I have had the majority of my portfolio listed for sale via DAN.com around six months. During this time, I have done some testing of the different types of landing pages offered by DAN, which includes the longer term payment plan offering, the BIN page, and the BIN page with a Make Offer option.
Initially, I was not crazy about BIN + Make Offer landing page. My feeling has been that someone who sees the buy it now price with a make offer field will choose to make an offer. After all, the prospect can usually just buy it for the asking price if the seller rejects the offer – or possibly get a better price. With that said, I have sold several names for the BIN price without an offering being submitted, so it doesn’t always lead to an offer.
A point of frustration, though, is when a buyer believes their offer will be given full consideration only to learn that the seller is inflexible on the price. Afterall, most people expect to be able to negotiate when they see the buyer is willing to consider offers.
Case in point, I read a one star review of DAN which focuses on this very topic:
“Buyers Beware! Literally no negotiation!
Literally no negotiation from ‘Tycoon’.
Dan.com shouldn’t have sellers on their site that aren’t willing to negotiate the top price for a domain name. What’s the point in a “Make Offer” button?
Will be going elsewhere for a different name.”
I assume this person saw a Make Offer field on a landing page, submitted an offer, and the offer was rejected with the seller reaffirming the BIN price. The prospect left a bad review for the platform because the third party seller, who is under no obligation to consider an offer, rejected the offer and stuck by the BIN price.
In my opinion, this review is undeserved. It is not DAN’s fault a third party seller did not negotiate on a sale price when they had a Make Offer field listed. I suppose that’s what you get when you operate online though.
With that said, and based on my own limited experience, I think sellers are better off adjusting the minimum offer to a real minimum offer that would be considered a conversation starter. I tend to make my minimum offers at least 50% of the full buy it now price. While most of these minimum offer amounts will not get a deal done, it at least offers some level of qualification. Situationally, I may even consider selling for that minimum offer, but it depends on the name and the timing of the offer.
If the BIN price is $5,000 and that is really the lowest acceptable price, I think sellers should set the minimum offer at $5,000. When that is the case at DAN, the “Make Offer” field is not shown. Other platforms may either work similarly or let sellers choose whether or not to show a make offer field.
Because of the concerns I outlined in my 2019 article about a landing page with BIN price and Make Offer field, I have gone through my portfolio at DAN and adjusted the minimum offer amounts. If I am inflexible on price, the minimum offer is very close to the BIN price so people can understand that there is very little give. Before I did this, I had someone lodge a similar complaint about my willingness to consider a lower offer, which, in fact, was my lack of knowledge about the platform. Making minimum offer adjustments can help set expectations and remove a point of annoyance for buyers.
I have often thought about this dilemma too (BIN + make offer on a page).
The comment “Will be going elsewhere for a different name.” in the review above is weak because generally people don’t have much of a choice when they see a domain they want. Their only choice is to compromise for a lesser name – it must be lesser otherwise they would have made their offer or BIN’d on the other domain first.
There definitely is a benefit to having BINs on $500-$5000 dollar domain names (especially to get you in the Afternic/GD channels) but people like to negotiate too. Also a seller may have a new BIN in mind when an inquiry comes in.
A week ago I repriced many names, have them priced in Afternic, but have them all on Dan landers with make offer. When an offer comes in I think about the price I want, add a little for negotiation wiggle room, check the Afternic price to make sure it’s higher (or the same), then give the asking price to the person making the offer.
I’m definitely at the lower end of the market, selling domains from $500 to $5,000 and occasionally up to $15k, so having no BINs provides me with extra data on what people think the domains are worth:
1) If domains without any hurdles to making an offer are never receiving offers, then that tells me I have junk
2) If all offers that come in are for $100 and I cannot negotiate them up to $1,500 (or whatever I think a name is worth) then I am either a terrible negotiator or the domain is really only worth $100 and my appraisal is wrong.
3) If landers are getting a lot of visits and multiple offers (even low offers) around a similar time period (e.g. 3 offers in a week for $100-$500 in a week) then that’s also good information – somethings happening!
So there are pros and cons for having only a BIN (PROS: quick and simple decision to buy and purchase made anytime even while you sleep), having only “Make offer” (PROS: lots of data, most offers this way, even at the lower offer end, plus I’ve also had initial offers that were higher than a previous BIN) and I guess the pros for having both is a hybrid of the pros above – but is it at the expense of ever achieving the BIN you have listed as your article suggests? Maybe 🙂
The new version does not has the make offer feature and I told Dan support about it.
Buy Now
Lease
Make Offer
When playing hardball goes wrong
“Make offer” sucks. I covered this before. Here. Recently.
People are far better off with BIN + “make contact.” If they want to try to negotiate the BIN they can do it by making contact.
Do you think it matters the types of names you have?
If I have many domains I’d sell for $500, make offer is fine – many of the first offers are $500.
I go back and forth – not really loving it but I’ve had a few offers/sales of names I don’t really care about in the last week ($500 for a .contact, $500 for a .nyc and $1,000 negotiated to $1,250 for a .link I bought 2 months ago for $60!)
BINs have worked out well in the past (people pulling the trigger on $3k, $5k and a few $7k names) but much less frequent sales than when I negotiate from offers.
Personally, I’d like to trim down the portfolio a little and so I’m trying to position for more frequent sales and make offer seems to be the best way for me to turn over names more quickly at lower price points.
Well, gotta go with what works for you I guess. I’ve just found that I hate “make offer.” I normally only list for at least low five figures, almost all .com. For new tlds like those it’s anyone’s guess. Scoring on a .link like that is certainly a bit surprising.
Yes, very important to continually trim the flock and learn from past mistakes. I must’ve let thousands of domains go by now, with only few regrets.
My situation is different from most because being an end user is my #1 priority, and selling as a domain investor/domainer is 2nd for me.