EFTY offers increasing

[garptrader]

Recently there were articles in various domain industry blogs of EFTY increasing its landing page speed and how that might affect the number of inbound offers. I thought I would check if I had seen a similar effect.

Inbound EFTY offers / contact form completions regardless of amount or purpose in 2017....
(note If the same individual submits more than one offer for the same name I only count it as one offer. Quite often this happens at EFTY as they hit submit two to five times.) Note however that not all offers are legit offers as sometimes real estate domains get "inquiries" for real estate and the contact is not interested in a domain. On a job domain, oftentimes the contact is looking for a job. On a bitcoin domain oftentimes the contact is looking to invest in bitcoin. Note I had a stretch a few months ago where I was getting many spam offers - not lowball but guys trying to advertise a website by filling out the contact form. I have excluded those contacts from the count (all but one where they apparently provided a real email address was deleted). Also note that I have not priced or even put in minimum offers on most domains. I generally wait until the first offer and make adjustments. It would be very time consuming to price hundreds of names at once. Over time increasing the number of domains with minimum offers will reduce the number of offers.

January - 6 (5 for .COM)
February - 12 (9 for .COM)
March - 7 (7 for .COM)
April - 7 (6 for .COM)
May - 10 (10 for .COM)
June - 3 (3 for .COM)
July - 16 (12 for .COM)
August - 13 (11 for .COM)

Note however that despite dozens on contacts none of these converted into sales. My price expectations were higher than that of those submitting offers (oftentimes for domains with no minimum or they submitted offers in their local currency which cleared the minimum but was not a true USD offer).

 

[garptrader]

I will add that despite the nonconversion of offers to sales on the platform, in one case I do recall a lowball offer which I did not respond to. However, I took that contact and reviewed my Godaddy Premium Listing pricing and decided to increase the price at Godaddy about 75%. A few weeks later the domain sold at Godaddy. So I can still use the lead form as a means to gauge interest in the domain even if the offers are on the low end. While I have had a bit of interest in one of my gaming domains (and have increased the minimum offer accordingly), bitcoin seems to be the rage. One of my bitcoin domains has had so many inquiries (most not really interested in a domain) that I increased the minimum offer to $5000- and still had someone complete the form. I guess they wanted to invest $5000 in bitcoin.

 

[Ricardo M]

I will add that despite the nonconversion of offers to sales on the platform, in one case I do recall a lowball offer which I did not respond to. However, I took that contact and reviewed my Godaddy Premium Listing pricing and decided to increase the price at Godaddy about 75%. A few weeks later the domain sold at Godaddy. So I can still use the lead form as a means to gauge interest in the domain even if the offers are on the low end. While I have had a bit of interest in one of my gaming domains (and have increased the minimum offer accordingly), bitcoin seems to be the rage. One of my bitcoin domains has had so many inquiries (most not really interested in a domain) that I increased the minimum offer to $5000- and still had someone complete the form. I guess they wanted to invest $5000 in bitcoin.

May i ask the btc domainname out of curiousity as my portfolio is filled with those names. I receive lowballs through Afternic

 

[BrandCougar]

@garptrader -

Thanks for the detailed post.

Based on your numbers, it appears July/August had a positive trend back to double-digit offers. Curious, what was the timing of the EFTY speed improvement update? What date was it announced?

Also, do you mind sharing the number of domains you have listed on EFTY from Jan - Aug ?

Thanks again for providing monthly numbers in your post.

 

[DomainVP]

Note however that despite dozens on contacts none of these converted into sales.

That is the problem with "FOR SALE/OFFER" contact form landers... all lowball offers.

After many $50 - $100 offers using the aforementioned format, I threw this concept in the trash to go for a more developed/in use look. Sure this decreases the the offers, BUT it gets rid of the riff-raff. I haven't received less than a $1000 offer since I switched.

You can also take the Mann/Domain Market approach and just have your price on the landing page. It's something I may try in 2018 if Q4 doesn't pan out as expected.

 

[garptrader]

I recall that in 2016 I had most domains just forwarded to a portfolio home page and my best domains listed / categorized. I tried to not put too many Spanish domains on the category pages for the sake of English buyers who do not understand Spanish. But in the second half of 2016 (six months), just forwarding domains to the portfolio page only resulted in four offers (three .COM). Using the individual landers (EFTY nameservers) increases the number of offers. To control lowball offers eventually I need to place minimums. I usually do not bother to respond if the offer is not within 30-40% of my target price because offers below that range from my experience do not convert into sales.

 

[creataweb]

That is the problem with "FOR SALE/OFFER" contact form landers... all lowball offers.

After many $50 - $100 offers using the aforementioned format, I threw this concept in the trash to go for a more developed/in use look. Sure this decreases the the offers, BUT it gets rid of the riff-raff. I haven't received less than a $1000 offer since I switched.

You can also take the Mann/Domain Market approach and just have your price on the landing page. It's something I may try in 2018 if Q4 doesn't pan out as expected.

Have an example page to view? Would love to see it.

 

[NitroJunkie]

Very informative discussion... Thank you garptrader and all the contributors.

 

[SpareDomains]

I run my own sales pages to get lightning fast loading times. Since the Efty improvement I'm actually testing them now with 400+ domains. Before the improvement I wouldn't have even tested them as features mean nothing if a page takes many seconds to load as that definitely kills off conversions. Making suggestions as well... https://www.namepros.com/posts/6335974/ as that would make it easier for me to say I'll run with these guys instead of doing my own like I've always done. Eyeballing one other provider for a test so the debate will be do I go with one of them or back to my own server.

 

[DN_Hunter]

Thanks for starting this thread. I also read those blogs about increasing the speed might have turned into increased offers. When I read the blogs/articles, I shook my head in agreement because I personally had a "feeling" I have been getting more offers (still low-ball offers, although I did have one sale recently for mid $x,xxx USD).

So to get more accurate numbers (instead of going on a "feeling"), I just looked at my logs and did a rough count -- also filtering the duplicates and the other nonsense...

Keep in mind, I had been gradually adding names after I purchased the annual subscription in February. So the number of Domain Names was going up also...

Month Inquiries (Approx. Number of Domains listed at Efty)
Feb 4 (100 - 250)
Mar 8 (250 - 400)
Apr 9 (400 - 450)
May 10 (450 - 500)
Jun 10 (500 - 550)
Jul 11 (550 - 600)
Aug 23 (550 - 600)
Sep 5 (550 - 600) (as of this morning 9/6/2017)

 

[BrandCougar]

@DN_Hunter -

Thanks for your post!

Also, I appreciate your providing your domain counts for each month to help illustrate potential trending related to volume. August certainly looked like a good uptick.