End user approached me - Question

[Kekiru]

Hey guys, I just got into domaining 2-3 week ago and got my first offer 3 days ago by an end user who emailed me.
The end user asked me if I was selling my domain and the price for it. I gave him my price mid $x,xxx and he replied with "$x,xxx. Ok" followed by two questions
- are you part of any domain forums?
- are you an experienced seller?

I responded truthfully that I just joined one forum on the day and had no sales experience.

Now my question is, what could I have done better?

 

[JB Lions]

Not answered those 2 questions. It's got nothing to do with selling a domain and he might see your "no sales experience" as some sort of advantage for himself and try to use it.

"I gave him my price mid $x,xxx and he replied with "$x,xxx. Ok"

He replied with low x,xxx? So the deal didn't get done?

 

[SlimPickins]

how do you KNOW it is a legitimately interested "enduser"/ how have you confirmed this? based on an business email address that you can confirm and clearly see a relationship to the domain they inquired about?

regarding the 2 questions, i agree with jb lions that responding to them served at least YOU no positive purpose.... he may have been hoping that, despite your quoted price, he could find a thread where you were selling (or attempting to sell with no bites) the domain at a significantly lower "reseller" price that he could pounce on and circumvent your pricing based on your knowledge/belief that he is an "enduser". And the question regarding whether you are an experienced seller..... I would have simply assured him that the transaction would be conducted in a mutually secure manner such as an escrow service etc and given ZERO indication of whether you are experienced at pricing domains and negotiating or how desperate you might be to make a sale....

hope it still works out for you but i for one question how much of an enduser it really was. difficult to say not knowing what the domain is/who they are like you do (and i do not suggest that you share that specific info in this thread which would be indexed and perhaps be one more thing the guy could find and further weaken your bargaining position), whether it is a recent hand reg by you (who you say are new to the industry) and just by chance/luck received an offer shortly thereafter or if it is and older domain that has been unavailable for some time that you bought on forums etc.... good luck!

 

[Kate]

Smells like the domain appraisal scam.

 

[surprise]

Hey guys, I just got into domaining 2-3 week ago and got my first offer 3 days ago by an end user who emailed me.
The end user asked me if I was selling my domain and the price for it. I gave him my price mid $x,xxx and he replied with "$x,xxx. Ok" followed by two questions
- are you part of any domain forums?
- are you an experienced seller?

I responded truthfully that I just joined one forum on the day and had no sales experience.

Now my question is, what could I have done better?

Hi there

Exactly what happened to me , exact same answer same way same questions , i answered his questions and i moved on , its ok , you don't have to analyse his response , just leave it there he has your price now and if he is interested he will come back , i dont think he is an end user , he is more like a domain investor , or some sort of a webmaster or something in that area , i think he will try to find a buyer before he comes back to you , or maybe he will wait you to contact him again and beg him to take the domain for 100 $ :imho:

 

[Kekiru]

Not answered those 2 questions. It's got nothing to do with selling a domain and he might see your "no sales experience" as some sort of advantage for himself and try to use it.

"I gave him my price mid $x,xxx and he replied with "$x,xxx. Ok"

He replied with low x,xxx? So the deal didn't get done?

Sorry, I should of made it clear that he repeated the price I gave him with the ok for it and the questions in the same email.

Now that I think about it again, he may have just been a reseller because his business was a "hosting service" but I couldn't dig any info out of the email address or his "company" name (was too niche).

I guess I'll keep fishing for my first sale :p

 

[Alan58]

Hi Kekiru, according to you,what can be the thing that made him interested in your domain?

 

[surprise]

related :

http://www.namepros.com/warnings-and-alerts/766997-domain-appraisal-scam.html

 

[Klem]

Exacly what happend to me. Got an email from webspace [at] cheap-web-hosting-search [dot] com.
He requested an appraisal and recommended this site: trademark-valuation-agency[dot]com/appraisal.htm.
I kindly refused to do an appraisal here and I got no answer back. So I consider it SCAM!

 

[Bannen]

Hi Kekiru
Welcome to Namepros.

As 3 members posted above, this sounds exactly like an appraisal scam. Check the link 'surprise' posted above and read about what an appraisal scam is. Better yet, copy/paste the email text into a post here and we'll tell you right away if it's the common template the scammers use.

What tips us off is:
- You're new to domaining and you received an email offer regarding a freshly-registered name (extremely rare, usually only domainers who are pro at finding great available names and then email dozens/hundreds of end users will get offers)
- The offer was okay'd in the x,xxx range! Extremely high amount to offer for what is (probably) a poor quality domain name, if you just regged it and you're a newbie. No offense
- The terminology of their reply was 'x,xxx okay'. The appraisal scammers, pretty much every time, respond that way. You say '$8,000', they say '$8,000 okay'.
- The offer was made by someone whose email sig said he was a hosting business. Another dead giveaway to the appraisal scam.

If he tells you that your domain must be appraised before he will buy it, because he needs to know fair market value for it, or some other such nonsense - it's the scam.


Sorry to bear the bad news. Almost every newbie seems to receive the appraisal scam, it's been going on for years. Back in my early days I received these, but luckily didn't fall for it. My domaining partner back then did, wasted $60 on the paid appraisal.

Good luck. Hang around and read up on domaining so you don't fall into any of the common traps

 

[Domainer37]

Stay away.he is a scammer.

If he ask for domain appraisal certificate then He is a scammer and stay away from him.you will lost the money that cost
Appraisal cert.
and Cr card etc info.
Proof.
Its happend to me as well.the scammer give me a link after agree with my price. Then he have me a link to create an appraisal certificate in order to process the deal at cost 49 pounds.so tried to get appraisal certificate.luckily at that time there system was down.so i did not get that.then i google searched for domain appraisal certificate and found that,these are scams.
So google search for his email id,website and see what happens.

 

[bulkdomainz]

@ Kekiru

Welcome to da Klub!

For the next time, your 'forum membership' and 'domain sales experience' are not things you should be disclosing to strangers in emails!