Any downside to pushing an offer to auction on GoDaddy?

[TampaDomains]

If I was willing to accept the min. offer anyway, is there any downside?

They can't cancel right? So either I get that amount or more bids come in right?

 

[TampaDomains]

I started the auction within 2 hours anyway but I am sure this wouldn't be an issue even if I waited a day to do it.

Its a 7 day auction.

 

[Isaac Managan]

ummm say what? free on Godaddy? Last time I checked wasn't it $25 to send any domain to auction?

or was that $25 to feature?

It is freeeeeeee lol

 

[Joe Styler]

Good thread. Let me offer a bit of info on the feature. It is free you just pay commission when it sells.

We added this a couple years ago as customers requested it, here is my 2 cents on the option. It is a good feature but there are many listing types and you need to try and find the right one for you as all names and all sales are not created equal. The advice I am offering below is general, there will always be exceptions to anything. I am just trying to lay out some high level things to consider.

If you have a great domain say a 3L.com you are going to get offers every day. These types of domains are probably best left unpriced, possibly with a floor price ( a minimum offer price) to weed out the bad inquiries and then take the offers and negotiate the best price you can on an individual basis. Don't price these names and don't put them into an auction. A small percentage of names fit into this general category.

If you have a good name say a great two word .com or 2L .net or something that is getting consistent offers every month then you should either think of the price you would want for the domain and BIN price it (higher than you want) with an option for offers or keep it at offers only. Again there are probably not tons of names in your portfolio getting multiple offers every month.

If you have a name that is brandable or two good words you are probably best off with a BIN price on the name and listing it on Afternic. You may lose some money on an individual sale here and there but you should more than make that money up by selling more names overall. BIN priced names sell on average 3x of offer names. So in the long run pricing the names is the best sales strategy we have seen on these kinds of names. These are names that might get a solid offer every year or once every couple of years.

If you have to list with offer only even after reading the above, then you should really consider strongly whether pushing to auction makes sense. Here's why, if your name was already getting a lot of offers regularly then you would probably be less inclined to throw it on the auction you would just sit back and wait for the right offer to come in that was higher. If it is not getting a lot of regular offers then what's the likelihood that all of a sudden this name is going to get a lot of offers all in one week in the form of bids? Slim to none.

People like to buy a name when they are excited about it. The longer you drag out the process the less excited people become, you need to strike when the iron is hot to close a deal. If someone comes in with an offer that is not what you want, in my opinion it is better to tell them right away and try and negotiate higher while they are excited about it. Presumably you are already fine with accepting the initial offer because you know pushing the domain to auction means you are bound to accept the winning bid anyway, i.e. the initial offer if there are no other bids. So you have an interested buyer and they want your domain and it is unlikely you will drive the price up by placing it in a week long auction if you are not getting regular interest in the domain anyway so why not either just accept the offer and get the money or negotiate higher before people lose interest?

Now push to auction does make sense in some situations. Let's say you had a domain for 5 years and haven't been really interested in selling it at say $5k but now you need money for something and $5k interests you. If you have had offers over the years that you have declined but still have a way to contact them, or you think you can draw more eyeballs on the domain by posting here or advertising on blogs etc then that makes sense. If you think you can get more bids by contacting interested parties and you think you can keep the excitement going by creating a bidding war then this option is the right one for you.

Sorry for the lengthy response, but I get this question many times so hopefully it can help some other people as well. I hope you sell your domain for a great price.

 

[james haw]

If it is not getting a lot of regular offers then what's the likelihood that all of a sudden this name is going to get a lot of offers all in one week in the form of bids? Slim to none.

@TampaDomains The above is spot on.
While you may get another offer or two from people raking active auctions, a name you were going to accept around $100 offer is not a highly desirable name, so not many people want it, not even other domainers.

You may have just delayed it a week, and if that's the case and you don't care then there's nothing to lose, but don't factor out the risk of losing the sale altogether from the buyer backing out (people do and happy to lose their account over it).

Would be nice to know the domain name though, and what happened

 

[LarryDomain]

Here's what I do. For domains below $1000 offers, I push to auction. I risk losing the sale but there's potential to get a much better offer. But for domains above $1000, and I think the price is fair..I usually just accept it.

It all depends on your threshold on how much you're willing to risk. Stats: about 25% of the names I push to auction gets a higher offer. I did lose a few buyers who ended up never paying.

 

[Name Trader]

My 2c worth of opinion is this.

If you would be happy with their offer just below your theoretical BIN. Just accept the offer, and be done with it.

As far as I am aware, the offer you have will be placed as the 1st offer on the domain. They are on the hook already. But you will run the risk of pissing off the buyer by making him wait. And because of this they might just "dissappear" and not pay. OK. They broke the rules and will take whatever punishment GoDaddy dishes out. But more importantly, you haven't sold a domain which you were happy with the price. On the other hand you might get a higher offer. You decision is all about how much of risk you are prepared to take.

 

[TampaDomains]

On the other hand, from the buyers perspective. Since he came in a $1 over min. offer. He might really want the domain and be wiling to pay much more than this offer. If I had countered, which he probably expected, then it would be for a much higher price.

So by pushing this, the buyer now has the chance to get the domain for the min offer he made, which he likely did not expect, as nobody accepts min offers for the most part.

 

[DNGear]

Good question.
I pushed a domain to auction on a 500 usd initial offer.(Greedy)
Auction was over, No Bids.
Buyer disappeared after 7 days. He did not pay till now.(its been 20 days)

May be he would consider paying, if i accepted his initial offer.

 

[namezest]

Yeah you can lose your buyer and more than likely will.

 

[TampaDomains]

The domain got quite a few views, meaning they clicked it in auction. But no bids and original bidder paid right away. So I just free rolled a chance at more money and ended up with the same money, no big deal. Still a profit as I paid less than $10 and did no work on it to sell it.

Hindside I could have countered with $200 or so and maybe ended up with more but might have lost him.
CarPrototypes dot com was the domain, so not that easy to try to find end users for.

 

[Joe Styler]

The domain got quite a few views, meaning they clicked it in auction. But no bids and original bidder paid right away. So I just free rolled a chance at more money and ended up with the same money, no big deal. Still a profit as I paid less than $10 and did no work on it to sell it.

Hindside I could have countered with $200 or so and maybe ended up with more but might have lost him.
CarPrototypes dot com was the domain, so not that easy to try to find end users for.

I'm glad it was a good sale for you. Thanks for the recap. It's always good to see someone's sale process.

 

[cdboard]

last year I offered $100 on a listed domain at godaddy. I forgot to watch the auction closely, and it sold for $105.

if the owner had countered at 150 (before the auction), I would have accepted.

so it is possible that a counter offer could get you more money. consider how long the domain was listed without offers.