armstrong

This is indeed a great read. Lots of enlightening points all around. Similar points are made in this thread:

http://www.namepros.com/showthread.p...threadid=10333

I'm almost convinced to post prices on all my domains ...

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Chris_C

Ah the new year and time for reflection and in this case digging up an old but not forgotten thread.

In three months I think I've graduated from domain newbie but to what I'm not sure. Looking back at this thread I can shed some light on things I've tried and the subsequent results. This is all from the buyers perspective as I haven't yet sold or save the odd post here and there tried to sell any domains.

Ok, so here we go:

Failed Tactics:

• Low balling an offer for a domain to try to get the seller to make the first move. It's insulting, it wastes time, and I have yet to have any success.
• Using archive.org to contact previous owners to find out what the current owner paid for the domain.
• Offering ultimatums. It seems to me this should be viable but it's not, perhaps too confrontational.

Winning Tactics:

• Someone mentioned this early on in this thread. Having a third party involved is by far the most success I've found. This way you're not too personally involved and in line with the thread that armstrong mentioned listed above this one, it keeps negotiation on the level of domain value itself and not the buyer. Not only am I a bad negotiator, but my friend who now handles the negotiations is a VERY good negotiator. I give him the max I'm willing to spend, he goes out and gets bottom dollar.
• Patience, Patience, and more Patience.
• In line with being patient, and sorry if this is a bit morally lacking, waste the sellers time as much as possible. If you want domain y.com and you know the seller owns x, b, a, f, r, t, etc. don't hesitate to have unrelated parties contact them and waste some time negotiating for other domains with no real intention to purchase. Distress the seller by making them work hard and get nothing in return, which will increase your chance at landing a good price on your domain of interest.
• Offer a fair price for the domain from the start and be willing to walk away. I find myself using this tactic the most now (when I negotiate personally), after figuring out what a domain is worth I will offer somewhere around that value. This is pretty close to the maximum amount that I'm willing to pay because afterall that is what I feel is a fair offer based upon what the domain is worth. From there it's either walk away if the seller refuses or shake hands. Of course this only works when the domain isn't "priceless", in which case I'm the last person who should be involved in the negotiation process.

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"There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, now it happens to everyone." -JM Keynes