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.

 

[Federer]

For the past 12 months, I did an experiment and added a BIN price to 4500 domains.
Over the year, 27 domains sold, an average of 0.6%. The average sales price was around $1450.
Ratio was: initial investment (cost of domains) x 4.36 = profit (after taking off commissions and registration costs) - which was excellent, despite the low sales %.

Over 3 months, I did the same experiment with another set of 1050 domains (BIN priced them all).
3 domains sold over the 3 month period, an average of around 1.35%. The average sales price was around €1350.
Ratio: initial investment (cost of domains) x 3.92 = profit (after taking off commissions and registration costs).

Starting April 2018, I switched strategies and adding "make offer" with a min £200/$200/€200 to all pages.
Results after one (group of 9500 domains that cost just £9500, promo price):
11 sales in April ( = yearly average: 1.4%). Average sale around $921.
Formula: initial investment (cost of domains) x 7 = profit

Also applied the "make offer" strategy to another group of 3135 domains (€9400 cost). Results:
4 sales in April ( = yearly average: 1.53%). Average sale around €1175.
Formula: initial investment (cost of domains) x 4.08 = profit

Results, offers can vary depending on season, quality of domains etc. However it seems that "make offer" can actually result in selling slightly more names/year. I believe that more buyers can be turned away by higher-than-budget BINs, than buyers that would be turned away (see a listing and not make an offer at all) be seeing "make offer" rather than a BIN price.
With a reasonable min offer, you can attract offers from buyers that do not have the typical sweet spot budget ($x,xxx to mid $x,xxx); several mid to high $xxx sales add up fast.
"Make offer" also gives you the opportunity to extract max. value for a majority of sales, as upon receiving interest/an offer, you can research the buyer, the popularity/potential brand value of the domain you are selling (checking out tech/hot terms; a domain could overnight gain more in-demand/value-enhancing characteristics).

BIN-pricing the entire portfolio is great for mass-selling in the sweet-spot with ease. That is why NameFind, HugeDomains.com are set up that way; it streamlines the process with as little friction as possible; no negotiations, almost everything is automated - and so it should be when we are talking millions of domains under MGMT.

However, with regards to portfolios comprising of 5000-100,000 domains, I think the ideal strategy, in most cases would be to combine both models, but placing emphases on the "make offer" set up. This would be done by BIN pricing around 25-30% of the portfolio (obviously not including any ultra-premiums in that mix) and leaving the majority with "make offer". This could ensure that you would extract max. value from the majority of the portfolio, whilst leaving a portion on auto-sell.

This feedback is simply based on my past experience (past 3-12 months) and the models, to a great extent, have produced successful results across the board.

 

[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

 

[ramkumaritrvs]

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.

 

[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.)

 

[spikedo]

My current business model is to price everything. I sell 1-3% of my portfolio per year (~40 out of ~1300 domains) and turn $30k-$50k gross sales into $15k-$20k net profit annually on a part-time basis. I park domains at Uniregistry and also list at Afternic/Godaddy and Sedo. Domains priced $1,288 to $3,500 work best for me at BuyDomains/GoDaddy/Afternic. These are usually geo types (e.g., rockvillechiropractor.com - not mine) or industry specific (e.g., goplumbers.com - not mine). Lately, I'm seeing success with domains priced at $9,888, mostly in financial and real estate industry. I used to put these at below $5k but you won't get it unless you ask for it. I'm raising prices on short domains, catchy phrase domains, and industrial types. It's getting harder to sell via e-mail so all domains have Uniregistry landers with submit inquiries to seller boxes. I can't see another way for me now considering whois is completely hosed. Asking for offers brings too many tire kickers. I've never had a low-ball turn into a sale even with me educating them on why the domain was priced the way it was. I think I saw an article that Rick said all the good domains were gone. That's pigeon $hit. You can make money but you have to adapt on occasion. I sold a few domains recently that I've had for nearly a decade so patience is also needed.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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

 

[Silentptnr]

Most people are conditioned to see price tags, meaning BIN prices.

The interesting thing is, it seems like buyers get shy with Make Offer, but with BIN prices, buyers try to make offers to get a better price than the BIN.

Overall, BIN works the best when the pricing is smart.

Second is auction style. After the first bid or two, some buyers bid just because others are.

Last, in my opinion, is Make Offer. I get the most low-ball offers where much more often than not, the buyer doesn't come up.

That's my experience. I don't reinvent the wheel. Most things that are for sale, have a clear price. To most people, make offer means there will be negotiation. Something most people have an aversion to.

 

[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.

 

[Galaxy Traveller]

Pros of BIN
1. End users buy it instantly without second thought and confidently.
2. Sometimes end user buy it and later they change their mind, but they already brought it.
3. Many end users are not comfortable to engage in a negotiation.
4. Many end users think they will buy it in future if buy it now is not available, buy it now prevent this.
5. Save time for busy buyer.

Cons of BIN
1. It is very difficult to set perfect BIN price even for experience domainers.
2. Sometimes end users are ready to pay many fold more but using buy it now they get it cheap.
3. Buy it now sometimes discourage buyers because they feel it over price and move away, specially when seller is ready to accept half price of it.

Pros of Make Offer
1. Negotiation can sometimes make both party happy and a successful sale.
2. Sometimes buyer make high offer, e.g. when you ready to accept xxx figure and buyer offer you xxxx price.
3. Some buyer start with low offer and later go for much higher.

Cons of Make Offer
1. Negotiation is also very difficult for buyer and seller it can go wrong easily.
2. It sometimes scare away buyer if buyer not ready to counter with lower offer
(e.g. if buyer offered xxx I countered with xxxxx then buyer will not feel comfortable to counter it with lower price)
3. Sometimes buyer changer his/her mind during negotiation.

Collusion: If BIN price is almost perfect it will increase sale. Needless to say few super premium domains are not suitable for BIN price. Hence I use both. If buyer feels price is high, he/she can make offer, and thus it increase sale probability.

 

[creataweb]

Right now I'm experimenting with a full combo option.

I am doing BINs with my full price; connected to that is a MAKE OFFER option in case they want to make an offer (and within that is a minimum offer that they must exceed for me to see it); there is an option to CONTACT me as well in case they want to discuss something outside of the BIN / OFFER; lastly there is a payment plan varying from 12 to 60 months for the full asking price.

I will report back how this goes in the near future.

 

[Federer]

We have now gone ahead streamlining a new "3 month test"; after several months of "make offer" listings, we are now pricing +90% of our inventory (high-premium names will be left on "make offer"). Today I have priced (at Sedo & Afternic/GD) over 30,000 domains at 5 different price-points, across 5 different extensions. Will post results in 90 days.
How are your sales experiences going? Do you prefer BIN on the vast majority of your portfolio or make offer?

The key question is which model is producing more profits for you long-term?

 

[ivey]

Bin.

Would you want to go on Amazon or Macy's and spend 3 weeks negotiating a price for a T-shirt you want?
Negotiations are necessary sometimes, but pricing your domains at or a little below the current market value is ideal. Businessmen and women are busy people man... and they would love to just see a reasonable price and buy straightway...

You also avoid losing sales, because some buyers buy in a moment where they have a strong urge and that feeling could go the next day or week. So if they can buy right away or within a few days then that benefits you.

Maybe a few premium domains that you don't have a pinpoint price on.. you can leave for offers.. as you have more flexibility and power. Maybe you can catch a whale..

 

[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

 

[d-e-x]

And what is your experience, which works better for you so far?

Sedo - Make Offer
Afternic - BIN

That is my experience

 

[JudgeMind]

My highest sales to date have been via make offer. For first half of 2017 I priced all of my domains with buy it now prices. This resulted in 29 sales in $999-$3000 range. My best domains we’re priced in mid $xx,xxx range.

Half way through 2017 I switched my model to make offer and started using edgy snd undeveloped. I closed another 32 sales but prices weren’t consistent they ranged from $299 - $65,000..

I should note that two of my high priced buy it no domains were listed as buy it now for over two years without any sales.. after switching about 400 domains (I had listed at bin >$10,000) to make offer, I sold two in six months.

 

[Brands.International]

Follow this:

A) if you have CRAP portfolio, then set VERY LOW BINs for each domain names. MAKE OFFER will not do.

B) if you have GREAT portfolio:

B1 - for quick sale, set low BINs
B2 - for slower sale, but higher profit, set higher BINs
B3 - for slow sale, but highest possible profit set domains to MAKE OFFER.

For B3 - if you do not want to deal and/or be frustrated by low ball offers, set MINIMUM OFFER to USD 1000 - that will do in most cases.

 

[hookbox]

Don't give them a chance to think about it. Make Offer gives them time to think. People looking for a name are more likely to Impulse purchase a name because they are actually looking for a name at that exact moment in time. Give them the chance to "pull the trigger" and they probably will.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

When you set a BIN price for a domain. You are legally binding to sell it when the buyer purchase it.

Thanks. Got your point. However, I think it's highly unlikely to happen. The best thing one can follow is to remove the name immediately from the other marketplace from where it's not sold. Buyer is not crazy to buy from both places and unlikely for someone else to buy in the same timings.

 

[frank-germany]

Here are four actual quotes from Sedo:

“Sedo recommends listing domains as Buy Now. Our research shows that using a fixed sales option such as Buy Now could increase your sales volume by 30%!”

“Buy Now domains are three times more likely to sell than standard ‘make offer’ domains, according to market research from Sedo and our partners.”

(That’s the important stat I remembered and referred to in my earlier comment. I know, I know, these quotes don’t seem to exactly agree with each other!)

“We recommend that domains falling into the price range 250 EUR/GBP to 5000 EUR/GBP should be listed with a Buy Now (fixed) price. Our internal statistics show that domains in this price range sell much more quickly when the buyer does not have to negotiate.”

“For domains valued above 5000 EUR/GBP we recommend listing as ‘Make Offer’ so that you are able to negotiate with the other party.”

(This last quote agrees in principle with what Godaddy recommends in 2018, though Godaddy sets a much much higher threshold. I agree with a higher threshold.

On the other hand, these Sedo quotes are likely a few years old and may need updating.)

I can’t provide links, but you can search for any of these quotes in their entirety if you want to read more.

as a sedo broker you earn a commission

if there is negotiation involved
they need a compensation to actively sell it
below 5k the commission doesn't justify the effort for them

so their advice
is biased