poll Better Success with BIN or "Make Offer"? $10 award for best feedback.

[Federer]

Have you had more success slapping BIN prices on your domains, or do you generate a better ROI overall by leaving "make offer"?

We have heard many times Sedo & Afternic listing the various benefits of BIN-priced names in the sweet-spot ($1K-$5K range). In practice, do you find you do better with fixed prices or "make offer"?

$10 PayPal payment will go to the most complete answer based on past experiences over time.

 

[EmpireNames.com]

i offered nearest offers to sellers one was asking 500 usd for rascals.net i offered 400 and she changed price immediately to 1500 usd lol i dont send offers anymore

 

[AuthorityDomains]

I've personally found most end users want to know the price and get annoyed if you don't give them a price, especially UK end users.

You go into a shop or on amazon, you look at a product and it has a price. Almost everything has a price attached to it, even when you buy a house or a car.

I'm testing with both atm to see what works best.

 

[frank-germany]

it all depends on the name and the kind of customers you want to attrack

when you have a fast decision kind of price tag
and know the kind of customers
it's better to have a BIN

but only if you can imagine the pockets of that customer
and he willingness to spend that amount on a domain

when you have a great name
you only want to become aware of the kind of buyers who might be interested
then it's better to have no price

if you ask sedo BIN is better
because it means automated income for them
( always understand why somebody is recommending something )

and when you don't ask Mike Mann
then a large price should not been shown on LP
but only smaller amounts
Mike Mann doesn't bother to show huge BINs

in the end when a buyer wants a domain
or better needs a domain
there is no need to display the price

but when you do outbound
you need to quote a price sooner or later
so sooner is better

 

[frank-germany]

-deleted purposely posted content-

 

[Furquan]

It all depends on the domain name quality & niche. No one going to buy now price of $1000 for abdhdcbv.com but yes some end user hit blockexplore.com BIN price $1000.

I have found success on BIN, but you should not over price.

 

[BrandableDomain]

I have a recollection from a few years ago of Sedo stating that buy it now (BIN) sales velocity occurs at a multiple of make offer models. From memory, it might have been 3 to 5 times sales velocity.

I agree with that, so all my domains for sale have BINs and it works very well.

I do however think that you can achieve slightly higher sales prices on average if you do use offer or outbound methods. But since I only sell a tiny per cent of inventory per year, sales velocity is far far more important. It’s about the total return.

So I believe you will make far fewer sales if you don’t use BIN pricing (there are some exceptions to this principle as follows). I’ve never done any outbound in my life, so if you’re prepared to do that, that may be a good way to maximise your return.

Anyhow, I believe the question has been definitively answered by Paul Nicks who generously revealed much about the NameFind (Godaddy) portfolio at NamesCon.

I would be surprised if any domain company in the world uses big data analytics more than Godaddy. And the NameFind portfolio is undoubtedly one of the best portfolios there is. It’s an aggregation of nine portfolios with 734,000 domains.

So following is a quote from a 43 minute NamesCon 2018 YouTube video:

“We put the vast majority, 99 plus per cent of all our inventory is set to buy it now… …and the rest is make offer.“

“The reason we do Buy Now is very important. Buy Now [has] up to 5 X higher sell through than just a straight make offer.”

(From around 10:20.)

Not allowed to post the link but it’s called:

NamesCon 2018 - NameFind, GoDaddy's Domain Name Portfolio

So the best strategy seems to be to have most of your domains with BIN pricing with the exception of any you believe are very high value, worth some mid five figure value at least. Possibly very high traffic names with frequent enquiries might also be better using make offer, and there may be other exceptions to this principle.

NameFind believes the evidence is there so 99 per cent of inventory is priced. It’s what customers want and it’s simply effective. In most cases, if you want up to 5 times more sales, give your customers what they want which is prices.

The video is a masterclass, kudos to Paul Nicks and NamesCon for making this resource available.

(If I happen to win the $10 please donate it to some worthy cause.)

 

[1Darko]

@Federer It's interesting to see the poll results of this thread and I'm quite "shocked" that you opened this thread and asking such a question since you're probably one of the most successful and capable persons to answer this question first hand.
It looks like BIN is overall the way to go.

 

[RapidNames.com]

Make offer worked well for me...

There is two scenario in order to set price.

If you need to liquidate portfolio set BIN, other(wise) Make offer helped to sell at high price.

BIN will lead more sale but Make offer lead Higher price because buyer knew the domain importance more than us, so they may ready to offer more than we think.

I never thought 2 word .co will sell @ $15k+ but one of my buyer paid that (By make offer & negotiation).

Also we will get a chance to research about buyer if they make offer, so we can price accordingly.

JMO from my past sales.

 

[Marshall]

Based on my experience,

If you need cash quick or to make sales regularly for maintaining the cash flow -
Go with BIN

If you got some solid domains or
cash flow is not an issue for you and you can sit on them for long -
Go with Make Offer

P.S.
I prefer BIN because as I've seen end users most likely want to buy a domain quick and get done with it. They don't have the time to get into heavy negotiations. Sometimes negotiations get time consuming and most probably will annoy the buyer.

 

[d-e-x]

2 weeks - Make Offer
2 weeks - BIN

Whole rotation, in every moment half of my domains are BIN and another half - make offer, every 2 weeks rotation, yes it takes some time to change all those prices but this method works fine for me

 

[frank-germany]

2 weeks - Make Offer
2 weeks - BIN

Whole rotation, in every moment half of my domains are BIN and another half - make offer, every 2 weeks rotation, yes it takes some time to change all those prices but this method works fine for me

That sounds interesting

Could you eleborate
How long are You doing so?
What are the results?

My system would allow me to
Automate that

Is it worth the hassle?

 

[Nikhil Jain]

Would appreciate if @Federer could enlighten us with his own experience. Your sales have been an inspiration and would help us all learn a lot more.

 

[GoKaizen]

By far I've had the most success with BINs. People want to know the price upfront.

That being said I've started experimenting with Make Offer landers. On marketplaces there are BIN prices. This is the best way to extract maximal value from your domains. I made $800+ more on a domain than the listed BIN price the other day.

This method does make inquiries go down though. It will make you get good at negotiation and understanding buyers and sales real.

Remember a domain is worth what someone is willing to pay. You never know in this industry.

 

[d-e-x]

That sounds interesting

Could you eleborate
How long are You doing so?
What are the results?

My system would allow me to
Automate that

Is it worth the hassle?

For example 2 different marketplaces - Sedo and Afternic
1/2 on Sedo - BIN another 1/2 on Afternic - Make Offer
After 2 weeks - rotation

I am doing this almost 2 years and so far is ok.

Why am I doing this? I do not send outbound emails, buyers if they are interested in any of my domains, come to me first, sending emails with offers is a little bit like you beg someone to buy your domain and many customers have the wrong idea, they think - you are desperate to sell and then that impact the price, you will never get a right price for your domain.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe is better to send those emails but that is not my way

 

[DonDraper]

I switched the whole portfolio and I did a x3 in terms of 'engagement' of course there are also a bunch of useless lowball...but the when it comes to 'Make Offer' the UX of Landing Page can really make the difference. At least its what It's happening to me.

My 2cents

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

It doesn't matter as long as you have the "right" domain/s, you will have success with it in both offering / selling - methods.

 

[Haykay2005]

I agreed BIN is fine but if a buyer truly needs your domain, he won't turn back because of no price tag. So both work fine

 

[domeen]

With BIN there is also this called “drunk dial” effect. Some guy has too much beer one night and buys your domain. Next day if he wakes up he might not want it anymore. But transfer has already happened.

 

[Galaxy Traveller]

I use both options. But my experience is instead of negotiations end users just hit buy now.