I made one more counter offer and the buyer stood at $5k.

This is the kind of domain name I consider to be replaceable inventory. I typically buy several of these domain names each week, and there is nothing I would consider inherently special about this domain name. A decent $5,000 offer coupled with the fact that I did not receive any other interest in the last year led me to reconsider the offer and decide I would take it.

The buyer did not respond to the offer I gave him. A couple of follow-up messages yielded no reply either. Presumably, the buyer moved on and ended up purchasing his alternative domain name.

Fortunately, I think, the value of the deal was on the lower end of the scale. Thankfully, losing a $5k offer won’t impact business one way or the other. I might not be saying the same thing if I turned down a $200k offer or even a $50k offer on an average domain name. I’ve lost more deals that I thought I had in the bag than I care to count.

For my business to thrive, I have to turn down decent and good offers in order to try and convert them into great offers. This is easy enough on domain names that are hard to replace, but it can be more gut wrenching on the average names where I try to maximize a deal. When things are humming, it’s easy to move on from a lost deal. When times are slower, a lost deal can be a bummer.

I’ve always thought that someone who makes a realistic to strong offer on a domain name will stay at the proverbial bargaining table until a deal is reached or until all the negotiation is completely exhausted. After many failed negotiations, I’ve learned that isn’t always the case.

It’s easy to tell someone else to turn down a big offer to try and convert it to a life changing deal. For my own business to thrive, I need to be willing to take less than ideal deals and use the money to fund other purchases. The challenge, for me, is understanding what deals to accept and when to hold the line.

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

8 COMMENTS

  1. Good experience and thanks for sharing Elliot. You never know if a prospective buyer is trying to get the lowest price possible, or if they are being honest and telling the truth about their highest offer, and the fact that they have another name in mind. Since you can never tell, the only thing that matters is what you are willing to accept for that specific name on that specific day. Just about every name I’ve sold started at a lower price offer, but eventually came up to either a compromise or acceptable price.

  2. They always stand firm and tell you so.I also stand firm and tell them no.
    Did you research to see if name is registered in another extension?
    I call buyers bluff and wish them good luck,afterall you don’t depend on only one name in your inventory .I have turned down $7k and ended up in an $18k sale .

    If it’s a random name,research and don’t be surprised if its registered in another extension. I don’t buy names to depend on only one sale.I expect each name to draw its own end-users and at a price point .

    If they want this name and depending on the niche,give them time,it is not over .They would improve on their offer and just tell them only 5 figures is accepted.

  3. El,
    I remember a few years back you advised me to take the $2,000 dot org offer…
    But I felt it was more… $4,000.
    Well, I still own it and no offers since then…

      • Then again, preying upon people in their 20’s isn’t good either. You want to hit them hard between the ages of 31 and 43, that way they are old enough to learn from it and young enough to recover from it.

  4. yep, the life of a domainer.
    this has happened to me many times.
    I also have been hurt by dropping domains, ie, not renewing
    I don’t have F You money like those domain investors who have created “generational wealth”, so I don’t set auto-renew for my approx 4500 domains, as I have expenses related to my software company, etc
    So when a negotiation stops or a failed to renew domain sells for 7500 usd like one last month, I just move on…life on this little blue planet is too brief

    it seems to all even out

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