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Made an offer - Domainer let the domain expire!

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MapleDots

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So a year ago I made an offer of $250 via email and via godaddy for a .ca domain name that really only made sense for my business motto. I specialize in Maple Domains and this was a two word domain with the first word being maple.

Now it truly had very little value to anyone else unless they wanted to put it to a specific use.

I got a response back asking for around 1.2k and I politely declined saying it was something where I figured if I could pick it up on the cheap I would.

So the .ca's go to TBR (to be released) and anyone can pick them up before they get deleted.

The domainer had all my information and he decided to let the domain expire instead of contacting me to claim his $250 dollars. Obviously he did not record my information or the offer, instead he let the domain expire without attempting to complete our original negotiations.

So I did pick up the domain and I hired a company to get it for me ahead of the crowd and my final costs after taxes was around 69 bucks.

Why Why Why do some domainers not properly record their inquiries???? (n) (n) (n)

I would have given him the $250 had he re-contacted me.

I CANNOT STRESS AGAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF A PROPER SPREADSHEET WHERE ONE RECORDS OFFERS AND CONTACT INFORMATION.

Please people do not leave money on the table.

PS. Mods please do not put this in the ccTLD forum, it is a post which has merit in any extension.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I personally know people who have let high value domains expire only because they could not be bothered to lower the price to a reasonable level or renew any of them.

One of my hosting customers owned 6 .com domains that appraised at $5,000 or higher at godaddy. He just couldnt be bothered to properly list them and after a few years just let them drop. All of them were grabbed immediatly when they were pending or fresh expires. I only found out about them dropping because he came to me for some web design on a new site.
 
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Like you said, looks to be poor record keeping. He probably forgot the offer was out there, or lost your information and couldn't reach you. Regardless, appears to have worked out better for you! :)
 
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I don't contact old inquiries or offers because it is quite rare they are still interested in it after a long time, or else their email address is not being used or valid, maybe because they created a new Gmail only to buy a name so they can hide true identity and no longer use it.
 
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I CANNOT STRESS AGAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF A PROPER SPREADSHEET WHERE ONE RECORDS OFFERS AND CONTACT INFORMATION.
What sort of tracker do you use? What all do you track?
 
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I put in an offer for a similar amount for catskillmountains dot org forever ago, ended up coming up for auction. I believe it was with buy domains, ended up winning it for xx at auction. Patience pays off well in some cases.
I saw mapel dot com go up for sale not long ago and thought of you, lol
 
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I'l try to remember to contact you if I ever decide to let my only maple leaf domain drop.
 
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catskillmountains dot org
I first read it as CatsKillMountains.org and wondered what the hell does that even mean!
(Not that I know the relevant of CatSkillMountains)
 
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lol, I guess the letter case is a must, if it's not obvious. I built a local/travel directory on catskills dot us so i felt the need to have all similar domains. sorry to op for getting us off-track
I first read it as CatsKillMountains.org and wondered what the hell does that even mean!
(Not that I know the relevant of CatSkillMountains)
 
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lol, I guess the letter case is a must, if it's not obvious. I built a local/travel directory on catskills dot us so i felt the need to have all similar domains.
Thanks for the context. I just searched and found out Catskill is a place in NY (I'm not from the USA so did not know this)
 
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It only takes a few seconds to fire off an email to ask "Are you still interested in the domain?".

But if you don't have a way to store leads then it is not so simple.
 
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An interesting anecdote and I am glad that you got it in the end @MapleDots. Do you know if it was owned by an investor with a large portfolio, or someone with just a few.

Of course there can be personal reasons that sometimes make domains drop unintentionally or that make it impossible to find time, so it was not necessarily poor record keeping.

One nice feature of Efty is it keeps all queries in a really trivial to locate fashion linked to the domain name.
 
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I have witnessed this situation on several occasions. But I don't think this is always due to poor record-keeping practices.
Some domainers have an official policy of not accepting offers less than 4 figures, so they don't want to set a precedent or 'lose face' by coming back to you and accepting your lowish offer. An offer which may no longer be valid by the way, people move on and settle for another domain name. Maybe the other party will sense desperation and offer only half of their initial offer or they just are less motivated now. At some point it's not worth the hassle of trying to salvage a sale.

The other unfortunate possibility is that the domain holder passed away. Or that he relies on the renewal notices from the registrar. Domainers must keep a list of domains they own with anniversary dates. If you don't - you will eventually lose domains.
 
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I don't contact old inquiries or offers because it is quite rare they are still interested in it after a long time, or else their email address is not being used or valid, maybe because they created a new Gmail only to buy a name so they can hide true identity and no longer use it.

I clearly identified myself as a domainer and he was a domainer. I also said if he ever changed his mind to call me. So basically I held his hand and he still dropped the ball which was fortunate for me but cost him $250 bucks. That would have paid a number of renewals and the drop was very odd.
 
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What sort of tracker do you use? What all do you track?

I have a custom spreadsheets and I track every inquiry, all the costs, every phone call and anything when there is any change to a domain. I then combine that with my google analytics which is very easy, all domains forward to the lander and it shows me the referral typed into the address bar.

Four fields then export automatically to my website which shows my active domains. I have a separate hidden category for domains I do not want to show on the website.

If you ever contacted me or typed the domain in the address bar I have a record of it and if I ever consider dropping the domain I will look at those statistics first to see if I can recoup at least some of my costs before considering a drop.
 
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On average, real estate experts agree that anything above 15% is a good rate of return on investment in real estate. Domainers often call domain digital real estate but for some strange reason believe that every domains is their lucky lottery ticket and despite having an opportunity to make a nice return, they hold onto names far too long and end up losing in the end.
 
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Some people simply do not care about 250 USD...to sell/transfer domain can be sometimes hassle, it can take few days, and there is a possibility that domainer would need to spend several hours to complete the transaction...not worth it for many people.
 
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Some people simply do not care about 250 USD...to sell/transfer domain can be sometimes hassle, it can take few days, and there is a possibility that domainer would need to spend several hours to complete the transaction...not worth it for many people.

Don't know about you but I can push a domain in about a minute, if not just unlock and send transfer code.
So $250 bucks for a couple minutes work (n)

Don't understand why you would spend anywhere near two hours to transfer a domain and collect funds.

I process my own payments, I have an automated invoicing system and it takes seconds to generate a new invoice. I run your credit card and I send you the transfer code or if you are with godaddy I will push it for you.

Seriously, a few minutes work at best and highly unlikely a domainer would pass on that and let the domain expire on purpose. More than likely he did not keep the contact information and had no way to ask me if I was still interested. With a big portfolio you can have hundreds of requests per year and unless you document them it is easy to let things disappear from radar.

No, in this case we were on friendly terms and I specifically asked him to contact me if he was going to drop it at any time in the future. He simply forgot and let the domain drop effectively leaving money on the table that could have gone to renewals.
 
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I have witnessed this situation on several occasions. But I don't think this is always due to poor record-keeping practices.
Some domainers have an official policy of not accepting offers less than 4 figures, so they don't want to set a precedent or 'lose face' by coming back to you and accepting your lowish offer. An offer which may no longer be valid by the way, people move on and settle for another domain name. Maybe the other party will sense desperation and offer only half of their initial offer or they just are less motivated now. At some point it's not worth the hassle of trying to salvage a sale.

The other unfortunate possibility is that the domain holder passed away. Or that he relies on the renewal notices from the registrar. Domainers must keep a list of domains they own with anniversary dates. If you don't - you will eventually lose domains.

Exactly right Kate, I have worked with people who would not take anything less than $500, last year I saw a domain expiring in .tv and I knew the guy so I emailed and said I mentioned the name to a friend and he will give you $100. His reply was "Tell your friend to get bent, I would rather let it expire, I don't get out of bed for $500 much less a $100!"
 
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bit extreme but the owner may have passed away.
 
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I don't get out of bed for $500 much less a $100!"

Very nice to be at that point in life but flawed nonetheless. I am fortunate enough running a number of businesses that my children will never worry about money but I am also smart enough to never have that type of attitude.

$250 for a couple minutes (lets even say 5 minutes) work to push a domain translates to $3000 per hour if you were to apply it to 12 domains. So if you had a large portfolio and were about to drop 12 domains you had inquiries from why not push them out at $250 each? That would be a net gain of $3000 for an hours work.

I am a numbers guy and my domains are tightly monitored for expenses and profit margins and regardless of how much I make or not I will make the decision based on business instead of my ability to get out of bed.

Last point is..... I know this domainer, I know he drops a lot of domains because he cannot afford renewals. It is so unfortunate that he does not have better record keeping. I would very much love for him to be more successful and in a roundabout way I am hoping he sees this post because it may get him to be a bit more profitable.

I am always happy when a fellow domainer gets a sale and I am always a bit sad when I see them struggle. I will give freely of my time if I think I can help and I think in this case the domainer needed the wake up call.
 
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I have a custom spreadsheets and I track every inquiry, all the costs, every phone call and anything when there is any change to a domain. I then combine that with my google analytics which is very easy, all domains forward to the lander and it shows me the referral typed into the address bar.

Four fields then export automatically to my website which shows my active domains. I have a separate hidden category for domains I do not want to show on the website.

If you ever contacted me or typed the domain in the address bar I have a record of it and if I ever consider dropping the domain I will look at those statistics first to see if I can recoup at least some of my costs before considering a drop.
Seems like a very useful and good system. You should write more about it (assuming it is not too much of a trade secret ;))
 
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Very nice to be at that point in life but flawed nonetheless. I am fortunate enough running a number of businesses that my children will never worry about money but I am also smart enough to never have that type of attitude.

$250 for a couple minutes (lets even say 5 minutes) work to push a domain translates to $3000 per hour if you were to apply it to 12 domains. So if you had a large portfolio and were about to drop 12 domains you had inquiries from why not push them out at $250 each? That would be a net gain of $3000 for an hours work.

I agree with you. I had an offer for an ngTLD of $300. Counter offer was not accepted. Number of months went by and did not receive any other offers. I did not want to pay the $20+ for renewal. So I sent him a quick email if he was still interested. He was. He paid the money and received the domain in minutes.

It was very quick because I did not have to spend time looking for the original offer. Using the domain marketing platform, DMP, (see my sig below) it was very easy to find. (Sorry for the shameless plug but it is in the context of this thread).

For literally few minutes of work, you can't beat $300. Domainers are leaving a lot of money on the table by not following up on leads for domains they'd drop anyways. They seem to rather try selling them on NP for $$. Does not compute.
 
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I have witnessed this situation on several occasions. But I don't think this is always due to poor record-keeping practices.
Some domainers have an official policy of not accepting offers less than 4 figures, so they don't want to set a precedent or 'lose face' by coming back to you and accepting your lowish offer. An offer which may no longer be valid by the way, people move on and settle for another domain name. Maybe the other party will sense desperation and offer only half of their initial offer or they just are less motivated now. At some point it's not worth the hassle of trying to salvage a sale.

The other unfortunate possibility is that the domain holder passed away. Or that he relies on the renewal notices from the registrar. Domainers must keep a list of domains they own with anniversary dates. If you don't - you will eventually lose domains.

I lost domains while in the hospital 8 years ago (this month actually). The stay lasted 6 months, on and off, usually about week at a time but the initial stay was 21 days.

There were many inquiries lost, domains lost, etc. At the time I didnt really care and I had been domaining for 10 years already. I was fighting for my life and the fact that I got to see a new day break, through the windows of the hospital room, was joy enough for me each day. But it was silly for me to not have thought about the "what-if" of life and contingencies..

In addition to having a list, I think its also very important to have a trusted person that you can at least give direction to. Drop this one, Renew that one, etc. My fiance at the time would have had no idea what to do if I asked her to negotiate and process a sale, renew a name, or ever how to log in, where to log in, and so on.

Now the business is part of my will. I have two people as backups, after my wife, to take care of things in case I am incapacitated. I quickly learned that anything can happen to us at any time, bad things dont just happen to other folks.
 
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