discuss How do you respond to highball offers?

[garptrader]

We have discussed responses to lowball offers - some ignore, others try to negotiate with low expectations and sometimes get surprised.

But what happens when you have a domain listed for say $750 at Godaddy or SEDO and you receive an inbound inquiry on your EFTY page for $5000? Do you counter for $7500, accept immediately or question if the offer is legit?

Because I have a number of Spanish domains I often receive offers from individuals in Spanish-speaking countries who may not understand the English text on the landing page (perhaps I should change the text but would prefer a bulk tool to do so - just not across all domains because I have English and Portuguese domains as well). Sometimes I receive offers which are far above what my Godaddy list price is presumably because the potential buyer is thinking in their local currency.

Well, today for a two-word .COM English domain I received an offer six times the Godaddy list price which is $XXXX. Since the offer came from a foreign country, I suspect the buyer does not read the English text which states offers must be in US dollars. So my response was to confirm that their offer is in USD (expecting their intention was to offer in their local currency).

 

[johnn]

Tell them that they made a mistake as the actual price is only $750.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Tell them that they made a mistake as the actual price is only $750.

 

[Bannen]

Gotta go with your own instincts and ethics with this. Remember that early Frank Schilling story... he was selling a batch of 10 domains to a company back in his beginning domain days, and they agreed upon $10K. When the company sent him a check for $100K, he called to say something was wrong. They told him No they're not going to re-negotiate because that was the agreed-upon price, $10K per name. He right then chose not tell them that he thought the agreed upon price was ***$10K for ALL TEN DOMAINS TOGETHER *** ha ha ha.

Guess some people would would clear that up, and some wouldn't. That's slightly different than your question, of course, about inbound offers.

If someone highballed an offer to me, I'd accept. I constantly change around my prices anyways, some that sit for awhile at x,xxx I lower to xxx, some at xxx I think about and realize I might get a lot more, so I raise to x,xxx or higher. Pricing is fluid with most of us and we shift things around. If the price they offer is the price that domain is worth to them, I'll take that highball offer and they'll be plumb pleased that I accepted their initial offer and didn't try to counter them up higher. And that price will still be a fraction of the price MM would have asked, so they're getting a deal with me

All this is moot, however, since I've never had a highball offer from an incoming who didn't already see my domain/s for sale somewhere.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Gotta go with your own instincts and ethics with this. Remember that early Frank Schilling story... he was selling a batch of 10 domains to a company back in his beginning domain days, and they agreed upon $10K. When the company sent him a check for $100K, he called to say something was wrong. They told him No they're not going to re-negotiate because that was the agreed-upon price, $10K per name. He right then chose not tell them that he thought the agreed upon price was ***$10K for ALL TEN DOMAINS TOGETHER *** ha ha ha.

Guess some people would would clear that up, and some wouldn't. That's slightly different than your question, of course, about inbound offers.

If someone highballed an offer to me, I'd accept. I constantly change around my prices anyways, some that sit for awhile at x,xxx I lower to xxx, some at xxx I think about and realize I might get a lot more, so I raise to x,xxx or higher. Pricing is fluid with most of us and we shift things around. If the price they offer is the price that domain is worth to them, I'll take that highball offer and they'll be plumb pleased that I accepted their initial offer and didn't try to counter them up higher. And that price will still be a fraction of the price MM would have asked, so they're getting a deal with me

All this is moot, however, since I've never had a highball offer from an incoming who didn't already see my domain/s for sale somewhere.

how the hell do people get that lucky? is that just a "urban legend"?

 

[CJ6]

how the hell do people get that lucky? is that just a "urban legend"?

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Joshua Harding]

Gotta go with your own instincts and ethics with this. Remember that early Frank Schilling story... he was selling a batch of 10 domains to a company back in his beginning domain days, and they agreed upon $10K. When the company sent him a check for $100K, he called to say something was wrong. They told him No they're not going to re-negotiate because that was the agreed-upon price, $10K per name. He right then chose not tell them that he thought the agreed upon price was ***$10K for ALL TEN DOMAINS TOGETHER *** ha ha ha.

Guess some people would would clear that up, and some wouldn't. That's slightly different than your question, of course, about inbound offers.

If someone highballed an offer to me, I'd accept. I constantly change around my prices anyways, some that sit for awhile at x,xxx I lower to xxx, some at xxx I think about and realize I might get a lot more, so I raise to x,xxx or higher. Pricing is fluid with most of us and we shift things around. If the price they offer is the price that domain is worth to them, I'll take that highball offer and they'll be plumb pleased that I accepted their initial offer and didn't try to counter them up higher. And that price will still be a fraction of the price MM would have asked, so they're getting a deal with me

All this is moot, however, since I've never had a highball offer from an incoming who didn't already see my domain/s for sale somewhere.

Now this is a mistake that I can get behind! If true, good on him for attempting to remedy the situation, however.

 

[wormfood]

Now this is a mistake that I can get behind! If true, good on him for attempting to remedy the situation, however.

He didn't try to
"...He right then chose not tell them..."

 

[Joshua Harding]

He didn't try to
"...He right then chose not tell them..."

He chose not to double down - but had initially attempted to remedy the misunderstanding. As I understand the story told by Bannen - perhaps it is I who has misunderstood

 

[wormfood]

He chose not to double down - but had initially attempted to remedy the misunderstanding. As I understand the story told by Bannen - perhaps it is I who has misunderstood

Right, I skimmed and misread it.. Hm..that's an odd situation though.
Not sure what I would have done

 

[Joshua Harding]

Right, I skimmed and misread it.. Hm..that's an odd situation though.
Not sure what I would have done

Perhaps you'll be so lucky as to deal with this exact situation in your near future!

 

[wormfood]

Can you really write your pricing so ambiguously that they mistake it as $10k per?
Maybe they talked on the phone and misheard each other.

I'd probably feel pretty guilty if I took all that extra money.

 

[donnied79]

I have a dot tv domain that gets a LOT (more than 100 in the last 3 years) of offers from Indonesia (don't ask me why) and most of them are of amount that in USD would let me retire and give all my domains away for 1$.
I simply reply with my expecting price in USD.. and I never got any reply.

 

[Jim Holleran]

When you accept, they might come back with a lower offer, seen that before, they think there offer was too high. Therefore, I suggest say the following: "We appreciate your 10K offer, but we were looking for offers in the 15-20K range, so please let me know what your best and final offer is and I will discuss with my partner?

Make sure you ask a ? to get a response. The partner thing, could be anybody, your dog, your wife, or nobody but it works lol.

If he comes back and says 10K final offer, say you and your partner agree if the deal is done this week. Good luck!

 

[Haykay2005]

Quickly adjust your prices and play along

 

[Bannen]

is that just a "urban legend"?

It's in a FS interview I read; might have been DNjournal, I forget where. Someone here might remember. He initially called the company to figure out the mistake; the person he talked to misunderstood and thought he was complaining about the price and that he wanted to renegotiate it HIGHER, so they said the $10K per domain was final. When FS realized that meant an extra $90K due to the strange mix-up, he shut up and took the money. Which most people would, I guess

Lot of dynamics in there to figure out. Kind of the same dynamics as when someone makes an offer higher than your asking price... there's some misunderstanding in there, but they're happy with the price otherwise they wouldn't have offered/agreed to it... so waddaya do? About Frank's, case, I would need a few beer to fuzz up my head enough to make a clear decision. Ha.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

It's in a FS interview I read; might have been DNjournal, I forget where. Someone here might remember. He initially called the company to figure out the mistake; the person he talked to misunderstood and thought he was complaining about the price and that he wanted to renegotiate it HIGHER, so they said the $10K per domain was final. When FS realized that meant an extra $90K due to the strange mix-up, he shut up and took the money. Which most people would, I guess

Lot of dynamics in there to figure out. Kind of the same dynamics as when someone makes an offer higher than your asking price... there's some misunderstanding in there, but they're happy with the price otherwise they wouldn't have offered/agreed to it... so waddaya do? About Frank's, case, I would need a few beer to fuzz up my head enough to make a clear decision. Ha.

I wonder how long he had those domains for? sounds like a deal from long ago so he must not have had those domains for long since it was probably in the infancy of the internet maybe? I'm just guessing here. lol

cool story though.

 

[creataweb]

I wonder how long he had those domains for? sounds like a deal from long ago so he must not have had those domains for long since it was probably in the infancy of the internet maybe? I'm just guessing here. lol

cool story though.

Happened in early 2000s I believe.

 

[E-Promote]

The partner thing, could be anybody, your dog, your wife, or nobody but it works lol.

Not with seasoned sellers I know your talking about inexperienced buyers but this will work against you with a seasoned seller.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Happened in early 2000s I believe.

so these were probably handregs of his geez. That won't or can't happen these days. you'd be lucky to get offered a half eaten pickle for a handreg these days.

and I'm talkin gerkin here not the usual size ones.

 

[Jim Holleran]

Not with seasoned sellers I know your talking about inexperienced buyers but this will work against you with a seasoned seller.

Agree, I do this with people who I don't know, never done deals with before, never heard of.

 

[Bannen]

Here ya go, the Frank Schilling thing:

https://www.namepros.com/blog/inter...once-had-the-largest-domain-portfolio.955312/

 

[ikhub]

Tell them that they made a mistake as the actual price is only $750.

Everything is fair in love, war and domaining, I would quickly increase my rate, make it the BIN price and inform and inform that I made their work easy by adjusting the BIN for them for instant purchase

 

[Kate]

In some countries the comma is used for decimals and the dot is for grouping thousands.
Which is the opposite of the US.

 

[lock]

Change the godaddy ad to 30% above what they just offered and then direct them to it.