discuss Do you respond to all inbound inquiries?

[garptrader]

Just curious as to the board's views on responding to lowball inquiries. My experience has been they do not convert into sales so my view is I only respond if I believe I have a serious buyer. A serious buyer is generally an end user who makes an initial offer which indicates they might agree to my target price. If the offer is say 40% of my target price I will probably respond. If the initial offer is less than 10% of my target price then I probably do not. Of course some inquiries just come in asking for the price without any offer at all. Sometimes they convert but generally they do not. Anyway, thoughts?

 

[guilty]

I believe that no inbound injuries should be ignored; even the lowball ones. If you get a $10 offer for your domain that you think is worth at least 4-figure offers, it won't hurt to reply to that offer. Some people are just naive about the value of domains. You never know, you might turn a $xx offer into a $xxxx or even $xxxxx

 

[infosec3]

I respond to all inquiries. There are a few cases in which a $100 has become a mid $x,xxx sale. I do not understand the logic of not responding.

 

[bmugford]

Nope. I focus my time and energy on the ones more likely to pan out. In the past I responded to all inquiries. Often all you get out of lowballers are a bad attitude and sense of entitlement.

For me it was not worth the resource drain for a tiny % than might pan out.

Brad

 

[Kate]

One thing to think about too: be careful about what you write. What you say and write can and will be used against you. The other party might sometimes be a TM holder of some sort, hoping he can document a pattern of bad faith by obtaining a statement to the effect that the domain is for sale. Of course, there has to be a sum of circumstances but the point is you have to take care not to jeopardize your position needlessly.
For coveted domains, predators will sometimes resort to deception and downright treachery. We have plenty of examples of that.

If you are going to reply back, try to find out about the other party if possible. You may also ask that the other party contacts you from an identifiable mail address, and using their real name. At this point, you will probably not hear from them again. But you have every right to refuse contact with anonymous parties who don't show their hand.

When you own valuable domains, you have to be a bit paranoid.
My point is: there is potential downside to responding to all inquiries. You don't want to engage with time wasters, jealous people or predators.

 

[Michael]

Unless you have a phenomenal portfolio ignoring people won't result in sales. Either respond to all inquiries or get a broker to do it for you if the volume is too high. Even if you don't research the buyer and give a brief "thanks for your interest but that is far too low" response it is better than nothing.

The last lowball offer I was tempted to ignore but didn't started at $250 and closed at $30k. Maybe he would have kept chasing me down if I ignored him, but maybe not. Obviously the exception and not the rule but still, it only takes one to make it all worth it.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I don't respond on $xx.

But if $xxx - always.
Per my experience even after 100 EUR initial bid - my negotiations were finalized at 2,400 EUR and the domain was sold.

 

[S-B]

I'm a firm believer that failing to respond to an offer says that the person is too lazy to be bothered with business.

It's kind of like a store owner ignoring you while you stand in line at the register because you are only buying gum.

 

[trp3]

I respond to everything, not only because I was that fascinated from those '$5 lowball offer went to 5 figure closing deal' stories, rather just because of kindness.

No matter who you are or what you already reached, always stay on the ground.

 

[mad409]

I respond to all inquiries asking for a price but here lately no one replies back. Seems to be a lot of price checking going on, just to see what the asking price is.

I'm not even getting, thanks but that's to much, counter offers etc...

I'd like to get some kind of reply but that hasn't been the case lately.

 

[DomainVP]

Low responsiveness works best. Silence is golden.

 

[mad409]

Low responsiveness works best. Silence is golden.

I admit doing some outbound but the results have been bad. If you have good domains they will find you and contact you. All of my sales have been inbound sales..

 

[bluebox]

I'm not swamped with offers (unfortunately) so I respond to all, even $10 offers.

The thing is - if you ignore them (especially emails) the buyer never knows if they offer was too low or maybe their message landed in spam folder.
If you don't specify desired BIN then of course the potential buyer will start with small amount - why offer $xxxx if the seller might be willing to sell for $100. I never offer the full amount I'm willing to pay.

Obviously if you have huge portfolio with premium names you don't have time (or need) to answer every lowball offer.
I think most people here don't have a "problem" like that LOL

 

[Shams]

I'm Responding to all inquiries except chinese low ball.I think they don't have another work to do and that's y they are keep sending low ball offers. I marked them as spam.

 

[bluebox]

Question is what if someone who's genuinely interested in your domain but doesn't understand the value of domains? like in my case? Unless you educate him in a polite manner ofcourse?

Depends on what kind of name you are selling - unfortunately I don't have a good answer why my reg fee domains are worth more than a reg fee LOL
If your name is high value he will not be the last person interested - I don't bother educating potential buyers, either they want it enough to pay the BIN or not.
But you can always send him to dnjournal.com:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/domainsales/

 

[DomainVP]

I do respond to all inquiries and politely no matter what the offer is.

The less polite you are, the more sales you will convert. I stopped being 'nice' per-se and it's helped me make close more profitable sales.

I'm not saying that you should try to be mean or rude; but you should try being short and to the point, unresponsive at times, and always choose the words you use carefully to reflect a strong business acumen.

Being polite only shows them that you would be interested in selling the domain from the start.

 

[DN Invest Ltd]

I am surprised to see some experienced domainers don't respond to all offers.

First of all, when we as a company or I personally want to buy some domain, it is normal to send inquiry from completely untraceable e-mail. I believe many do the same thing. Do you think that Google will ask about some domain from official Larry Page e-mail address? I don't think they are so stupid

Low balling? Yes, it is part of this business and most of us do that unless you don't want to try to get domain cheaper. You can always send another, more fair offer. $50 offer could lead to a $5000 sale, and it was the case in soooooooo many situations. If you don't respond you may piss off potential buyer, or he/she/they may switch to another domain and you will never know what could be his really best offer.

It takes only 30 seconds to respond, or less than 5 minutes if you do research after each inquiry or offer (recommended). I doubt there are many domainers here who receive 100+ offers per day, and if so, then it should not be a problem to work at least 8 hours per day as you most likely making solid $xxxx or more per day.

 

[Wannabean]

Mostly the lowball offers don't convert but it's still an opportunity to educate a buyer. Who knows, they might come back later with a proper offer.

 

[bluebox]

a guy wanted one of my High Value? domains Transferred to him free of charge because I'm not using it. I sent him pretty much all the info about domaining and it's value..

I wouldn't bother with lengthy replies - some see us as "evil domain squatters" and will never pay more than a reg fee (as a principle)
I just send them: "Thank you for your offer. BIN is xxxx. Feel free to contact me when you can increase your budget."
Short, polite and you give them a chance to contact you in the future.
And as always: don't be a d**ck - sometimes I just want to roll my eyes and send them some sarcastic reply but it's not worth it.
If someone hurl insults at you - just ignore it, don't engage in back and forth exchange because it might end up on somebody's blog or Reddit.

 

[Domainating]

I get so much spam from domainers it is ridiculous. Because I own xxxxxx.com do I want xyzxxxxxxx.com? Or they add a hyphen, or I own the .com and they have the misspelled .net. I have the .us and they add sk to the front as a .net? Who cares?!!!

I get these all the time and they are coming from a system using parked names as email and the hosting is dynamic. That is, they use a ton of different email addresses and names, but it actually all gets forwarded to another account. I am sure there is more than one person, but not that many.

Only once (long ago) have I gotten a good name in the spam, but it was from a reputable source with a verifiable address and company profile. I did jump on it. But never before or since then, not one spam has ever sent me a half decent suggestion.

They are such pathetic names, really. But I do look at the spam.

I do respond to all price inquiries, but can't take any low-ball offer seriously about anything. Any domain that anyone else wants is worth a minimum of $350.00 and .coms are worth at least $600.00, so $100 or $200 offers are insulting and in responding I can sense that they all know it.

 

[kandyan]

I do respond to every single offer... I think that's part of domaining. Not every body's well versed in the world of domaining.. so a little education/information would go a long way... few days ago.. a guy wanted one of my High Value? domains Transferred to him free of charge because I'm not using it. I sent him pretty much all the info about domaining and it's value.. if he reads it he'll come out as a domain grad which of course will reduce low ball offers? and save wasted domainer times... I hope..

 

[Dominic Belley]

The less polite you are, the more sales you will convert. I stopped being 'nice' per-se and it's helped me make close more profitable sales.

I'm not saying that you should try to be mean or rude; but you should try being short and to the point, unresponsive at times, and always choose the words you use carefully to reflect a strong business acumen.

Being polite only shows them that you would be interested in selling the domain from the start.

I understand your point, but I see things differently.

I am "short and to the point" but without being rude or insulting. To me, politeness does not equal weakness at all.

 

[Uniregistry]

If you're using Uniregistry Market always set up your names to "Make Offer / BIN", that way your account collects the lead and displays your BIN price to the buyer. Once the buyer has seen your BIN and navigates away :

1. An inquiry will have been created in your inbox based on the buyer's inquiry
2. Under your Market (carat tab)/market options/negotiation templates, update the quote price and request offer email templates to something really short and personal to you.
3. In your market inbox respond to the buyer's inquiry with either a price quote or a request for an offer.

As soon as you respond the system will start following up with the buyer.. You can elect Uniregistry brokers to help you, but be prepared, the sales cycle is 90 days or more, so the name you give a price on today may not close until well into the future. Sometimes it takes several follow up calls, but the system works. You will build a conveyor belt pipeline of deals that close in the future.

The market gives you great insight into your buyers, you can see their IP their city, their previous offers and inquiries on other names across the market. It let's you cross-reference buyers against other inquiries and purchases.

And if your buyer returns to the name they are forwarded automatically to the negotiation page rather than the parked lander so they can continue negotiating.

The best trick for increasing sales on all those old leads is to create a Uniregistry Market account and load all your names in. Set up your prices and make offer/ BIN settings, then go back into your email and forward all those old email inquiries you have filed away doing nothing in your email client mail folder to [email protected]

The system will rack and stack each of those leads inside your market account. After you action them once with a friendly follow up, the system will begin its work converting those old leads into sales.

It works. You'll build a pipeline, close deals and make more money.

 

[garptrader]

While I realize buyers can be located in any country and may not speak English, here is an example of a recent inbound offer (two-word .COM) for $100 which I will not respond to....

Potential buyer name.... af大嘴鱼

Email.... [email protected] (my guess is China)

IP address lookup shows... China Education and Research Network Center in Chengdu, Sichuan, China

message... 阿飞推è

 

[frank-germany]

I do respond to every single offer... I think that's part of domaining. Not every body's well versed in the world of domaining..

same for me

I will let them know that the domain is not for sale within their offers price range