Help with Afternic Inquiry

[DaveX]

Hey,

I got an inquiry this morning on Afternic. They want me to put a Floor and BIN price within 48 hrs. Problem is, it's a brandable domain. Not sure how to price it. Don't want to overprice, don't want to leave alot on the table.

It's sort of a pharmaceutical/tech domain.

I can tell you the name, just don't want to post it here. If you pm me, I will tell you.

 

[Marka]

about AfterNic - DDoS? just waiting.

 

[Banezer]

i had such from afternic fix a price nothing positive happen...no reply even from afternic....well good luck

 

[pchip]

While others have, I've personally never had any luck selling a domain following the 'price request' inquiry from Afternic.

I've heard they'll remove your domain from their inventory if you don't set a price. Regardless of that fact, I would be reluctant to set a fixed price on any of my better domains. There's too much anonymity behind this type of inquiry for my liking.

 

[johname]

This is the time on the year to make offers/inquirys hoping the domain owner desperately needs a Holiday domain sale.. Some degree of price desperation will be expected. Also with brandables, you dont know if your domain is their plan A, B, or C.

 

[SpareDomains]

Most of my sales happen direct as they all point to my own landers as I prefer building my own database of end users. I do list at Sedo, Afternic, DNS, etc... as well so occasionally I'll get the random anonymous offer from Sedo or Afternic. Since I don't know who the buyer is I basically set the BIN at the ultimate end user price and the floor price I put at a price that I can live with and not load a shotgun if it were to sell to that ultimate end user. I don't mind staying high on anonymous offers because if I overpriced for who the buyer is they can type all my names in and it leads to my own landing page which would give them opportunity #2 and give me the info I need name, email, phone, ip etc... to price correctly. I tend to price to what I think the domain is worth anyway and not so much based on who the buyer is. If I think it's a 5k name and their budget is $500 I just consider them the wrong buyer and pass on it. So anonymous offers tend to get higher pricing from me than if they just came direct especially since my closure rate is way higher on my own pages than any aftermarket has ever provided as the majority of anonymous offers have been tire kickers over the last 13+ years and most of my sales have been direct leads. Think aftermarkets are good for low-mid value names where ya set buy it now pricing like GoDaddy premium listings, for the gems you'll always be in a better negotiation stance with make offer on your own lander as information is power. Set those prices at Afternic and you'll hear something if a go, if not a go you'll hear crickets, probably my biggest complaint on them no follow up along with pending listings taking months to approve unless ya email them.

What are paragraphs?

 

[pokainc]

I've had that request thing from afternic maybe 10 times, NEVER finalized, not even a counter offer back. Replied to the Afternic email asking for more info, no answer back from Afternic. I called them, the Afternic guy gave me very general info about the requester. I asked last time that Afternic stop sending me these requests.

Especially if you have Make Offer, it may be just some people fishing for pricing information for their own purposes.

I believe it's a waste of time.

 

[domeen]

I have made most of my big sales this way. Setting price if asked.

Also this is the time of year, a lot US based companys/goverment has over budgets and need to spend it. So they are more generous. I usually turn prices up in Dec.

 

[Asfas1000]

Feel free to PM me the domain.

 

[Name Trader]

@SpareDomains - The problem with your strategy, is that most of the time, the Afternic broker will take your floor price and run with that. I've actually seen it happen, although I forgot how I saw this as the seller. We are not supposed to know that. This is especially so, when they are hungry to meet their target for bonus, at a time like Christmas and New Year. At other times I've just suspected that, when they comeback with the clients offer below your floor price. I have never thought that they have given the client your BIN price. Usually they give them your Floor price. IMHO.

My strategy usually setting my BIN at what I'd want for the domain as if it was being bought by an end user. And set my Floor price between 10-20% below that, depending on how aggressive I've been with my BIN. Don't forget their 20% Commissions in your calculations. I've probably sold a couple of domains a year with this strategy. It's not a perfect strategy at all. I try never to be too aggressive when setting my BIN.

Most of the time, you just get no response when setting the BIN and Floor pricing. I usually try to remove all those prices about every 3 months. Because prices and markets can change.

 

[domeen]

I actually had one domain parked at sedo with bin price $4999, but some end-user did buy it with afternic.com bin that was $5999. Probably hit buy now at godaddy, and didn`t even visit the domain

I set floor price and buy now price the same.

 

[Cdomains]

i had such from afternic fix a price nothing positive happen...no reply even from afternic....well good luck

Same here.

This happens a lot.

They ask you to set a price.

Even if you set a reasonable price they still don't buy.

Much better to set mostly BIN's and then you don't have to bother with it.

 

[Cdomains]

Especially if you have Make Offer, it may be just some people fishing for pricing information for their own purposes.

I think this is what it is.

Most of the time you never hear back or make a sale after setting a price.

 

[abdou01]

Received the same inquiry for my domain Kentisd.com today, and fixed the price: $800, we'll see (I think the owner of Kentisd.org and Kentisd.net is interested )

 

[SpareDomains]

@SpareDomains - The problem with your strategy, is that most of the time, the Afternic broker will take your floor price and run with that. I've actually seen it happen, although I forgot how I saw this as the seller. We are not supposed to know that. This is especially so, when they are hungry to meet their target for bonus, at a time like Christmas and New Year. At other times I've just suspected that, when they comeback with the clients offer below your floor price. I have never thought that they have given the client your BIN price. Usually they give them your Floor price. IMHO.

My strategy usually setting my BIN at what I'd want for the domain as if it was being bought by an end user. And set my Floor price between 10-20% below that, depending on how aggressive I've been with my BIN. Don't forget their 20% Commissions in your calculations. I've probably sold a couple of domains a year with this strategy. It's not a perfect strategy at all. I try never to be too aggressive when setting my BIN.

Most of the time, you just get no response when setting the BIN and Floor pricing. I usually try to remove all those prices about every 3 months. Because prices and markets can change.

Good input. The problem I have since when domains are in pending status they sit for months unless you email them. So since that shows nobody is on top of things let's say you set the BIN at 7500 and the Floor at 5k if they shoot the 5000 like you're saying they might and the buyer says I can do 4500 max will they take the 5k as solid and say no go or will they take their time on it and by the time they get back to ya with hey the buyer can do max 4500 ya wanna lower your floor price 500 the buyer has already moved on to another domain because they took too long to respond. Shouldn't have to email people every time to say hey get my domains out of pending status as that generally shows their understaffed and the key to me completing 90%+ of my sales in 13+ years on my own sales pages is not only due to having name, email, phone, ip etc... but also responding to buyers within minutes even on weekends. I've started quite a few escrows on weekends. Afternic is slow and Sedo is closed weekends just giving buyers more time to look at alternatives.

Sedo they have an email signup form on every parked page so they can email buyers with other domainers domains, maybe some from their own portfolio as well. Have gotten so many afternic requests with no response makes ya think maybe GoDaddy just fishing for a price as yes they have their own portfolio as well. Go on down the list DNS has their own portfolio etc... So guess my point is nobody has your best interests in mind except yourself especially when their goal is just to make a commission and them having their own portfolio is a conflict of interest. If a buyers budget is just short that's the time to evaluate a price reduction with the seller or a payment plan instead of just pushing someone else's domain so they still get their commission. I'll continue to do 90%+ of my sales through my own landers as I know I respond quick 24/7 and I won't be emailing other domainers domains to my buyers just to make a commission. Personally think low-mid value domains price and throw on GoDaddy premium listings if ya need to use an external market but for the gems keep them on your own landers or bodis sales page, efty etc... where the info gets passed on as nobody will respond quicker than yourself and then you have the negotiation info you need. Reason I say GoDaddy is strictly based on who else do ya see advertise on TV which slowly draws in end users, advertising on domain forums, domain blogs brings ya domainer buyers which isn't the goal.

Parking companies were built by domainers pointing all their domains to them which might have made sense back in the days as the payouts were good. Since parking revenue has dropped significantly I see no reason to continue to send your domain sales leads to a company that will solicit any domain from their aftermarket database including one of their own to your leads. Your building their end user database for parking change when you could be building your own database and a database of confirmed buyers has value and can produce additional sales.

 

[Name Trader]

@SpareDomains - I agree with pretty much everything you say about us being our own best sales people without any conflicts of interest. I'm working to achieve that also. I was only being critical of your Afternic strategy. Not your main selling strategy.

Your question about the floor being fixed depends a little bit on the broker involved. Some take it as fixed, and some come back to negotiate with you. I presume those who take it as fixed, aren't hungry enough to make a sale. You never hear back from them. So the real story could be anything your mind could dream up

Apart from the annual deterioration of parking revenues. Which I've seen. But I just kill off any parking company not providing at least $100/month in revenue. I'm now down to only 2. Parking Crew & Voodoo. However. I've seen my parking revues shrink 50% from Jan-Dec this year. This is truely horrifying. Although it's just a bonus for me. I'm not reliant on it. It'll soon be time to kill off another parking company. Leaving me only 1. The sooner I move 100% to my own landers, the happier I will be. Parking is dying faster than a speeding bullet.

 

[DaveX]

Feel free to PM me the domain.

PM sent

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

some really good insight being dropped here. keep it coming. I AM LEARNING ALOT. Thanks Silentptnr for starting this thread.

 

[DaveX]

some really good insight being dropped here. keep it coming. I AM LEARNING ALOT. Thanks Silentptnr for starting this thread.

We are all learning together.

 

[platey]

Pharmaceutical tech is the right market at the right time etc as 3d printing etc are revolutionising health at the mo and pharmaceutical companies as s fuel have very deep pockets - allegedly