Knowing how to price an offer

[groundctrl]

Ok, so I'm a n00b at this. I've been making a few offers to domain names I've been finding interesting, but I'd like to get some advice about how to accurately price an offer.

I feel like, when sometimes I don't get an answer or get a negative from people, that I may be able to entice them with a $ amount. What do you guys:

a) think of this as a way to get responses, and
b) think is a good way to assess the price of a domain?

Thanks ahead of time!

 

[TheBulldog]

Your first thing to learn is that you will need to pay more then you want to pay, but less then they are asking.

Is the name premium or primary? Then you will need big money.
Combos of letters and numbers? Should be less then 100, unless it is significant like BlackJack21.com
Numbers only, more then 3 numbers? Something like 24376.com is worthless. Something like 55555.com is probably going to get some money.
Less then 3 letters or numbers? (But not combined letters and numbers) Big money, get a loan.

Anything other then dot com is risky, although people will go on for hours about how thier extension is the next big thing and why. It isn't going to ever be bigger or worth more then the dot com equivelant, but it could come close. And if it is worth more, then someone already owns it, and you don't have enough to buy it.

If you must go outside of dot com, stay clear away from biz and info, because these are like the drunk uncle that everyone in the room can smell, but you don't want to say anything, because the drunk aunt will tell you how good he is even though he currently has a tapeworm roughly the lenght of Cleveland.

Dot Net's are ok, and someday may be able to step into the dot com shoes, but they still will never be good enough to win universal approval.


And finally, a name is ONLY worth what someone is willing to pay. People aren't going to pay much for Jacks12speed.com, but they will practically need diapers if you offer speed.com to them for less then 100 grand.

 

[groundctrl]

Hey, thanks for the quick reply. What about combo domains -- like WORDword.com - how does somebody assess that? i figure it has something to do with type-in traffic potential, but what else? how does one assess something as vague as "memorable-ness" ?

 

[Spade]

You really need to do your homework. Figure out who your dealing with, is it a domainer? is it someone whos owned the domain name for years? What is the potential for this domain name? and very importantly, sales comparables...

Check these at NameBio.com

The real issue is that Domainers want small fortunes for their domains, so often times your going to pay big to acquire. Other owner, who had a sight at one time, may be inclined to give it up for less.

I would recommend looking into the expired lists, as those are great places to locate some solid domain names that have recently expired and may be desireable.

Good luck!

 

[TheBulldog]

memorable-ness isn't two words. Not sure if it is really a word at all without the hyphen.

Two word combos, in my opinion, are the next thing to start selling really high. Mainly because all the great one worders are gone. So if you can't buy clothes.com for under 100K, you will look at designerclothes.com for 25K (recent sale).

The combo has to be good. An example would be healthymeal.com.(not mine) This would be a good one for a health food company or if a diet guru wanted to sell his new flavor of bran cereals. But the name healthy-menu.com (notice the hyphen) is actually not a good one specifically because of the hyphen. I should know, I own it.

The combo can't be bad. Previously, someone gave us a combo name for appraisal, and it sucked. So he was told it sucked. Didn't care for our appraisal at all. So I gave an example. puddingfinancial.com is a stupid name. But to me, I like it. Why? Because I like pudding, and I like financial things. But do they work together? Nope. Would I buy the name? Nope, although I thought about doing that and turning it into a stupid domain name site. Would someone else buy it? Nope, because it is stupid.

So in the end, you need good combos, no hyphens, no numbers to make a good combo name.

 

[groundctrl]

heh, sorry, i meant memorable-ness as a concept, not as a domain name. my bad.

thanks guys, this helps a lot. any other tips?

 

[Optinom]

Best is to not price an offer. More possibility of reply & easy to estimate what they're looking for.

 

[groundctrl]

What about the actual introductory email-- how do you phrase something like this to make it sound appealing and/or at least not offend anyone?

 

[Spade]

Well, typically I will inquire about the domain to see if it is for sale. You dont want to give a price, because you immediately give the seller your opening bid. Often times that could be more than neccesary. For example, I recieved an offer for 1,000 as an opening email. I countered with 5k, we settled at 3k. However if they had started off with $500, I probably would have asked for 2-3k and settled somewhere at 1.5.

I usually start off:

"Dear (registrant),

I got your email from the whois contact information and wanted to ask if (domain.com) is for sale and if so, what is your asking price?

Thanks in advance for your timely response,

My Name"

Also, dont send the email from an email that has history. Or if your capable, send it from an AOL email address. This will dissapoint the seller, because odds are your an individual buying a domain name, not a company. (Individuals obviously have much smaller funds, where as corporations can shell out chunks of money).

Those are my tips,
hope they help.

Justin

 

[accent]

Put the domain name and something like "is --- available for sale?" in the subject of the email so it is not deleted unread as spam. If you do use AOL, be sure to check your spam filters often, in case the response ends up there.

 

[groundctrl]

damn, you guys are awesome. thank you!

 

[Spade]

damn, you guys are awesome. thank you!

Yes... My mom tells me that everyday.

 

[floatingworld]

how you place an offer and what you are prepared to pay should be informed by what you want it for eg is it for development or just immediate resale and how much do you know the market for names of this type? there is no one approach to adopt and will also be informed by how much is in your war chest.