In most cases, marketplaces require specifying a minimum when you enable make offer on your domain names. Is it better to set this minimum offer low, so more prospective buyers will start a conversation? On the other hand, that might have a negative impact on price expectations, and limit the price that they are ultimately willing to pay.
About a year ago, NamePros member elmoney summarized the question this way.
Should minimum offer values be adjusted for each domain name, or is it acceptable to set the same minimum offer amounts for different domain names? If you do allow low minimum offers, is the number of offers received a valid indicator of value of a domain name?
I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. However, together the NamePros community has data which can help inform our understanding. I urge you to participate both in the main poll in this article, as well as the additional polls linked later in the article.
In addition to voting, please leave comments. I will summarize the findings in a second NamePros Blog post on the topic of setting minimum offer prices.
What Minimum Offer For A $2000 Domain Name?
Let’s suppose that there is a domain name that has a buy-it-now price of $2000. How should you set the minimum offer amount? Please vote in the poll above, sharing what minimum offer you would typically use on this $2000 domain name. Would you set it to the minimum the system allows, at nearly the full value, or somewhere in between?
In the comments, please share the factors that influence your choice of minimum offer amount. For example, if the name is in a trending niche, would that influence your choice? Does the sector make a difference? Would you be more apt to price a cryptocurrency domain name nearer the buy-it-now, while a name for a budget shop might start lower?
Minimum Offer Is Not The Same As Auction Start
I want to stress that the minimum offer in a buy-it-now domain listing is not the same thing as the initial offer in a domain auction. In the mind of the buyer, these are two very different types of sales. In an auction, we expect to be able to start at a relatively low price, and, as other bidders participate, the final price will go much higher. Auction theory shows that how much we are willing to bid is influenced by what we see others bid, whereas in a buy-it-now situation that information is absent for the potential buyer.
Imagine a piece of artwork is available for sale. In an auction, I might start with a $100 bid, fully expecting the final value might be $25,000. However, if I walk into an art gallery, and a sales agent shows me a piece of art and says “Make us an offer. We are considering any offers of $100 or up.”I then offer, say $200, and the agent immediately responds that the price is $50,000. I would feel misled. If the agent then offered me another piece of art, nearer to my budget, I would rightly feel that I was a victim of a bait-and-switch operation.
What Minimum Offer Would You Set For A $20,000 Domain Name?
I am interested in how your minimum offer would change for a much higher worth domain name? For example, if the domain name had a buy-it-now price of $20,000, should the minimum go up by about a factor of 10 from what you would set on a $2000 name?
Please go to this NamePros thread and vote on that question. I hope that you will share in the discussion experiences from your own portfolio. Tell us what factors you take into account in setting the minimum offer for a higher value domain name.
Did you set higher minimums in the past, but found you got too few offers and had more success using lower minimums? Or, did you find that it worked out better when your minimum offer was set higher, with more negotiations leading to a successful sale?
What Minimum Offer Strategy Do You Use?
Next I would like to obtain information on your minimum offer pricing strategy. Do you tend to simply set a constant minimum across domain names of different prices? Alternatively, do you set minimum offer prices that are a certain fraction, such as one-half, of the buy-it-now price? Please share your minimum offer pricing strategy.
Are Large Numbers Of Low Offers An Indication Of Domain Worth?
If you set minimum offers quite low, do you consider the number of offers received an indicator of the worth of the domain name? That is, if I had two domain names, one much more valuable than the other, but set the same minimum offer levels, would the more valuable name necessarily get more offers? What about a domain name that, despite a relatively low minimum offer, never had a single offer over multiple years - is it necessarily of low value? Please let us know what you think about significance of number of low offers in this poll.
On Average How Many Offers Do You Receive For Each Sale?
If you have 15 sales per year and 30 offers over the same time period, the offers to sale ratio is 2. If you had 150 offers, but the same number of sales, the ratio is 10. Please share your personal ratio of number of offers to number of sales in the poll here. Note that I want you to consider all offers, not just on the domain names that ultimately sold.
Clearly the answer to this question depends on how you set your minimum offer, where your name is placed for sale, your negotiating style, how firm you are on price and probably other factors, but I am interested in how many offers you typically receive before each closed domain name sale. .
Low Minimum Offer To Big Sale
Finally, I hope you will share examples where a low starting offer resulted in a much higher final closed sale. Share specific examples in the discussion, so we can all be inspired by your success! Or did you never get more than a low ratio, which is also valuable information to know. Vote here to share your highest ratio of final sale price to initial offer.
I hope that this will be the first of many NamePros community research projects where we pool our collective data to inform answers to interesting domain discussions. I am excited to see the poll results, and read your comments.
Here is a summary of the linked polls.
Interesting online discussions related to this topic with Edward helped inform this article.
Thanks in advance to all NamePros members who will participate in the polls and discussions.
About a year ago, NamePros member elmoney summarized the question this way.
We want to sell a domain for $3000, if we put minimum offer $500, then a potential buyer will think that a domain costs $500 and will not want to pay 3000. If we put a high minimum price, this may scare a potential buyer. And if we do not set a minimum price tag, then "buyers" will start spamming with low offers.
Should minimum offer values be adjusted for each domain name, or is it acceptable to set the same minimum offer amounts for different domain names? If you do allow low minimum offers, is the number of offers received a valid indicator of value of a domain name?
I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. However, together the NamePros community has data which can help inform our understanding. I urge you to participate both in the main poll in this article, as well as the additional polls linked later in the article.
In addition to voting, please leave comments. I will summarize the findings in a second NamePros Blog post on the topic of setting minimum offer prices.
What Minimum Offer For A $2000 Domain Name?
Let’s suppose that there is a domain name that has a buy-it-now price of $2000. How should you set the minimum offer amount? Please vote in the poll above, sharing what minimum offer you would typically use on this $2000 domain name. Would you set it to the minimum the system allows, at nearly the full value, or somewhere in between?
In the comments, please share the factors that influence your choice of minimum offer amount. For example, if the name is in a trending niche, would that influence your choice? Does the sector make a difference? Would you be more apt to price a cryptocurrency domain name nearer the buy-it-now, while a name for a budget shop might start lower?
Minimum Offer Is Not The Same As Auction Start
I want to stress that the minimum offer in a buy-it-now domain listing is not the same thing as the initial offer in a domain auction. In the mind of the buyer, these are two very different types of sales. In an auction, we expect to be able to start at a relatively low price, and, as other bidders participate, the final price will go much higher. Auction theory shows that how much we are willing to bid is influenced by what we see others bid, whereas in a buy-it-now situation that information is absent for the potential buyer.
Imagine a piece of artwork is available for sale. In an auction, I might start with a $100 bid, fully expecting the final value might be $25,000. However, if I walk into an art gallery, and a sales agent shows me a piece of art and says “Make us an offer. We are considering any offers of $100 or up.”I then offer, say $200, and the agent immediately responds that the price is $50,000. I would feel misled. If the agent then offered me another piece of art, nearer to my budget, I would rightly feel that I was a victim of a bait-and-switch operation.
What Minimum Offer Would You Set For A $20,000 Domain Name?
I am interested in how your minimum offer would change for a much higher worth domain name? For example, if the domain name had a buy-it-now price of $20,000, should the minimum go up by about a factor of 10 from what you would set on a $2000 name?
Please go to this NamePros thread and vote on that question. I hope that you will share in the discussion experiences from your own portfolio. Tell us what factors you take into account in setting the minimum offer for a higher value domain name.
Did you set higher minimums in the past, but found you got too few offers and had more success using lower minimums? Or, did you find that it worked out better when your minimum offer was set higher, with more negotiations leading to a successful sale?
What Minimum Offer Strategy Do You Use?
Next I would like to obtain information on your minimum offer pricing strategy. Do you tend to simply set a constant minimum across domain names of different prices? Alternatively, do you set minimum offer prices that are a certain fraction, such as one-half, of the buy-it-now price? Please share your minimum offer pricing strategy.
Are Large Numbers Of Low Offers An Indication Of Domain Worth?
If you set minimum offers quite low, do you consider the number of offers received an indicator of the worth of the domain name? That is, if I had two domain names, one much more valuable than the other, but set the same minimum offer levels, would the more valuable name necessarily get more offers? What about a domain name that, despite a relatively low minimum offer, never had a single offer over multiple years - is it necessarily of low value? Please let us know what you think about significance of number of low offers in this poll.
On Average How Many Offers Do You Receive For Each Sale?
If you have 15 sales per year and 30 offers over the same time period, the offers to sale ratio is 2. If you had 150 offers, but the same number of sales, the ratio is 10. Please share your personal ratio of number of offers to number of sales in the poll here. Note that I want you to consider all offers, not just on the domain names that ultimately sold.
Clearly the answer to this question depends on how you set your minimum offer, where your name is placed for sale, your negotiating style, how firm you are on price and probably other factors, but I am interested in how many offers you typically receive before each closed domain name sale. .
Low Minimum Offer To Big Sale
Finally, I hope you will share examples where a low starting offer resulted in a much higher final closed sale. Share specific examples in the discussion, so we can all be inspired by your success! Or did you never get more than a low ratio, which is also valuable information to know. Vote here to share your highest ratio of final sale price to initial offer.
I hope that this will be the first of many NamePros community research projects where we pool our collective data to inform answers to interesting domain discussions. I am excited to see the poll results, and read your comments.
Here is a summary of the linked polls.
- Minimum offer on $2000 name (this article)
- Minimum offer for $20,000 name.
- What strategy do you use, constant value or fraction of buy-it-now?
- Do many low offers indicate valuable names?
- Overall, how what is your ratio of offers to closed sales?
- Your highest ratio sales price to initial offer.
Interesting online discussions related to this topic with Edward helped inform this article.
Thanks in advance to all NamePros members who will participate in the polls and discussions.
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