Telepathy...really?

[Keith]

I'm sorry but not a chance I'll ever pay $19 in order to negotiate on a domain. This is a clear money grab. You get bombarded with emails? Set up an automated system to field offers and go from there. This is the kind of shit that gives the domain industry a black eye!

 

[Keith]

Besides, that doesn't stop people sending an offer for 100K and then once discussions are underway stating "Oh actually my offer is $5000".

They only charge if you use their services, as per the rest of the world. $0 is about the going rate for obtaining no products or services

The first paragraph is a ridiculous statement. They won't be fending off buyers making $100k offers and then having second thoughts. That's simply not how the majority of potential buyers operate.

An email exchange is no more a service than my response to your post. Again, a ridiculous statement. They want to make an easy buck, or $19 as it turns out. Poor business model IMO.

 

[james haw]

They won't be fending off buyers making $100k offers and then having second thoughts. That's simply not how the majority of potential buyers operate.

Of course not, I agree entirely. But I don't believe their issue is "potential buyers" with a 100K budget who are having "second thoughts", not at all. It's tyre kickers, spammers, time wasters, low ballers, people without a clue trying to see if they'll sell for $500 or $1000 etc.

With a portfolio of 10K names all of a premium nature, you'll get a lot of emails flooding in or contact forms filled out. So they have to have a way to ensure they only receive serious offers. Tyre kickers and spammers are not likely to pay $19, and your idea makes it easy to just fill in a form (as they normally would anyway) and just put $100K for their offer to get their message through.

 

[Keith]

With a portfolio of 10K names all of a premium nature, you'll get a lot of emails flooding in or contact forms filled out. So they have to have a way to ensure they only receive serious offers. Tyre kickers and spammers are not likely to pay $19, and your idea makes it easy to just fill in a form (as they normally would anyway) and just put $100K for their offer to get their message through.

The scenario you're suggesting is few and far in between. Not enough to justify charging every real buyer $19 for the privilege to make contact.

 

[hookbox]

I think most here are missing the point of the $19 fee. Outstanding domains receive hundreds of offers monthly if not daily. These offers are ignored by most major portfolio owners because most are lowballers. If you choose to opt into SecuredOffers.com network then the $19 fee assures you that your offer/email will not be ignored and you are guaranteed to receive a response from the owner of that domain. Everyone assumes that Telepathy only sells their own domains but that's not true. They have a large network of portfolio owners under the SecuredOffers.com network. The $19 fee guarantees that you will be in contact with the owner of the domain in 5 business days or less.

 

[offersity]

The scenario you're suggesting is few and far in between. Not enough to justify charging every real buyer $19 for the privilege to make contact.

Id beg to differ. If a buyer or someone has a real need of something, he in my opinion wouldnt mind paying a very small fee to get the job done, be it domain, a very important person, a celeb, or a doctor, or anything.

If you have something really really special, someone on the otherside wont mind going just a little bit further.

I know it is not the ideal.

 

[Keith]

Don't make the mistake of equating opening offers to "real" buyers. Real buyers are savvy. I seem to recall eBet.com having an opening offer of $10k and ultimately selling for over $1.3 million. Oh, and the seller, he doesn't charge to accept incoming emails...

 

[jkm]

If they have tons of valuable domains, just build an offer page that rejects anything under $100k. These exact pages are used by other companies in the business. Problem solved.

I agree, the best solution.

In other hand if I pay $19, I still don't know the bottom line, I can send $25k, $30k, $50k offer. It's does not mean that who pays $19 already offering $100k and more

 

[mwzd]

So your problem essentially is with a domain investor charging you for their time in replying?

Sedo, Afternic, GoDaddy etc have been charging for years to make unsolicited offers and I think it's in the $50 range, without ANY guarantee that the domain owner would even see the offer, unlike here, I don't see anyone complaining about that.

I think this is a really smart option:
1. it provides positive id on the person making the offer, no more 'poor college student' emails
2. by making the payment the person can't say "oh we didn't make the offer seriously"
3. it offers legal protection from people who will make an offer and then file a UDRP if the price is "too high" for their liking.
There are a ton of other reasons too, but I think these will suffice for now.

 

[Keith]

So your problem essentially is with a domain investor charging you for their time in replying?

Sedo, Afternic, GoDaddy etc have been charging for years to make unsolicited offers and I think it's in the $50 range, without ANY guarantee that the domain owner would even see the offer, unlike here, I don't see anyone complaining about that.

Sedo, Godaddy, Afternic do not charge a dime to accept offers for domains listed with them. But each one of those sites uses a feature that allows the user to set a minimum offer requirement. That's exactly the type of FREE tool that Telepathy could use

Those sites that you mentioned are also not the domain owners. They are paid as a third party to act on a buyers behalf. That's not the same thing that we're discussing in this thread.

 

[S-B]

Honestly, it's a great way to qualify leads. I have no problem with this strategy.

 

[LucidDomains]

I thought about this last night, initially I like "what, really?". But the more I think about it, the more I think its a good idea. If you're getting 100s of emails a week and 99% of those are timewaster. Weeding them out with a small fee does not seem like a bad plan to me.

Obviously there will be some who will be 'rubbed' the wrong way by this, but it's no skin of the owner's nose/back when they are the ones with the assets in demand.

 

[mwzd]

Sedo, Godaddy, Afternic do not charge a dime to accept offers for domains listed with them.

Not every domain you'd want to buy would be listed with them.

And if it's not, they charge:
$69 https://sedo.com/brokerage/acquisition.php?domain=good.com&language=us
$59 https://in.godaddy.com/domains/domain-broker.aspx
$69 https://www.afternic.com/domain-broker

Those sites that you mentioned are also not the domain owners. They are paid as a third party to act on a buyers behalf. That's not the same thing that we're discussing in this thread.

Is securedoffers owned by Telepathy or just a 'buyer qualification / certification system' they use?

 

[Kingslayer]

Its greed pure and simple and any business who does this deserve to have their domain names rot in cyber space with no money or offers.

Being a business owner myself, when you’re a business, customers and potential customers are your everything, even the window shoppers just coming around for a nosey, be respectful and that goes a long way and they may come back some other time and buy.

Saying to a potential customer ‘to even talk to me/us costs x amount’ is having a superiority complex and the need to feel above someone and I personally wouldn’t do business with any person or company like that.

 

[wormfood]

Inquiry pages like several entities already use. You enter the desired domain and it gives you a minimum requirement in order for a successful submission. Simple and free!

Don't make the mistake of equating opening offers to "real" buyers. Real buyers are savvy. I seem to recall eBet.com having an opening offer of $10k and ultimately selling for over $1.3 million. Oh, and the seller, he doesn't charge to accept incoming emails...

This is probably what I would do if it were me (use a minimum offer submission form).
Not trying to make excuses for Telepathy, but maybe their preferred method of negotiation is to let the buyer decide on the initial offer. And if they set the minimum offer to 10k (through one of those "entities") for a six figure domain specifically to leave that more open, they might have to go through a lot of offers to find one where the buyer actually has strong intentions and a reasonable price in mind.
In other words, maybe they don't mind the 10k initial offer as the owner of ebet.com didn't, but they want to make sure there's at least a motivated buyer behind it.

 

[james haw]

Its greed pure and simple and any business who does this deserve to have their domain names rot in cyber space with no money or offers.

A business needs to make and maximise profits, so what's wrong with charging for a service? How is $19 "greedy"? And why do you think they deserve such harsh punishment? They've done nothing wrong.

They don't have a monopoly on the market, it's just a website with a service who charge for it.
These gripes are fine with mandatory things like petrol/gas, mortgage rates, etc, but it's not an issue for an online service which can only be used if you have tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend anyway. So then $19 is acceptable. If they removed the $19 fee, would you suddenly use the service?

Being a business owner myself, when you’re a business, customers and potential customers are your everything, even the window shoppers just coming around for a nosey, be respectful and that goes a long way and they may come back some other time and buy.

They are not being disrespectful to anyone. All businesses have different protocols, and individual needs dictate different specific approaches to manage the business. Maybe they get 100 or more spam and lowball offers every week. I wouldn't want to deal with all that when I only have 5 and 6 figure premium names to sell, would you?

Also, "window shopping"? You think they should spend time or money trying to accommodate people who are just window shopping? Bearing in mind in context of the discussion, "Window shopping" is sending lowball offers (as the $19 is all about not being able to send offers, nothing else).

Are you against members only clubs? Because you should be entitled to enter and use the facilities?

Saying to a potential customer ‘to even talk to me/us costs x amount’ is having a superiority complex and the need to feel above someone and I personally wouldn’t do business with any person or company like that.

"Superiority complex", "need to feel above someone"? Why, how, have you turned a business' basic payment charge for a service into something entirely emotional? You said yourself you run a business, do you provide your services for free?

 

[Keith]

A business needs to make and maximise profits, so what's wrong with charging for a service? How is $19 "greedy"? And why do you think they deserve such harsh punishment? They've done nothing wrong.

They don't have a monopoly on the market, it's just a website with a service who charge for it.
These gripes are fine with mandatory things like petrol/gas, mortgage rates, etc, but it's not an issue for an online service which can only be used if you have tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend anyway. So then $19 is acceptable. If they removed the $19 fee, would you suddenly use the service?



They are not being disrespectful to anyone. All businesses have different protocols, and individual needs dictate different specific approaches to manage the business. Maybe they get 100 or more spam and lowball offers every week. I wouldn't want to deal with all that when I only have 5 and 6 figure premium names to sell, would you?

Also, "window shopping"? You think they should spend time or money trying to accommodate people who are just window shopping? Bearing in mind in context of the discussion, "Window shopping" is sending lowball offers (as the $19 is all about not being able to send offers, nothing else).

Are you against members only clubs? Because you should be entitled to enter and use the facilities?





"Superiority complex", "need to feel above someone"? Why, how, have you turned a business' basic payment charge for a service into something entirely emotional? You said yourself you run a business, do you provide your services for free?

Name one other product that requires payment just to find out the asking price of that product? Think cars, travel, sports, food, homes...inquiries are what business is all about. How much is a plane ticket? How much is a car? How much is a ticket to an event? How much is the house I'm interested in? People don't want to pay to find out how much something costs!

 

[LucidDomains]

You are comparing apples with oranges.

Think of it another way, if you owned Cars.com and every day you got 1000 email inquires.

You by yourself couldn't cope the all the inquiries and 99% of these are lowball offers and timewasters. So what do you do? You hire someone, perhaps a clerical admin to weed through a 1000 emails a day. But that person comes at a cost of $19 an hour.

Would you do it so you can spend time with your family, wife and kids? Perhaps you're running another business or have a day job?

 

[Keith]

You are comparing apples with oranges.

Think of it another way, if you owned Cars.com and every day you got 1000 email inquires. You by yourself couldn't cope the all the inquiries? 99% of these are low offers and timewasters? So what do you do? You hire someone perhaps clerical admin to weed to 1000 emails a day. But that person comes at a cost of $19 an hour.

Would you do it so you can spend time with you family and hire out the help?

Set a minimum offer requirement. It's that simple. It can be $10 or $10 million, doesn't matter.

People aren't going to make big dollar offers just to pull your chain, generally speaking. This is like saying, well, one house is valued at $50k so offers are free to present to the owner. Another is valued at $500k so please pay $19 to present your offer to the owner.

 

[LucidDomains]

Set a minimum offer requirement. It's that simple. It can be $10 or $10 million, doesn't matter.

People aren't going to make big dollar offers just to pull your chain, generally speaking. This is like saying, well, one house is valued at $50k so offers are free to present to the owner. Another is valued at $500k so please pay $19 to present your offer to the owner.

" People aren't going to make big dollar offers just to pull your chain. "

This happens ALOT more than you think.

I received a $5.5 million dollar offer for my best domain SexVR(.)com a few ago weeks. Some people do very stupid things. There's no punishment for them, so why not make these big offers and string owners along. It happens a lot.

 

[JB Lions]

I agree with Keith. You can set minimums to weed out lowball offers, just like you can at Sedo. Then I read the terms:

"In exchange for Your payment of the Offer Fee and Your agreement to these Terms, we will send Your offer to the email address of the administrative contact of the registrant as reflected in the WHOIS database of the registrar currently sponsoring the Domain Name, or other email address if so designated to us by the Seller. You acknowledge that the information in the WHOIS database might not be accurate and that we have no obligation to, and will not, confirm the accuracy of any WHOIS information. The full extent of the SOS is the attempt to deliver Your offer to Seller. Any further communication between You and Seller is beyond the scope of the SOS."

http://www.securedoffers.com/terms-of-service/

If I paid $19, I would have an expectation and would want a receipt of the offer being received by the owner.