Lessons From Your $XX,XXX Sales - Buyer's Approach and Yours

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Despite considerable success selling domains in the $X,XXX range, I am still chasing my first $XX,XXX sale. While I don't think many (if any) of my customers who paid $X,XXX would have been willing to pay $XX,XXX, I think it's vital to have a "sniffer" for larger-budget buyers who may be taking various steps to conceal their identity. I suspect that a major corporation may be behind a suspicious inquiry/offer that I received recently, which is why I decided to sign up here and create this thread.

For those of you who have had the good fortune of making one or more $XX,XXX sales, please share your experience:

1. Did the buyer start off with a lowball offer? (Let's define lowball as <$1,000.) If so, did they quickly raise their offer to the vicinity of your asking price, or did they stretch things out over several days, weeks or even months?

2. What steps, if any did the buyer take to mask their identity?

3. Do you have any other advice for discerning a prospective buyer's identity/affiliation or budget?

Thanks!

 

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One pattern I have noticed among more serious buyers is that they are more likely to use some sort of tracking mechanism to detect whether you opened their e-mail.

 

[Recons.Com]

My xx,xxx sales happened for the names that I was not eager to sell ))

 

[SpareDomains]

For those of you who have had the good fortune of making one or more $XX,XXX sales, please share your experience:

1. Did the buyer start off with a lowball offer? (Let's define lowball as <$1,000.) If so, did they quickly raise their offer to the vicinity of your asking price, or did they stretch things out over several days, weeks or even months?

I've worked $50 initial offers into $7500 etc... but on 5 figure names most have come in at or above 1k+ initially. Most raise to my range quickly as the price is the price and if their not in the ballpark negotiations are ended. Last one came in at 4k which I worked into 16k.

2. What steps, if any did the buyer take to mask their identity?

In 15 years of selling domains hardly anybody masks who they are which is the reason I'm so pro on do your own landing pages and if not capable use domainmarketpro, efty etc... I have 15 years of end user names, emails, phone numbers, ip addresses etc... Fine to list your domains at Sedo, Afternic etc... but pointing them to anyone that doesn't give you buyer information Sedo, Afternic, Undeveloped etc... is insanity. 90%+ of all of my sales come through the landing page so handing those leads to someone that hides buyer info from you and takes a cut makes no sense as they are doing nothing to promote your name just taking your inbound leads and profiting from them while putting you in blind negotiation status. Amazes me that domainers see a pretty landing page and go I'll forfeit all buyer information and negotiate blind and pay 9-30% of every single domain sale for a simple sales page.

3. Do you have any other advice for discerning a prospective buyer's identity/affiliation or budget?

Thanks!

Lookup everything name, email, phone, ip location, domain name your selling etc... I've found beta modes of my domains on alternate extensions so was easy to tie info together so I knew the development plans while negotiating. So yes I'm going back to point #2 that pointing your domains somewhere where you don't receive buyer info that you can investigate and also pay commission is insanity. Knowledge is power.

 

[offthehandle]

One pattern I have noticed among more serious buyers is that they are more likely to use some sort of tracking mechanism to detect whether you opened their e-mail.

Watch those embedded small graphics too if any.

 

[urlurl]

please give us a sample of what the inquiry was, and let us know if it was from japan

 

[frank-germany]

1. Did the buyer start off with a lowball offer? (Let's define lowball as <$1,000.) If so, did they quickly raise their offer to the vicinity of your asking price, or did they stretch things out over several days, weeks or even months?

yes lowball was $3K USD for a 6 figure sale

and yes they raised quickly to $5K and $8K - $10K

took 1 year

my first reply was
" no I don't wont to sell that name "

 

[Amzymayor]

Let me get a nap and wake up to see "you've received $xxx, xxx for your domain (XXXXXXXXXXXX.com). The I'll jump on namepros server and come back with a detailed answer to your question.

 

[Name Trader]

One pattern I have noticed among more serious buyers is that they are more likely to use some sort of tracking mechanism to detect whether you opened their e-mail.

How do you recognize this?

 

[Michael M]

How do you recognize this?

Outlook and many other email clients and email services offer the option to not automatically download images when loaded emails. If you have the image loading disabled, you will generally see a box where the tracking image would be hidden.

That is at least how I spot them...

 

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Will reply

please give us a sample of what the inquiry was, and let us know if it was from japan

The inquiry was from the US. Will post more later.