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discuss Do you respond to all inbound inquiries?

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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?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
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.
 
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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
 
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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.
 
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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.
 
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Also get a lot of offers to buy the stupid domains...
 
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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.
 
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The ones with a block of gibberish (spam bypass trick?) at the bottom are not replied to.

Also the "you own a similar domain" - will you buy our way worse domain? One offered to sell me one of my drops. :)
 
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LOL... I get people offering to sell me my drops all the time. No, I don't respond to them, either. If they wanted it, they can have it, I obviously decided that it was no longer a viable investment.

As far as not responding to low-ball offers, I would prefer not to. Any real domainer worth his salt that only offers $100 to $200 as their initial offer is over greedy, insulting and ludicrous. I say F 'em. They should know better and by not being realistic they tell me that they are idiots I'd rather not deal with.

Unfortunately, I do reply, even after I have sold the domain. And I do know for fact that some of these guys are trying to rip me off, and it is always the super insulting low-ball offers of less than $300 that are always (without fail) the absolute hardest to deal with and that they always refuse to come up to a fair price (not even getting to an offer that is 1/2 its fair-market value).

And an initial reply might only take 30 secs to 1 minute, but explaining the value to an idiot or even one who only wants to flip a domain at a steal takes more like 30 minutes to an hour each time. Not worth it, I just stop responding. They can up their offer if they really want it, I didn't say "go away" but they know I'm too busy for their crap.
 
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And an initial reply might only take 30 secs to 1 minute, but explaining the value to an idiot or even one who only wants to flip a domain at a steal takes more like 30 minutes to an hour each time.

I agree there are many "idiots" out there, but I think it is better to send short reply than nothing. Of course it is not worth to spend 30 minutes explaining why your domain is worth more, but 30 seconds reply wont hurt anyone. Then you will see if you are dealing with complete "idiot" who wants premium domain for peanuts or he just hoped that you are uneducated and that you will sell your premium domain even under reseller value and will now start serious negotiation.

Regarding offers to buy from them, just because it is "similar" to mine, I usually dont respond to that. However, few days ago I responded with advice that he better search for end users instead of spamming every domain with similar domain, and did not hear back from him after that. I gave him free golden advice and did not receive even "thank you" :) Some people should take decency lessons
 
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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.

Doesn't work as I set BINs and didn't display properly on landers. Support has weird and confusing layout.

Use Bodis landers right now.
 
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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.
 
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Do you respond to all inbound inquiries?

no
 
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I prefer to reply on almost all occasions, also because there are very few offers that I receive, so don't feel any trouble leaving a short reply.
 
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If it is an annoying lowball offer I usually reply: "Would you sell me your house for $5000?"
Mind you, the names they are inquiring about are worth 6 or 7 figures.
 
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Like I said, I reply to all initial offers. I can pretty much tell if they are serious or not right then. I don't want to reply to them all, but have to. Their reply to mine usually always verifies my first impression. But free that, I only continue conversations with serious businessmen.

It's not OK that some are just theives. Apparently spam and scams are a part of business, but that doesn't make them OK, either.
 
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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.
 
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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
 
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I respond to all offers, but as my names are listed with a BIN, I do not often get any lowballers.

Maybe except from one or two per year, via WHOIS.
 
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Yes, I think good to respond whether deal is going to be done or not.
 
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Its smart business practice to respond to all offers, even lowball offers. Its part of business. A lowball offer can genuinely lead to a significant sale and it only takes 30 secs to reply.

The other benefit of responding to a lowball offer is to think long term. If the lowballer gains more experience in the domain business, they know they can make a more realistic offer in future without being ignored and are more likely to make the offer.

Essentially, the moral of the story is, dont burn bridges...you never know which one of those lowballers may one day become a regular buyer.
 
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Here is a scenario to think about:

Person emails you about a domain you own and they want to buy. Even with a lowball offer it doesn't hurt to respond with a purchase link or more detailed landing page. If they offer $100 and you want $1,000 - you never know until you try. They might pay it. Literally takes a few seconds. And like someone mentioned already, if you don't have a top notch only domain portfolio you don't have much to lose except 30 seconds of your time. Doesn't require a 2 page essay response. Just paste your price and link to buy it now.
 
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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
Injuries or inquiries?
 
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