advice My experience of selling domains on payment plan

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hello everyone,

Today I would like to share my little experience of selling domains on payment plan. Although I’ve had very little experience in doing this and I know there are some domain investors doing this on regular basis.

So to date I’ve had experienced 3 payment plans. Very few in numbers but at the same time very exciting journey which I’m sure at least some of you’ll enjoy reading it. I’ll share the surprising part at the later stage of my post.

It was in 2015 when I first started with payment plan in the shape of MediaLounge.com for $16,560‬ on a 24 months period. We’d an agreement in place and did all the work before both parties got agreed upon. Received very few payments but within the same year, the buyer said they’re no longer interested due to some changes in company and this domain is no more required. The deal was cancelled and domain is still with me.

Second payment plan was on Kuneco.com for which I quoted $1,988. Buyer had no money to buy in one shot and preferred to buy on a 6 months payment plan for a total amount of $2,200. Started in the last quarter of 2019 and completed the deal this April. It was great pleasure doing business with this particular buyer. Such a nice and humble person.

Third and last one so far happened in last month MarketPal.com for $4,500. The actual deal was the final payment be made by September 2020. Somehow the buyer got good business at his end and wrapped up the deal within the last month which was surprising to me. Another great person to deal and a great negotiator as well.

Now the biggest surprising thing is ALL the above payment plan deals happened privately WITHOUT using any escrow service. Each of the buyer believed in my business practices and I give a lot of credit to the blog I developed in 2012 and of course to my readers and commenters who likes sharing my experiences.

Feel free to give your feedback, no matter how good or good it is

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Thanks Abdul!

I currently have a total of 23 active lease-to-own domains for a total of around $1,700 per month. I was close to 30 leases, but I recently had a wave of them get paid off as their lease terms were up.

What I'd recommend to anyone, is having the lease-to-own option on your "For Sale" page along with the monthly rate. That way, the customer can figure out how it fits into their plans and their budget without even talking to you. Even better, it prevents you from negotiating upfront based on what's in their bank account, and then switching to talking about a lease-to-own after the price is reduced.

If someone contacts me and asks me about a discount, I simply say that if they're paying upfront we offer a flat discount of 3.5% (depending on the domain). This virtually eliminates the discussion of the domain price and the buyer then bases their decision on the value it brings to their needs. I also avoid offering anything more than a nominal discount for the upfront pricing. Offering more than a nominal discount introduces distrust in your pricing if you start slashing 20-40% off the domain price, and this creates buyer uncertainty.

I'd say about 95% of my lease-to-own arrangements sell at the full asking price, with no interaction until the setup fee is paid.

As for hosting these yourself, it can be convenient and simple for the seller, but adds a huge amount of risk to the buyer. As a buyer I'd have a really hard time doing it on any domain over $500. I wouldn't even consider buying a $1000+ domain like this personally without it being handled by a third party. I've bought about 3-4 domains via monthly payments on NamePros in the $500 or less range. For one of those purchases, I was concerned about the transaction not completing based on some interactions with the seller. I bought another name at $1,700 from someone via email who appeared to run a reputable design business. They wanted to do a 6 month lease where I just send the money to them directly, and there was no way I was going to do that. I steered it over to a domain platform to complete the sale and I paid any associated fees. In this case, the domain price was only $1,700, but the value to me was over $5,000 and I really needed this transaction to complete. I've also had one purchase with HugeDomains via payments for SuperPremiums(.)com ($3,195) but they are such a large business that I was fine doing it. The last one I did was for $7,500 via undeveloped/dan that is still active. I'm in the domain industry, and I still feel uneasy about this transaction not being closed for another 10 months.

Even if we operate a site that appears "big", there is always the risk of death (and the domain expiring 2 weeks later), divorce , identity theft , business partnership dissolving , or even if the domain is mistakenly relisted as a buy now in Afternic . If anything happens to me today, my family will receive all the remaining payments for all 23 lease-to-own arrangements, and the buyers will all receive their domains without a single interaction from my side.

For me, the uncertainty doesn't come from a distrust in people. I just try to avoid encountering Murphy's law nowadays. In the past I've had unexpected situations arise. One of these was years ago, back in 2007. I sold a domain to a giant game corporation for only $1,000 and they assured me over and over that no escrow would be needed and to send them the domain first while they process my payment. I did, but then I then spent the next 1 month contacting different people in the company so I could get paid. Luckily, this was one of my first big sales and I never went escrow-less again.

In my last 1.5 years in college, I sold a total of $54,000 worth of software. The majority of my sales were in the $100+ range. The only negative transaction I remember was one of my lowest sales for $15. The buyer had wrote me a bad check, so from that point on I never deviated from my Cash-On-Delivery (COD) rule. Don't want any negative energy following me around.

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Thank you so much for taking time and sharing so openly which I love to see when it's shared with an open heart

There are some key points to take away from your detailed post which I'm sure will be helpful to others as well

I agree with you on not slashing the price by 20-40% or too much and keep it close to quoted price which is always a good idea unless you're in a rush to sell for some urgent reason.

So are you using only Dan landers or some other for your automated payment plan sales?

 

[OhYeah]

That's impressive you did over 300 deals!
Care to share how you got scammed twice?

Well, it was pretty simple.. I accept a lot of risk in order to ease up the process for the buyer & send the domain name first. Since almost all names that I sell are hand-regs, my real financial losses are minimal in a "scam" case.. So it simply was people not paying me after I send them the names.. But that wasn't a huge loss.. Of course I wouldn't risk that much if the names were acquired from auctions for example..

 

[OhYeah]

Thanks Abdul!

I currently have a total of 23 active lease-to-own domains for a total of around $1,700 per month. I was close to 30 leases, but I recently had a wave of them get paid off as their lease terms were up.

What I'd recommend to anyone, is having the lease-to-own option on your "For Sale" page along with the monthly rate. That way, the customer can figure out how it fits into their plans and their budget without even talking to you. Even better, it prevents you from negotiating upfront based on what's in their bank account, and then switching to talking about a lease-to-own after the price is reduced.

If someone contacts me and asks me about a discount, I simply say that if they're paying upfront we offer a flat discount of 3.5% (depending on the domain). This virtually eliminates the discussion of the domain price and the buyer then bases their decision on the value it brings to their needs. I also avoid offering anything more than a nominal discount for the upfront pricing. Offering more than a nominal discount introduces distrust in your pricing if you start slashing 20-40% off the domain price, and this creates buyer uncertainty.

I'd say about 95% of my lease-to-own arrangements sell at the full asking price, with no interaction until the setup fee is paid.

As for hosting these yourself, it can be convenient and simple for the seller, but adds a huge amount of risk to the buyer. As a buyer I'd have a really hard time doing it on any domain over $500. I wouldn't even consider buying a $1000+ domain like this personally without it being handled by a third party. I've bought about 3-4 domains via monthly payments on NamePros in the $500 or less range. For one of those purchases, I was concerned about the transaction not completing based on some interactions with the seller. I bought another name at $1,700 from someone via email who appeared to run a reputable design business. They wanted to do a 6 month lease where I just send the money to them directly, and there was no way I was going to do that. I steered it over to a domain platform to complete the sale and I paid any associated fees. In this case, the domain price was only $1,700, but the value to me was over $5,000 and I really needed this transaction to complete. I've also had one purchase with HugeDomains via payments for SuperPremiums(.)com ($3,195) but they are such a large business that I was fine doing it. The last one I did was for $7,500 via undeveloped/dan that is still active. I'm in the domain industry, and I still feel uneasy about this transaction not being closed for another 10 months.

Even if we operate a site that appears "big", there is always the risk of death (and the domain expiring 2 weeks later), divorce , identity theft , business partnership dissolving , or even if the domain is mistakenly relisted as a buy now in Afternic . If anything happens to me today, my family will receive all the remaining payments for all 23 lease-to-own arrangements, and the buyers will all receive their domains without a single interaction from my side.

For me, the uncertainty doesn't come from a distrust in people. I just try to avoid encountering Murphy's law nowadays. In the past I've had unexpected situations arise. One of these was years ago, back in 2007. I sold a domain to a giant game corporation for only $1,000 and they assured me over and over that no escrow would be needed and to send them the domain first while they process my payment. I did, but then I then spent the next 1 month contacting different people in the company so I could get paid. Luckily, this was one of my first big sales and I never went escrow-less again.

In my last 1.5 years in college, I sold a total of $54,000 worth of software. The majority of my sales were in the $100+ range. The only negative transaction I remember was one of my lowest sales for $15. The buyer had wrote me a bad check, so from that point on I never deviated from my Cash-On-Delivery (COD) rule. Don't want any negative energy following me around.

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What's the service shown in screenshots? Seems to be neat.. I may want to try it out too

 

[NameBuyer.com]

What's the service shown in screenshots? Seems to be neat.. I may want to try it out too

That's all epik

 

[NameBuyer.com]

Thank you so much for taking time and sharing so openly which I love to see when it's shared with an open heart

There are some key points to take away from your detailed post which I'm sure will be helpful to others as well

I agree with you on not slashing the price by 20-40% or too much and keep it close to quoted price which is always a good idea unless you're in a rush to sell for some urgent reason.

So are you using only Dan landers or some other for your automated payment plan sales?

I didn't mean that to sound like I was directing it at you. They were just some general thoughts for everyone in that area, as I've read that you don't budge much on your prices.

Well, I was using my own landers at BetterNames where I would accept a setup payment via PayPal and would manually create the lease on Epik. I've since moved to my new biix.com platform, but I'm still working out the kinks there for the next week or so.

Epik or Dan are probably best choices for this right now.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I didn't mean that to sound like I was directing it at you. They were just some general thoughts for everyone in that area, as I've read that you don't budge much on your prices.

Well, I was using my own landers at BetterNames where I would accept a setup payment via PayPal and would manually create the lease on Epik. I've since moved to my new biix.com platform, but I'm still working out the kinks there for the next week or so.

Epik or Dan are probably best choices for this right now.

I know it was said for everyone and I endorsed what you actually said. Sorry if there was any misunderstanding from my end.

 

[Mace]

Hello everyone,

Today I would like to share my little experience of selling domains on payment plan. Although I’ve had very little experience in doing this and I know there are some domain investors doing this on regular basis.

So to date I’ve had experienced 3 payment plans. Very few in numbers but at the same time very exciting journey which I’m sure at least some of you’ll enjoy reading it. I’ll share the surprising part at the later stage of my post.

It was in 2015 when I first started with payment plan in the shape of MediaLounge.com for $16,560‬ on a 24 months period. We’d an agreement in place and did all the work before both parties got agreed upon. Received very few payments but within the same year, the buyer said they’re no longer interested due to some changes in company and this domain is no more required. The deal was cancelled and domain is still with me.

Second payment plan was on Kuneco.com for which I quoted $1,988. Buyer had no money to buy in one shot and preferred to buy on a 6 months payment plan for a total amount of $2,200. Started in the last quarter of 2019 and completed the deal this April. It was great pleasure doing business with this particular buyer. Such a nice and humble person.

Third and last one so far happened in last month MarketPal.com for $4,500. The actual deal was the final payment be made by September 2020. Somehow the buyer got good business at his end and wrapped up the deal within the last month which was surprising to me. Another great person to deal and a great negotiator as well.

Now the biggest surprising thing is ALL the above payment plan deals happened privately WITHOUT using any escrow service. Each of the buyer believed in my business practices and I give a lot of credit to the blog I developed in 2012 and of course to my readers and commenters who likes sharing my experiences.

Feel free to give your feedback, no matter how good or good it is

Kudos for sharing your experience with this.

As part of the risk associated with non-payment, I worry about lasting damage that might be done to the domain by the leasee while under their control. For example, dubious or even criminal SEO practices could negatively affect the value of the asset that you retain.

In my view it's important to be aware of this possibility and at the very least this risk should be priced into a lease-to-own transaction.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Kudos for sharing your experience with this.

As part of the risk associated with non-payment, I worry about lasting damage that might be done to the domain by the leasee while under their control. For example, dubious or even criminal SEO practices could negatively affect the value of the asset that you retain.

In my view it's important to be aware of this possibility and at the very least this risk should be priced into a lease-to-own transaction.

Very well said!

 

[Sinh]

Thank @AbdulBasit.com for your sharing and I have been learning from you a lot up to now.

 

[namemarket]

...Why do you say only for high value? If someone else is taking care of the payments, why does it matter if it is a low value sale? Bob

Was thinking the exact same thing. Why in the world does it matter since all the will be done by Dan.

I am just as likely to offer payment plans on a low value name vs a 5 figure name. It makes no difference to me.

 

[Dealtor]

Thanks for sharing

 

[King]

Are you just pointing the domain to their services? I would think someone would just stop paying & keep the domain in a private payment plan option, that would be my concern. Well, a contract could work for that but it would still be a hassle.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Are you just pointing the domain to their services? I would think someone would just stop paying & keep the domain in a private payment plan option, that would be my concern. Well, a contract could work for that but it would still be a hassle.

Yes, only pointing to their services.

As far as buyers have no issues dealing with me, I've no objection doing business with them without any contract in place. But during the communication we always discuss about the purpose of domain being used during payment plan period and it won't be misused in any way.

 

[Ostrados]

Thanks for sharing. The real win here is that you have built a good reputation so that buyers trust you in direct private deals without the need for escrow service, which is very impressive

For me I never tried leasing options, at Dan I turned off all installments options and only BIN is available. My reason for that maybe is different than anyone else, for me I don't like the fact that if the buyer fails to continue paying that you keep all the money and the domain (which is the case in Dan & Epik leasing service), I feel it is unfair for the buyer because unexpected situations can happen like sickness, bankruptcy, loss of job.. ect especially with payment plans on long periods like 5 years. Even if you intend to return the money to the buyer you need a solid proof for the reasons behind cancellation and because any such reasons or excuses are almost impossible to validate I chose peace of mind by not offering installments in first place.