Dealing with Afternic... Any thoughts.

Yes start a bid or have they got the domain listed anywhere else ?

NameDeck said:

I'm currently looking into purchasing a domain for a hobby project. (.net) Not very valuable, would probably go up to a couple of $100 for this domain.

The problem is, it is listed at afternic. Last time I wanted to acquire a name they kept wasting my time although my last bid was 92% of the bin price, mid x.xxx and it later sold for way less. Also, the name is listed for 3x estibot value and comparable sales or even better words sell for like 20% of the asking price of the domain I'm looking into.

In short, I don't think afternic brokers are that professional or know what they're doing. Do you think it would be worth my time to make a bid and start negotiating?

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First off imo estibot appraisals are not accurate. Secondly if the seller does not have a min price put in place for the domain then the afternic brokers will simply just try to get the seller the bin price and when dealing with hundreds of inquiries a day they don't have much time for back and forth. Have you tried contacting the owner directly? They would likely be open to lower price if not dealing with afternic and having to pay commission.

wizard said:

Yes start a bid or have they got the domain listed anywhere else ?

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Unfortunately not. I wouldn't care if it were sedo or undeveloped but afternic is just slow as ****. As it's just for a hobby project, my free time is valuable

NameDeck said:

Unfortunately not. I wouldn't care if it were sedo or undeveloped but afternic is just slow as ****. As it's just for a hobby project, my free time is valuable

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Yes your correct afternic are slow and take a while but sometimes they are fast best call them up !

JudgeMind said:

First off imo estibot appraisals are not accurate. Secondly if the seller does not have a min price put in place for the domain then the afternic brokers will simply just try to get the seller the bin price and when dealing with hundreds of inquiries a day they don't have much time for back and forth. Have you tried contacting the owner directly? They would likely be open to lower price if not dealing with afternic and having to pay commission.

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I know estibot is way off sometimes but in this case compared to other sales they seem to be pretty accurate.

It's like, they're asking for the price of a domain like boom.com while they're selling something like zgiq.com. I don't mind paying a fair price but within reason.

The domain is less than a year old and unfortunately under privacy

wizard said:

Yes your correct afternic are slow and take a while but sometimes they are fast best call them up !

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That's not a bad idea at all. Maybe I'll just put in an offer and follow up by telephone first thing after the weekend.

NameDeck said:

That's not a bad idea at all. Maybe I'll just put in an offer and follow up by telephone first thing after the weekend.

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Yes no harm have a go and just put in a offer and you may get it...

NameDeck said:

it later sold for way less

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If it is sold then just move on.
You were saying it for hobby but someone was /is/will considering domaining is a serious business and they don't wanna spend time with dealing low ballers.

Afternic has an option to set floor price where the broker will be closed the deal with floor price without asking owners permission. Owner might be set a lower reserve. It is what it is and that is how it works.

You would have been offered better price if you really wanted the name.

BuyBrandWeb.com said:

If it is sold then just move on.
You were saying it for hobby but someone was /is/will considering domaining is a serious business and they don't wanna spend time with dealing low ballers.

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The sold one I mentioned was from last time I tried to purchase a domain through afternic. That was no lowball offer. I offered $6499 where the askingprice was 6999. Months later it sold for just above 3K. That's why I'm not that confident in dealing with their brokers.

The domain I'm looking into now is definitely not worth what the asking price is. I'm not gonna disclose the name but I bet that in auction over here it wouldn't even reach $20. Like I said, I'm prepared so pay enduser pricing for the domain but that would have to represent the value of the domain. I'm not gonna pay $1200 for a domain that's worth $400 on the high end. The .org is available so go figure.

BuyBrandWeb.com said:

Afternic has an option to set floor price where the broker will be closed the deal with floor price without asking owners permission. Owner might be set a lower reserve. It is what it is and that is how it works.

You would have been offered better price if you really wanted the name.

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Like stated obove. That was a decent offer and a good broker would definitely have tried to get back to me months later to see if I was still interested. But they didn't and decided half my offer was enough. I don't care but to me that shows they're not on top of things. This is the main reason I have mixed feelings about the company both in selling and buying domains.

They get all serious negotiating but if they're just basically wasting your time when you're dead serious making good offers that shows lack of respect towards their customers. Per my example, if at the moment all they'd accept is BIN pricing (basically) just say so from the get go.

A quick update. I made an offer and called them yesterday to followup.

The floor price is pretty close to the bin and they said it will probably not go down.

However, I did buy the .com from a private seller yesterday for $389 so I wish them good luck selling the .net at $1200