sales From $3000 offer to a $26000 domain sale

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hello everyone,

As I recently published a post with several of my recent domain sales, today I wanted to share another domain sale with complete detail of how it started and the deal was wrapped up successfully.

The domain I sold is Quaestor.com which was the oldest domain by creation date I owned until it sold. It was initially registered in 1994 but I acquired in 2018 for around $1100 via GoDaddy Auctions.

The inquiry came in via Uniregistry lander and I quoted price of $26,888. The buyer countered with $3000. After exchanging several emails and asking to come close to quoted price, the buyer revised his offer to $6,000.

Again after more communication, I said to present an offer of over $20,000 to get into negotiation.

With no response, I gave my final price of $25,000 with 7 days to accept. The buyer came in August and offered $10,000 but only after the 7 days period was over.

Sticking firm to the final price, the buyer came again in October and presented $15,000 offer to which I declined by informing the price is reverted back to $26,888 which was initially quoted because the offer of $25,000 was valid for 7 days only.

There was once again silence until the buyer came again in November by asking if I’m willing to negotiate as they’ve to decide and move on within a week period.

During this silence period of more than a month, I already upped the price at all marketplaces to $29,888 so I informed the buyer new price at all marketplaces but if he is still willing to buy, I can offer $26,000 to you only which is valid until the end of November.

Buyer immediately accepted and we used Sedo escrow and buyer paid the Sedo commission.

At one stage the domain was offered for $25,000 but ultimately sold for $26,000 to the same buyer. Every time you need to grab the offer at the right time, but you’re not always sure what’s that perfect time. We keep learning from our and others experiences. What best we can do is to keep learning all the time and improving ourselves.

 

[boker]

Hello everyone,

As I recently published a post with several of my recent domain sales, today I wanted to share another domain sale with complete detail of how it started and the deal was wrapped up successfully.

The domain I sold is Quaestor.com which was the oldest domain by creation date I owned until it sold. It was initially registered in 1994 but I acquired in 2018 for around $1100 via GoDaddy Auctions.

The inquiry came in via Uniregistry lander and I quoted price of $26,888. The buyer countered with $3000. After exchanging several emails and asking to come close to quoted price, the buyer revised his offer to $6,000.

Again after more communication, I said to present an offer of over $20,000 to get into negotiation.

With no response, I gave my final price of $25,000 with 7 days to accept. The buyer came in August and offered $10,000 but only after the 7 days period was over.

Sticking firm to the final price, the buyer came again in October and presented $15,000 offer to which I declined by informing the price is reverted back to $26,888 which was initially quoted because the offer of $25,000 was valid for 7 days only.

There was once again silence until the buyer came again in November by asking if I’m willing to negotiate as they’ve to decide and move on within a week period.

During this silence period of more than a month, I already upped the price at all marketplaces to $29,888 so I informed the buyer new price at all marketplaces but if he is still willing to buy, I can offer $26,000 to you only which is valid until the end of November.

Buyer immediately accepted and we used Sedo escrow and buyer paid the Sedo commission.

At one stage the domain was offered for $25,000 but ultimately sold for $26,000 to the same buyer. Every time you need to grab the offer at the right time, but you’re not always sure what’s that perfect time. We keep learning from our and others experiences. What best we can do is to keep learning all the time and improving ourselves.

Great sale, congrats, it's always hard to know the budget limit of your buyer, at least in my case. I wonder if you track how many other sales did you lost, because you didn't accepted less than what you were asking, let's say 50-75% of the price. I'm guessing, that in one way, you could have more sales/profit from accepting less and closing more deals, but it's hard to find that perfect balance.

 

[kandyan]

Congrats!
Thanks for sharing.

 

[AuctionBio]

good financial names are always very good and carry a very good value. This name is really very sweet to pronounce, it is an antique kind of name and the meaning that it carries is more sweeter. Just see the meaning
"any of a number of officials who had charge of public revenue and expenditure".
Who would not want this name, of-course big financial firms are real hot users who would like to lead.
I would say a great pick at first and than having a great sale
Good story to share, congrats bro

 

[Sutruk]

Thank you for sharing the details of this amazing sale! You are a good negotiator no doubt!

And congratulations, for the sale and for the very well done negotiation!

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Great job, @AbdulBasit.com !

I just checked the word and saw it's registered with 34 extensions: https://dofo.com/lists/name/quaestor
I didn't even know "quaestor" is a word.

Thank you Kemal!

Nice to see your openness and I was in the same situation when I saw this domain at expiring auction. That time I researched about this keyword and came to know about it first time.

We all learn something every day and that's good way to progress further.

Best wishes!

 

[Haroon Basha]

Congratulations @AbdulBasit.com
You are a toughest negotiator, really.
This sales story is very much inspiring. Further you every sale has a great lesson to learn. Patience pays and your consistent behavior pays more.
Please accept my hearty congratulations for the great sale. More powers to you.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hi Basit Bhai, Congrats For An Awesome Deal, Just Wanted To Ask If You Set BIN At Multiple Places? Like More Than One?
What If In Some Rare Case , Domains Are Sold At Both The Places At BIN Simultaneously?

Yes, I set BIN at both Sedo and Afternic.
That rare case has never happened with me to date. I don't think it's going to ever happen. Also I immediately remove the domain after it's sold from the other platform to cause any problem.

 

[slader23]

Congrats bro, your selection and understanding of what constitutes VALUE in domains is inspirational. New domainers, need to look at this as an example how much research actually goes into buying domains that sell and the importance of understanding the art of negotiation. I look forward to the next one.

 

[Cal2]

Me too, I'm curious to know the meaning of the name that makes you stood firm with your pricing?

Wikipedia on quaestor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaestor

 

[Ostrados]

Congrats.. this is inspiring!

So the domain was listed as make offer at Uniregistry and at BIN in other places?

Did the buyer bought it from Sedo or you just used Sedo escrow service?

 

[Blitzpotz]

Not to speak out of turn, but I think what would have tipped his hat to look further would be the 1994 date of registration.

A strong reason indeed. Hard to believe to register a Latin word in 1994 when top English one-word generics were untaken. If only the first registrant could speak to us!

Nevertheless I am curious about Abdul´s motivation to purchase.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Great story. Thanks again for sharing.

Other than the registration age, what made you invest over $1000 for the name? I myself would not have linked the meaning of the word to companies with bigger budgets. Obviously you proved me wrong, just curious how you saw the potential of a 5 figure name during the auction.

Thank you!

I never bother looking at registration age, I mostly come to know the age after acquiring the domain. There are plenty of average and great domains dropping (Pending Deletes) so the creation date gets new. So I suggest to analyze/research about the domain and leave the age factor.

You may want to check this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaestor

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Great sale, congrats, it's always hard to know the budget limit of your buyer, at least in my case. I wonder if you track how many other sales did you lost, because you didn't accepted less than what you were asking, let's say 50-75% of the price. I'm guessing, that in one way, you could have more sales/profit from accepting less and closing more deals, but it's hard to find that perfect balance.

Thank you Boker!

Good question. To be frank, I lose a lot of sales than I successfully complete. Mostly because I remain firm on my price. And even in some of those cases, the price difference isn't much but I just don't want to budge at all after giving out final price.

I see my overall ROI and yearly turnover to see if everything is going smoothly.

 

[WatchDogue]

Once again you shared with NamePros another of your outstanding, well negotiated domain name sales.

Regardless of the names you aways present the essence of great negotiating skills and confidence in the quality of your name and your willingness to hold onto a name until it reaches or closely reaches the value you see in a name.

Five months of active and inactive negotiations with 5 figure offers in play speaks to your skills and confidence.

Congrats on that impressive sale and the nice ROI on your investment!

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Once again you shared with NamePros another of your outstanding, well negotiated domain name sales.

Regardless of the names you aways present the essence of great negotiating skills and confidence in the quality of your name and your willingness to hold onto a name until it reaches or closely reaches the value you see in a name.

Five months of active and inactive negotiations with 5 figure offers in play speaks to your skills and confidence.

Congrats on that impressive sale and the nice ROI on your investment!

Thank you so much

I totally agree with you. To be frank, there is another thing which comes into play while negotiating and that's the cash flow. If I've enough of that to survive easily without that sale to affect my life, I've the leverage to stay firm at my price. But still I've seen many people who're having good amount of funds but they still keep flipping good quality of domains for small profit which I personally don't like it.

 

[Michael Ehrhardt]

Yeah, that saved $213 (Uni service fee)

spend this 213 wisely

 

[Kemal G]

Great job, @AbdulBasit.com !

I just checked the word and saw it's registered with 34 extensions: https://dofo.com/lists/name/quaestor
I didn't even know "quaestor" is a word.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Awesome sale! Indeed an inspiring one. Thank you for sharing this to us. I thought Sedo charged 3% of gross selling price and you wanted to avoid paying Uni's $213 service fee. Did you or did the buyer pay the Sedo fee? Did you actually receive the full $26,000 amount? Sorry, just a bit confused. Thanks again.

Happy to see you liked it.
I always opt buyer to pay the escrow fee no matter what the escrow service I use.
And yes, I got full $26,000.

 

[tomcarl]

Thanks for the detailed outline of the sales, as always.

Next sale:

Abdul: $10K
Buyer: $9,500, Final offer.
Abdul: $10,500. Final.
SOLD.

 

[elevator]

@AbdulBasit.com Nice sharing your experience in domaining. But one thing I observed is that when one is cash constraint, one could hardly put such skill in practice.

 

[sharastar]

Buyer immediately accepted and we used Sedo escrow and buyer paid the Sedo commission.

Congrats @AbdulBasit.com for this wonderful sale of Quaestor.com

 

[namemarket]

Some members have questioned the high value because it's an unrecognized non-english word but I feel the obvious key indicator to its value are the 35 extensions registered: https://dofo.com/lists/name/quaestor

Did not check how many are new but did look at a lot and they were all older registration dates (except xyz). guessing most all were taken long ago.

Being able to buy an expired dot-com for only $1,100 with so many extensions taken is rare and a very good deal, imo.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Congrats for you sale @AbdulBasit.com , adore the way you do your business with full transparency and without any hesitation. Your blog says a lot! Just curious, what could be your handregg vs expired auction names ratio? Whats your avg. acquisition prices? Also, would like to know your struggle to acquiring these names.

Good luck for more future sales!

Thank you so much!

More than 95% domains are not hand registered. Most of them are from expiring auction and private acquisition.

I never calculated my average buying price for the entire portfolio.

There was overall less competition in the past so surely it was relatively easier than now to acquire domains. Also the domain owners have got pretty smart as many domain investors have knocked their doors which have alerted them and made them to think about their domains. I find it more difficult to buy both in expiring auctions as well as private acquisitions.

 

[topdom]

If it is a great domain you can stick to your "high" price, but I don't see how this domain is great. except that it is old (maybe after some research I would be convinced).

 

[wwwweb]

What I would like to know @AbdulBasit.com if you like to share
Not everybody is educated in Roman history and in Latin language. Are you and so were able to recognize the value of this name before buying it? Or did you use another method to discover the name´s quality? Was it just intuition?

I am asking because I´ve learned basic Latin history in school but do not remember the word and position Quaestor. My only Latin language school have been Asterix comics, no joke. Thus I may have known this name must be Latin and so researched for it, not sure if being aware of the value then.

Not to speak out of turn, but I think what would have tipped his hat to look further would be the 1994 date of registration. From there at $1100 given todays prices, it's not a good price just based on registration date, single word, and .com, with historical meaning.