advice Buying a regged domain name...

[malcolmlo]

Hi Everyone,

Long time lurker first time poster. I have been buying domains for over 15 years now. But not as a speculator, every domain I had ever purchased was regged new and was an idea of my own.

That said I am currently starting a new business and found the perfect domain. As in, no I cant tweak it or anything like that, this is THE domain. I really need to purchase this one.

That said, it is registered by someone using a whoisguard. It has been regged for 14 years. I have not gotten full whois history yet (have to pay for this). The site is parked on a domain parker with SEDO offer request of $500. I offered 120 at first, no answer. Then 400, no answer. I am getting nervous but i think the guy must have an outdated email in his whoisprivacy contact info or something. Or he just doesnt check/care about the domain.

What do I do next? Should I look at domain brokers? Should I call the Registrar and tell them i want to buy the domain and would offer them a cut if they put me in touch with the owner? I already talked to ICANN's whois guard service that he is using and they said they cant tell me anything (obviously).

What do I do next? Keeping in mind i'm not some big company with tons of $$. This business is completely bootstrapped so any funds I spend are my own savings and would take away from other areas of the business. In otherwords, do I NEED a domain broker? Can I afford one? Or should I do more research and digging and be my own domain broker, to investigate and find the owner. Time is also somewhat of the essence here too as I am launching the business within the next 2-3 months.

Thanks,

 

[malcolmlo]

I read the posts here, and I think I might try a slightly different approach. The suggested methods are best, but as they don't seem to work, try this.

Register the name with an xyz extension, you can get this for a couple of cents. Put a mini-site on it that appears to be promoting low value items. Write to the email addy, and say that as you haven't received a reply, then you have had to go with a not so good alternative. Include a unique image in the email, and check your server stats to see if it gets any views. that will tell you if the mail has been read. You can say that you are still interested in his name, as you think it would be better in th email.

That is pretty clever @Kuffy. I think I may try that this weekend. Knowing if he is even getting these offers is really important to this process. For example: if he is not receiving them, or receiving to an old email account and i keep upping my bids, I may overbid.

 

[Kuffy]

You just have to hope he isn't a member here.

 

[malcolmlo]

You just have to hope he isn't a member here.

True, but i doubt it. I mean maybe. But according to SEDO he is in Hong Kong, although that might not be accurate who knows.

 

[Nerevar]

Registering another extension just shows to the domain owner how much you want his domain. If anything, it adds value to the .com domain. Besides, as your business grows on .xyz, you will lose traffic to .com and will want .com even more (or at least this is what the domain owner will think).

Check these markets for a BIN price: Flippa and GoDaddy (Afternic names appear on GoDaddy, but not vice versa).

In Sedo, there is a minimum offer, but AFAIR it is not the value that shows when you search. The value that shows is an indicative BIN, even though the domain is sold via Make Offer. I believe that the minimum offer appears if you make too low an offer: in that case, that system warns you that your offer is too low and will not be seen by the domain owner. I might be wrong (please correct me if you can), but this is what I remember.

 

[HotKey]

@Nerevar It used to be that way, now when you visit a make offer page it automatically displays sellers minimum.

 

[Kuffy]

Registering another extension just shows to the domain owner how much you want his domain. If anything, it adds value to the .com domain. Besides, as your business grows on .xyz, you will lose traffic to .com and will want .com even more (or at least this is what the domain owner will think).

Yes, but it also shows a serious interest, and if he isn't getting any replies using other methods, then he needs to try something different. At the moment, it doesn't look as if he has started the business, so the xyz traffic is not part of his future ( but could be useful of course ). A different name that is kept out of the negotiations would be the way to start of course. Once control of the .com is obtained, then the 3 names can be integrated or used for feeder traffic.

 

[Nerevar]

If I know that someone has registered a 2-word .xyz, I will conclude that he is absolutely desperate for these keywords. So I will ask him a lot more for my .com.

Btw, if the domain is registered at GoDaddy, the topic starter can ask GoDaddy to contact the seller. They do it for a fee.

 

[Kuffy]

I agree, which is why I said put a low value site on it. If it's a site about dog washing the applicant has probably got a smaller budget than a bank looking for a forex trading site.

 

[malcolmlo]

Yes I'm not starting a huge business here, and as mentioned before its totally bootsrapped with a very modest budget. So trying to stretch every dollar here.

The domain's registrar appears to be internetbs.net I've never heard of that one but i'm not an expert. I suppose I could try reaching out to them next to see if they can put me in contact with him for a fee.

I will try kuffy's suggestion first, but with how its gone so far, i doubt i will get any replies. It feels to me like he is not getting the offers at all. But lets see. At least I can hopefully find that out from Kuffy's suggested approach.

 

[malcolmlo]

whoops.

 

[Kuffy]

There is another possibility. You walk away from the whole deal, and look for another name. I know that's hard at the moment, but I have found a few recently using this suggestion tool.

http://www.leandomainsearch.com/

 

[malcolmlo]

If my business ever grows bigger, i will need to buy this name anyways, as it is the exact word for word name of my brand. No words added or removed.

 

[Jayseen]

If my business ever grows bigger, i will need to buy this name anyways, as it is the exact word for word name of my brand. No words added or removed.

Then buy it, make sure it is yours, by every means possible. You will get that money back, and more.
Believe that your business would be profitable, will exceed your expenses and investments.
l know it sounds cheesy, but it is true.
Stop debating and buy.

 

[malcolmlo]

I'm not debating. I need this name. But I cant afford spending 10k on it. That is not an option right now, and if youd have read the thread you would have already read that I have been trying to buy it now for 3 weeks! The owner is not answering any of my contact or bids.

 

[malcolmlo]

OK I tried Kuffy's Suggestion. I regged a similar domain, put up a temp page. Setup an email address, emailed the whois privacy address with streak tracking on. That was on monday the 7th. So far no views on the email. I also submitted a new bid with my email in the comments, im not sure if the comment got through seems it might have gotten blocked by SEDO (they review all comments on the bids). No hits to the website other than myself. Either way, its not certain yet, but definately is looking more and more that he is not receiving any communication on this domain at all.

Next thing I will try is contacting the registrar to ask if they can reach him for me. Then will try SEDO, and finally will hire a broker at SEDO with a max budget of 1500.

 

[malcolmlo]

Maybe he is on here.

Reply from SEDO:

"We're sorry to hear that the seller of this domain has not yet responded to your offer despite our reminders. We can confirm that the seller did receive your offer - this particular seller is fully active and has nearly 200K domains listed in their account and with a good sales history.
Please bear in mind when making bids on domain names that domain sellers are subject to Sedo’s 15% commission fee. The seller may also not be willing to sell at your offered price (even your offer matches their suggested price).
Please also bear in mind that sellers are not obliged to respond to offers made on their domains although we encourage them to do so."

To me this could mean, time to move on and find a second option for a domain.

 

[Haykay2005]

Try and state your preferred keyword in the "request domain" section of this forum with budget . Am sure a better or close option will be provided here on namepros. Try that and see

 

[malcolmlo]

Try and state your preferred keyword in the "request domain" section of this forum with budget . Am sure a better or close option will be provided here on namepros. Try that and see

Hi, i would rather probably just reg any new ideas myself. The keyword is actually a person's name anyways. So most likely people wont have any domains with it, and if i post, whats to stop someone from just regging it right then and selling it to me? Cheers!

 

[Kuffy]

As if we would do a thing like that.

 

[malcolmlo]

As if we would do a thing like that.

I may be a domain "amateur", but that doesnt mean i'm a moron. :D

Anyways I do appreciate all the advice on this, and now that i've secured my new names i can say what the name I was going for is:

lowrys.com

This is my last name, and will be the name of my brand. I offered 1500 final offer on it, but still no reply. My guess is, if the guy has 200k domains he is a pro and he knows the value of this domain. Which, by my estimate would be in the xx,xxx range due to shortness of it and finding a buyer who really needs it. What do you think? I can also post it in the appraisals forum.

 

[Aspiring Billionaire]

I may be a domain "amateur", but that doesnt mean i'm a moron. :D

Anyways I do appreciate all the advice on this, and now that i've secured my new names i can say what the name I was going for is:

lowrys.com

This is my last name, and will be the name of my brand. I offered 1500 final offer on it, but still no reply. My guess is, if the guy has 200k domains he is a pro and he knows the value of this domain. Which, by my estimate would be in the xx,xxx range due to shortness of it and finding a buyer who really needs it. What do you think? I can also post it in the appraisals forum.

IMO, the seller (based on the info provided by Sedo) wouldn't respond to any low offers on lowrys.com. So it makes sense that he did possibly receive all of your offers/messages and simply ignored them.

I think it's fair to say that owning 200+ domain names doesn't necessarily make him a pro, but the fact that he has past sales and also owns lowrys.com (aged 14 years, registered in 2002) would likely qualify him as one.

You initially valued your surname way too low. Surnames easily sell for around $25k+. Your latter estimate is on point. I'd suggest making a better offer when you're willing and able to do so. A re-brand at a later stage wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary (for example, you can start with lowryswhatever.com, then upgrade to lowrys.com when you're by the means). Hopefully your new project/venture will profit enough to finance the purchase.

The fact that you have the opportunity to acquire your surname on the aftermarket is amazing, you should jump at the opportunity to own it - when you're by the means of course.

Anyhow, good luck with your new project/venture, and feel free to share updates, progress and/or any other details in the appropriate sections here on NP.

Regards
Clint

 

[malcolmlo]

IMO, the seller (based on the info provided by Sedo) wouldn't respond to any low offers on lowrys.com. So it makes sense that he did possibly receive all of your offers/messages and simply ignored them.

I think it's fair to say that owning 200+ domain names doesn't necessarily make him a pro, but the fact that he has past sales and also owns lowrys.com (aged 14 years, registered in 2002) would likely qualify him as one.

You initially valued your surname way too low. Surnames easily sell for around $25k+. Your latter estimate is on point. I'd suggest making a better offer when you're willing and able to do so. A re-brand at a later stage wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary (for example, you can start with lowryswhatever.com, then upgrade to lowrys.com when you're by the means). Hopefully your new project/venture will profit enough to finance the purchase.

The fact that you have the opportunity to acquire your surname on the aftermarket is amazing, you should jump at the opportunity to own it - when you're by the means of course.

Anyhow, good luck with your new project/venture, and feel free to share updates, progress and/or any other details in the appropriate sections here on NP.

Regards
Clint

Thank you, I agree I will wait until I can afford it. Hopefully I can at some point.

You misread, he doesnt own 200 domains, he owns 200,000 domains.

Cheers.

 

[Kuffy]

I looked at lowrys.com, and it is parked with Sedo. There is a button at the top of the page which says

BUY THIS DOMAIN
The owner of lowrys.com is offering it for sale for an asking price of 500 USD!

I'm getting the impression that this statement by Sedo is fictional - is this true?

 

[malcolmlo]

The 500 USD asking price? I'm not sure, it does seem low if the guy is not listening to any offers in that range. No idea whats going on with this domain, i kind of gave up on it. But if you guys have any other ideas or find any other information about it thats helpful I'm all ears, i just cant afford much right now, my final offer was 1500.