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question Anyone using BIN with a much lower min offer? What was your experience?

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So far I have always been using BIN with a min offer around half the value. (mostly Afternic btw)

However I've seen sellers that set a much lower min. For example:

  • $1995 BIN / $500 min
  • or even $2995 BIN + $500min
BuyDomains does this oftenly as far as I saw. Edit: although they seem to rarely budge, mostly upping the price and holding on to that, after there was inquiry on it.

My question is to you: Have you been using such much lower min offers, and what was your experience? Did it increase sales?

I rarely get negotiations at Afternic, most buyers hit the BIN (or nothing happens) and the ones aiming for a discount price are much fewer. Wonder if the 1/2 min offer might be causing this and if a lower min offer can increase sales while not jeopardizing BIN sales.

TIA
 
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So far I have always been using BIN with a min offer around half the value. (mostly Afternic btw)

However I've seen sellers that set a much lower min. For example:

  • $1995 BIN / $500 min
  • or even $2995 BIN + $500min
BuyDomains does this oftenly as far as I saw. Edit: although they seem to rarely budge, mostly upping the price and holding on to that, after there was inquiry on it.

My question is to you: Have you been using such much lower min offers, and what was your experience? Did it increase sales?

I rarely get negotiations at Afternic, most buyers hit the BIN (or nothing happens) and the ones aiming for a discount price are much fewer. Wonder if the 1/2 min offer might be causing this and if a lower min offer can increase sales while not jeopardizing BIN sales.

TIA

First, I still want to give you thanks for the tactic you shared the other day. Look forward to seeing that if I have some domains for clearance that I can recover some money back from it. Which, if you don't mind, I may PM you about one last question.

Now, on to your question. I'm halfway sure that my current portfolio isn't up to snuff as I used the first year of really giving this a try to understand what would sell as a domain name and why. That being said, I have purposefully kept my minimum offer on $0-1 for two reasons.

1. It gives me an opportunity to see if someone will up their offer. If they present a reasonable offer and I don't see it in my mind that another person will come in a reasonable amount of time, I can sell and profit quickly. Have sold a couple of domains before that way. Actually, just sold one a couple of days ago from keeping contact with someone from 4 months ago that made a $0 offer. Will update in the sold domains section once the funds get released to me.

2. It gives me knowledge of interest. I don't care how low their offer is. If it it's there, then there's some valuable to me. It pretty much follows the BuyDomains/HugeDomains philosophy. The more data I have, the better. It's going to only serve me better in the long run and help me keep domain names that may sell for higher in the future.

All data is good data(except for bots and spam.)

Edit: I think it was @MapleDots that helped that inspiration too when he was explaining his reasoning on why he was setting his Afternic Make-An-Offer at the minimum price to have more data. Correct me if I'm wrong or if I remembered the wrong person to give credit to.
 
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Low Make Offers tend to attract many offers at that minimum price level. If you find it useful to know someone would be willing to pay $50 or $100 for a domain with a much higher BIN, fine. I just don't like being annoyed with what I consider unqualified leads.
 
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Low Make Offers tend to attract many offers at that minimum price level. If you find it useful to know someone would be willing to pay $50 or $100 for a domain with a much higher BIN, fine. I just don't like being annoyed with what I consider unqualified leads.

I can agree that a good portion of the time that most of those leads can be a waste of time as they aren't willing to budge any higher. Might as well turn it into a good thing and have data of the popularity of the domain and raise the BIN even higher and give yourself more negotiation room.
 
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I can agree that a good portion of the time that most of those leads can be a waste of time as they aren't willing to budge any higher. Might as well turn it into a good thing and have data of the popularity of the domain and raise the BIN even higher and give yourself more negotiation room.

There might be another angle I've been thinking about.

Many domainers are overpricing their domains, and I must admit I often do this too. It is clear that if we would stand in the buyer's position then we would see that price very differently.

So I'm gonna give it a try (no min), because 1) it will show which domains are in demand, and 2) it will likely show where price might be too steep so you need to tweak it down a bit.

My other question still lingering is, would people still buy at bin if there is no min offer at all?
 
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There might be another angle I've been thinking about.

Many domainers are overpricing their domains, and I must admit I often do this too. It is clear that if we would stand in the buyer's position then we would see that price very differently.

So I'm gonna give it a try (no min), because 1) it will show which domains are in demand, and 2) it will likely show where price might be too steep so you need to tweak it down a bit.

My other question still lingering is, would people still buy at bin if there is no min offer at all?

Since I've started doing that, I'd have to say no. Only experience I've had with someone hitting a BIN is we were starting to negotiate a price for a name and then their friend ended up hitting the BIN from SedoMLS.
 
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All my names have make offer at 250 or 500 whether I feel they should fetch 1,500 or 15,000.

Sales so far this year all started with the minimum offer and the lowest I moved them to was mid xxxx. If a name has a worth of 1200 or below, I list it at that price with no min offer available. Take it at the listed price or keep on looking!

FYI, I used to have my min offer set at 100 and got hundreds of offers at that number...only a few names did I move to what they needed to be. At 250 or 500, it lets the tire kickers and other 'investors' know I wont accept low ball offers.
 
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All my names have make offer at 250 or 500 whether I feel they should fetch 1,500 or 15,000.

Sales so far this year all started with the minimum offer and the lowest I moved them to was mid xxxx. If a name has a worth of 1200 or below, I list it at that price with no min offer available. Take it at the listed price or keep on looking!

FYI, I used to have my min offer set at 100 and got hundreds of offers at that number...only a few names did I move to what they needed to be. At 250 or 500, it lets the tire kickers and other 'investors' know I wont accept low ball offers.

Excellent suggestion. I had the same experience with $100 min. I'm going to follow this min strategy next, thanks a lot for sharing.
 
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In my own experience the longer I wait to reply to an offer the less likely a sale will happen.

I agree with what was written earlier that do not allow low offers. I think must of us if we are around long enough in this business will do this on our own after getting tired of low offers.

When someone contacts you about a domain they are probably having a "eureka moment". Every minute that passes you risk them losing that moment or them talking to a naysayer that kills their excitement.

We all hand registered names because of those "eureka moments". Many domains are purchased because of this fact, this is why most never even get developed.

If you can include a message with your counter (godaddy, dan etc lets you do that) use it to hype them up even more, they are already psyched, share some domain sale info, search volume, ppc whatever you can. This is most effective if you act fast.

The other reason to act fast is that most people will continue looking for other names. Every minute that goes by someone else might be selling them a name or they might think your name isn't that good or they might see names for very cheap anchoring them lower.

This is not a business where you make potential buyers sweat to get higher prices. It does happen, but its rare.
 
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You can price yourself out of the market but the funny thing is it isn't really about price it is about being approachable. Some people scare off buyers with nonsense about search results or just general pitch and some with pricing. I am presently experimenting with lower starting bids but last time i had them low i just got cranky with low ballers and put em up.
 
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You can price yourself out of the market but the funny thing is it isn't really about price it is about being approachable. Some people scare off buyers with nonsense about search results or just general pitch and some with pricing. I am presently experimenting with lower starting bids but last time i had them low i just got cranky with low ballers and put em up.

If you put min offer above $200, such as $250 or even $220, this weeds most lowballers off.
 
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Excellent suggestion. I had the same experience with $100 min. I'm going to follow this min strategy next, thanks a lot for sharing.

I just wanted to add that my asking price, in most cases, is set at what I consider to be full retail using my own methods of determining pricing. On the few true super premium names I have, the asking price is 'shoot for the moon' or I have nothing specified...but the minimum offer is set at 2,500 or above to eliminate useless offers.

It may seem unlikely to most that view our industry from the outside but impulse buys happen with domains just like apple pies or fries at a drive thru order speaker. We must not forget that people with deep pockets or a tech/website person for a company, with a pre-approved budget, is searching for a name. When they see 'the one' that is perfect, they will pull the trigger and buy.

Of my top two sales this year (over xxxx) I never interacted with the buyers at all. One name was resolving to a fully functional website within 24 hours and the other within 72. This means the buyers had products (both are retail sales sites) that the domains fit, with a website already built and they did not wait once they came across the name that worked for them.
 
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