discuss Not knowing who my buyer is

[abstractdomainer]

Whenever I need to make a choice for a domain name, it makes me worried if I do not know who my buyer for the domain name is. Does this happen with you as well?

Let me explain..

So let us take the case of Symphony.com - Now this is a general term and there might be some companies who may have a brandable value for this domain name. Symphony could be a music company or general finance or any other business for that matter. You know that the name is good, is one-word, brandable and brands can benefit from the name.

But in this case, do you know who your buyer would be? Till when would you have to hold the domain name for the right price? I think you do not know this. You are banking on the name more than the prospects who could benefit from the name.

And that brings me to the question:

Do you believe in betting more on the name than on the prospects who might end up buying that name?

Because, at times, you may not know who your buyer is going to be! Just that whoever they are, is going to benefit from the name. How do you make a decision in such a case?

 

[Samer]

A domain like Symphony.com is worth a lot of money because it is a single word .COM with an almost endless pool of potential buyers. It doesn't take a domain genius to realize that.

The larger the pool of (realistic) potential buyers, the more valuable the domain likely is.

Brad

Especially when you try to sell-non .Com

If inbound potential prospect must be out mind

hahaha

 

[bmugford]

Especially when you try to sell-non .Com

If inbound potential prospect must be out mind

hahaha

I sell non .COM all the time. In the last 7-10 days I have sold -

(5) .COM
(2) .ORG
(1) .NET
(1) .US

However, the non .COM are amazing keywords or brands. The lower quality of the extension, the higher quality the term needs to be.

There are some buyers who will buy a term in a secondary extension that they could never afford in .COM.

Brad

 

[karmaco]

I see far too much dwelling on who is the buyer. The identity of the buyer has nothing to do with your bottom line. People who play that game have alot of failed negotiations.

Same people have large chunk of their portfolio on SH or BB or Afternic or DAN (majorly underpriced in some cases) and are ok to part with a name at low XXXX there. When you get a sold email you are happy and don’t wonder if it went too cheap most of the time. Or geez what if Google bought my name? Who cares. They bought at the price given.

When purchasing a name you should of course take into consideration potential buyers current or future possibilities.

But if your entire portfolio is based on end users, estibot, data points, age, emd, etc you are missing the unpredictable human element. Liking or not liking a name, rebranding, other close options to this name, etc. Don’t get bogged down on the what ifs. Humans are buying these names not machines. And humans are always unpredictable.

The name should be something you believe in enough to hold onto for more than one renewal cycle. The pricing, while more difficult is not rocket science and should be your main focus. That you have priced it according to its worth not according to a perceived id of a buyer.

 

[bmugford]

The name should be something you believe in enough to hold onto for more than one renewal cycle.

I think this is a key point. The more marginal domains you buy and own, the harder it is when making decisions on renewals.

For the last several years I have only been purchasing domains that I am confident in and willing to renew long term.

I realize some people have a churn and burn business model, but that is not my business model.
If you want to make end users sales consistently, there is no substitute for time.

Brad

 

[FolioTeam]

I think you should be more concerned about the use case of a domain than who the exact buyer will be.

Getting a great domain with multiple use cases, spanning several niches is ideal compared to a domain that might be restricted in its use.

Compare Air.com and Food.com. Both are great names. But one has more versatility than the other.

 

[abstractdomainer]

A domain like Symphony.com is worth a lot of money because it is a single word .COM with an almost endless pool of potential buyers. It doesn't take a domain genius to realize that.

The larger the pool of (realistic) potential buyers, the more valuable the domain likely is.

Brad

Don't you think that also reduces the targeting potential because now while the world is your buyer, it is less targeted as such? And you may not know where to look for buyers.

There are some buyers who will buy a term in a secondary extension that they could never afford in .COM.
Brad

What extensions majorly?
That sounds so good. And where do you acquire them from?

I think you should be more concerned about the use case of a domain than who the exact buyer will be.

Getting a great domain with multiple use cases, spanning several niches is ideal compared to a domain that might be restricted in its use.

Compare Air.com and Food.com. Both are great names. But one has more versatility than the other.

Agreed! And that means focusing on the domain name more and not on the exact potential buyers.
A lot of people advise on looking for who the buyer would be and hold to see if they would bite. Even if not this year, then next. And that makes me think - The buyer or one of the buyers.

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

Of course it is an advantage to know who your buyer is (and logically for the buyer it's the other way aorund), knowledege is (negotiation) power.

However, more important than knowing who your buyer is, is knowing who you are yourself - then you won't worry if you have to make a choice without knowing the buyer.

 

[topdom]

We must know who the buyer is because we might be dealing with a flipper who is trying to sell a domain he doesn't own (in make offer case).

Voice.com was sold 30M. Why not 5M or 1M. Why not 25M. 25M was offered and it was turned down? If you don't know who the buyer is you can't turn down 25M, because otherwise you may have to wait 10 more years to get 500K or more. Noone would take such a risk.

 

[Revisiting]

And hence the question, when you do the research, do you look at the potential buyers? Or do you simply look at the domain name and think that someone will end up buying.

Neither explicitly , The first thing in my logic in registering domains is to understand the businesses that I'm trying to appeal to. I learnt early on Not to venture into Industries and Businesses that I had no or very little knowledge off. You see it all the time here on NP's where a domainer follows a random path of registrations or Goes overboard on a business subject they've never experienced. Then wonder why they can't sell them.

We are , in the majority, One man business investors - don't try to be 'All things to all Men' Your expertise is NOT there

 

[DuDD]

When the domain name price is in line with your psychological expectations, I think I can avoid knowing who the buyer is.

of course,The higher the price, the better

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

We must know who the buyer is because we might be dealing with a flipper who is trying to sell a domain he doesn't own (in make offer case).

Sometimes it is just not possible to know who the buyer is, simple as that.

But of course you always have the option of telling him that you will not sell it to him as long as he prefers to remain anonymous (if his identity is more important for you than a fast sale).

Also, once I've made a price - decision, it makes no difference to me whether the buyer is a flipper or not - at the end he is simply the buyer and I don't care what he will do with his domain name then.

Voice.com was sold 30M. Why not 5M or 1M. Why not 25M. 25M was offered and it was turned down? If you don't know who the buyer is you can't turn down 25M, because otherwise you may have to wait 10 more years to get 500K or more. Noone would take such a risk.

Feel free to believe it was really sold for that price ... but please don't expect the same from me.

What you can (safely) expect if someone (or a (financially strong) company) offers you $ 25 million for a domain name, are at least the following three things:

1.)
He (they) really want(s) the domain name (which reduces your risk when making a counter offer).

2.)
He (they) have way more money to play with (a millionaire ((financially strong) company) won't give away his (their) last shirt (reserves)).

3.)
He (they) know you are in no hurry to sell it.


If you know your domain name, you don't have to know the buyer.

 

[biggie]

If you know your domain name, you don't have to know your buyer.

Hi

that line above,
truly speaks to the level of perception of/from those, who earn the greatest returns from their investments.

in udder werds,
they know value and worth, (which some may not be able to differentiate between the two)
and they know their domains, so "who the potential buyer is", becomes irrelevant to sellers asking price.

in other situations:
when you have BIN priced names and they sell @ BIN, you can find out who buyer was later.
but if you list at Fixed Price, then you don't care you buys... only that it sells.

when you get incoming offer, you can ask for identity of inquirer if unknown or negotiate blindly based on your asking price.
so, you have choices to choose from

when you send solicitation emails, you should know who you sending them to.
but you still need a price, to make a sale.

still. when you have quality domains that pretty much sell themselves, then pricing matters most.

when you have low quality, hard to sell, just registered or thinking of registering type names,
then since they don't sell on their own merit, then yeah....you have to wonder "who" can you sell them to.

having, or acquiring better domains gives you different perspective on domaining.

imo

 

[topdom]

There are many sites which were sold for 9-10 figures. hotmail.com, rent.com, youtube.com, cloud.com .. not domain-only, but domain plays a big role (there are also ones with awful domains like tumblr, icio.us (not sure about digits)), with a poor domain they would be worth much less. if there is a useful past, 7-8 figures can be possible. (yes, I just visited .., and voice.com doesn't look like a 30M site).