discuss End users with intent & money to buy. But not wanting to spend on domain!

[Smooth]

We all get low ball offers from end-users. At least on few of my domains, I have active enquiries from individuals or organizations. They have the intent & interest, and money definitely. But somehow aren't justified by the prices.

Eg. A large real estate company with each property sold for at least $50k, refuses to spend $5k on a brandable .com domain. They have the same name in a different extension. My research shows they spend a lot on offline brand campaigns too.

A finance company with $50m funding reached out to me recently. Again they don't want to spend more than $500 for the domain they want to use as primary.

Question is: How do you guys move forward in such cases, which has given reasonable success in closing sales?

-Just be patient (I've tried this, sometimes sale never happens)?
-Proactively share why the domain is valuable?
-Any other idea that has worked for you?

 

[Haykay2005]

I experience something similar. I choose to be patient

 

[mad409]

A finance company with $50m funding reached out to me recently. Again they don't want to spend more than $500 for the domain they want to use as primary.

I get that a lot. I've seen it's usually a lack of knowledge and a bit of
arrogance with whomever is representing the company.

 

[karmaco]

Not really an answer to your question but making the lowest accepted offer the actual lowest you are willing to sell for can cut down on frustration. Open ended low starting offers encourage lowballing IMO.

 

[Haykay2005]

Just recently, an insurance broker offered me $249 for the .com extension they are willing to acquire. They own a similar but longer name .net....

 

[DASHCAMCLIPS]

Play the buyer like he plays you. Depending on the name you can send them an email that a competing company in their market has made inquiries on the name.

 

[Kuffy]

One idea that I had, but haven't tried yet, Is to put a number of links to maybe a dozen companies. Then write to the companies and suggest that they check their server stats to see what the natural traffic is like. I thought this might create a competitive situation, or could lead to a bit of income from sponsor programmes.

 

[Smiles76]

Maybe your domains are overpriced. Home owners selling their homes have to drop their prices all the time. The market not seller ultimately determines what something is worth.

 

[Skumars]

Most of them cannot digest the fact that domain names which come at $10 each (normally) are raised to 500-1000 times their initial value (sometimes even 10000-50000 times also) , since they know no similar commodity which has such an exponential increase.

 

[Irene123]

Its simple and logical answer is that people are not fully reli on domaining even they have fundings but they are not confident to invest.
They have trust on physical things and regret virtual things.
They feel confident to invest in those assets that they can touch.

 

[Irene123]

Other reasons are included lack of knowledge about domaining and seo. Not every one expert of this technical feild.

 

[Kate]

It is puzzling that companies are reluctant to spend money on a good domain that will be their permanent business card on the Internet, when they happily spend 6 figures on (ephemeral) online and offline advertising.
I'd like to get my hands on their invoices and send them back along with my quote.

 

[garptrader]

I work in finance / accounting so I see the invoices, financial statements, budgets. No joke in the last two years I have worked on more than $300 million in equipment finance deals. It is normal for attorneys to charge $250-$400 an hour while IT professionals are billed out at $90-$150 / hour. A simple IT project will run five figures while a larger ongoing project will run well into six figures. Corporate travel can entail a five-figure expenditure for a single business trip while online marketing can easily run six figures annually. Recently I pointed out a job ad for a SEO PPC manager in Palm Beach County who would responsible for a $250k monthly PPC budget.

Yet domains are often viewed like the garbage can for the break room - anything over $XX is too expensive. What can we make up for reg fee? Yet your business is going to be branded on that crap for the next ... years. When you run a Google Adwords campaign you don't think a poor domain hurts the click-through rate? When people run a search on Google or Bing and see several listings, IMO the domain is a factor in the decision as to which site you choose first. Some double-hyphenated .Info is not going to be my first choice. A two-word .COM will win out over an inferior TLD.

So while there is lively debate about .COM vs alt TLD vs NTLD, the biggest challenge domain investors face is an unwillingness of end users to pay more than reg fee for any domain.

 

[BaileyUK]

There's been good analysis and comments so far in this thread. I would also add my thoughts about a changing emphasis from the general media and perspective of the general public about the internet no longer being seen as "Must be immediately onboard" and immediately on Top of the competition. Now we are more into the era of a relaxed what's my options? scenario. The urgency to act on impulse has long-gone. Businesses know that a *domain for sale today is unlikely to be snapped-up, tomorrow, next week/month even next year, they have time to ponder, to sit back on lower offers knowing full-well your need to sell is probably greater than their urgency to buy. Their simple logic being If it's really worth spending x,xxx to xx,xxx then why hasn't it been taken before, The seller has held it for x years. Today they view their options as being far wider and know there are far more Ships/trains/buses (forgive the analogy) they can catch to take them to where they want to go.
*I do separate the real-core Premium domains from this overall perspective but lets be honest there is a hell of a lot of mediocre domains being offered at hyped-up prices these days.

 

[Donnyd]

Put up a page on efty platform and ask the min amount of 50k and don't respond again until the meet that. Put BIN at 150k.

Or a Foff would be in order. You don' need to educate them they know what they are doing if the company has raised that much money.

You cross reference what they own through whoisology or domainiq and see what other names they own through company name or email.

 

[elmoney]

Inbound offer. Negotiation ended. Result: A company with 5B capitalisation no have funds above $500 for Top domain...

 

[equity78]

We all get low ball offers from end-users. At least on few of my domains, I have active enquiries from individuals or organizations. They have the intent & interest, and money definitely. But somehow aren't justified by the prices.

Eg. A large real estate company with each property sold for at least $50k, refuses to spend $5k on a brandable .com domain. They have the same name in a different extension. My research shows they spend a lot on offline brand campaigns too.

A finance company with $50m funding reached out to me recently. Again they don't want to spend more than $500 for the domain they want to use as primary.

Question is: How do you guys move forward in such cases, which has given reasonable success in closing sales?

-Just be patient (I've tried this, sometimes sale never happens)?
-Proactively share why the domain is valuable?
-Any other idea that has worked for you?

Sometimes there is nothing you are doing wrong, some people don't understand paying anything over $100 and then some do but refuse to. You don't think Jerry Jones could afford Cowboys.com? But he won't pay up for the name, and here is a sophisticated, wealthy end user who should jump at the opportunity.

Some people you just can't figure out and that's why you want to try to own names that will have multiple potential end users.