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?

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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]

I'm Responding to all inquiries except chinese low ball.

Ah, I forgot about those - I also ignore them. Or any offers when I know the buyer is domainer and they will not pay more than a reseller value (e.g. bulk spam about LLL.co).

 

[Shams]

Ah, I forgot about those - I also ignore them. Or any offers when I know the buyer is domainer and they will not pay more than a reseller value (e.g. bulk spam about LLL.co).

Aaah Haa.. Well i always over quote those inquiries to let them scratch their head.

 

[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..

 

[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.

 

[kandyan]

."
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.

True... I always respond with politeness.. and never experienced insults except your wording D*CK...

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?

 

[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/

 

[Kate]

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.

When you own LLL.com domains for example, you get spam almost every day. With experience you recognize the tire kickers and the curious in the blink of an eye. I will ignore the $200 offers.

Maybe it would be a good idea to set up an autoresponder on the mailbox, sending a link to DNJ back to the lowballer.

 

[Dominic Belley]

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

Its not like I was receiving hundreds of inquiries everyday. I can take 2 minutes of my time to reply to an offer even if I feel it is spam or not really serious.

We never know.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[mitch007]

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.

AMEN

 

[SpareDomains]

I did years ago and have turned xx initial into mid-high xxxx before. Today since busier with websites I have minimum offers set so any offers I receive now are at least 25-50% of my sales price which makes the leads warmer to begin with which avoids price checks/time wasting. So I get less offers now but more qualified/successful leads as don't have the time for tire kickers.

 

[DNabc]

I do not, depends on their request and the day they contact me. My time is really valuable, and no longer have availability to spend hours a week answering people. At parking pages I even wrote "$xxx offers are ignored." but I get $100 offers anyway... which percentage of those will lead to a sale? Not many I am afraid.