Why is every offer $250?

[toughdomains]

Is there some domain course out there or youtube video that is telling eveyone to offer this magic number?
I just got a phone call off of my domain store right now.
They called the number on my store page which goes to my cell phone (its not a real number but had a texas area code)
asked about cryptolaws in king
I needed to ask him what his offer was (he seemed very nervous not really sure what to say)
he replied $250.
I replied "we have rejected your offer"
and he said thanks and hung up.

I want to say the last 10 to 15 offers that come in are $250. Is someone going out there and telling people to offer $250? or do people look up good domains and call people all day and offer $250.

Not $200 not $300
Not $225 but $250 every time. Im going to make a category in my store and call it "$250 Domains" apparently there is a market for them.

 

[kunkka]

 

[Dave]

I've had similar happen. The previous 3 domain offers I received were for $200 each. I don't think that has ever happened to me before in domaining.

 

[hawkeye]

Probably people are starting to realize that $10 or $100 offers will get rejected, so they are upping their offers to what they feel is more respectable and at least appear they’re somewhat interested. $250 is not a ‘bad’ opening offer from an uneducated domain buyer, unless it’s a one worder, but there are those domainers that will be insulted with any offer that is not 5 figures or close to their ‘as-if’ expectations.

And to be honest a reply of “we have rejected your offer” on an in-bound phone call, is not only rude, but shows no sense of any sort of salesmanship skills. imo. Something along the lines of ‘that’s less than we are looking for’, or ‘we value this domain more so than that amount’ would be more in line than an outright ‘we reject’. Again...imo.

 

[maxtorz]

Here's my insight on your post, and I will answer your question first.
I get $200-$250-$300 almost 99% of the time, because
- people don't know the value of a domain;
- because they are "seasoned" negotiators buyers/investors/etc and want to feel you out and want to get the best deal they could possibly get;

IMO you failed to gather vital info from your prospect that called you. This is what I ask when ANYONE calls me for a domain that I have for sale:

1.Are you looking for the domain for yourself, are you a web guy or representing a client?
2.What project you have going on?
3.Instead of asking "What's your offer?" I ask ...What's your budget today for a domain/your project?
4. And the very important one: Other then yourself who else needs to be involved or can influence this deal?
5.Of course they will ask for my price expectation and I simply say I will get back to them later on today once I get in front of my computer.
See what I did here? I now have some intel on WHO this prospect might be and what their budget might be while leaving space to followup and come up with a sale strategy for that name. I didn't ask for an offer, I didn't decline anything, I just asked questions and was very warm and polite.
I then put together a strategy on how I am going to close this sale, when I call them back later that day with my price expectation.

 

[Dave]

Probably people are starting to realize that $10 or $100 offers will get rejected, so they are upping their offers to what they feel is more respectable and at least appear they’re somewhat interested. $250 is not a ‘bad’ opening offer from an uneducated domain buyer, unless it’s a one worder, but there are those domainers that will be insulted with any offer that is not 5 figures or close to their ‘as-if’ expectations.

And to be honest a reply of “we have rejected your offer” on an in-bound phone call, is not only rude, but shows no sense of any sort of salesmanship skills. imo. Something along the lines of ‘that’s less than we are looking for’, or ‘we value this domain more so than that amount’ would be more in line than an outright ‘we reject’. Again...imo.

This. Reject but also add that you are looking for an offer more in the range of [insert value here].

 

[DomainGist]

he replied $250.
I replied "we have rejected your offer"
and he said thanks and hung up.

Bit of an odd response from you I think, especially as the bloke was nervous.... killed the lead, should have taken an email address and told him you'd "crunch the numbers" and get back to him on the price you would need, then you could have followed up with a counter offer and potentially engaged in a negotiation?

 

[DomainGist]

ps. The buyer was only doing what every single one of us would do if invited to make an offer for a domain.... try and get it on the cheap.

 

[DomainGist]

Was it the owner of the .org?

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I use just Contact Form at ParkingCrew... instead of Sale Form.
So no any bids... all endusers ask me regarding my price...

 

[stewmath]

I cant comment because ive never received any offers. Lol

 

[Dave]

... edit: nevermind.

 

[urlurl]

maybe $250 is the new floor price for good 2 word combo's

 

[urlurl]

if these offers are coming from afternic, it makes sense, 20% of $250 is $50 - leaving $200 even for the seller. Not a great profit margin, but... if you were thinking of not renewing or you didn't love the name anymore seems like a good sale level.

 

[BaileyUK]

I agree, there does appear to have become a 'Sort of Norm' in opening offers. I think it's more down to do with the full sales summary picture and prices being available on many more sites. I personally use the sales report at Goldnames dot com for their full week list right down to those $50 sales. Of course there are many sales missing but as each day progresses Golddomains update that current weeks chart.

You will constantly come across domains at where you think, Yep I'd have had that at $350. . The other thing of course is domainers and end-users are more conscious of the price offered needs to open a dialogue, You can't really do that with $50 dollar openers anymore.

I'm not saying this applies across the board but, it certainly seems to have become the new norm, even here in the UK.

As our market evolves, I agree with the old hands that are confirming that you need to be able to negotiate and justify your asking price in many more scenarios. I think this can only help educate the whole seller/buyer experience.

 

[Haris]

Just received a $250 offer

 

[urlurl]

from where? email? afternic?

 

[Haris]

from where? email? afternic?

landing page.

But mostly, I receive $50 offers from other places, just got a $50 offer at GoDaddy. I don't understand, the people who make offers are not domainers, but they offer $50 for domains I paid $100+. Then they go up to $200-300 and that's the highest they can go. Unreal.

 

[Max1000]

Here's my insight on your post, and I will answer your question first.
I get $200-$250-$300 almost 99% of the time, because
- people don't know the value of a domain;
- because they are "seasoned" negotiators buyers/investors/etc and want to feel you out and want to get the best deal they could possibly get;

IMO you failed to gather vital info from your prospect that called you. This is what I ask when ANYONE calls me for a domain that I have for sale:

1.Are you looking for the domain for yourself, are you a web guy or representing a client?
2.What project you have going on?
3.Instead of asking "What's your offer?" I ask ...What's your budget today for a domain/your project?
4. And the very important one: Other then yourself who else needs to be involved or can influence this deal?
5.Of course they will ask for my price expectation and I simply say I will get back to them later on today once I get in front of my computer.
See what I did here? I now have some intel on WHO this prospect might be and what their budget might be while leaving space to followup and come up with a sale strategy for that name. I didn't ask for an offer, I didn't decline anything, I just asked questions and was very warm and polite.
I then put together a strategy on how I am going to close this sale, when I call them back later that day with my price expectation.

Really simple and really good advice.

 

[SpareDomains]

My last offer was 4k turned into 16k and sold.
Offer before that they asked for a price and I gave one 3xxx and they said sold, then I questioned should I have went higher.
I list 800 numbers on my sales sites but usually let it go to voicemail as I prefer all negotiations in writing as when you stare at an email you can read between the lines quite a bit. Phone calls ya may forget what someone said previously.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Is there some domain course out there or youtube video that is telling eveyone to offer this magic number?

I have gotten a few 200 offers lately on names that are conservatively worth ten times as much.

Although I consider myself a master negotiator (been in sales my whole life...brokered several multi million dollar projects) my names ALL go to fixed price lander or they have a make an offer form that requires email, name and phone number. Of course one of the phone or email contacts can be bogus (as well as the name) at least one has to be real and that will give me a place to start learning about the person making the inquiry.

If they make an offer less than a third of what I determine the minimum acceptable price to be, I politely tell them that we are too far apart to waste each others time and if, in the future, they would like to make another offer they are welcome to...that is if the name is still available. The last part will aways get a second offer quickly.

 

[Premiums]

got.an.offer

 

[stewmath]

Mines just because i dont own many names, its a numbers game really. When you own 1k+ names then the offers are bound to come daily. I have set alot of my BIN prices on the names ill let go cheap for $249 on afternic

 

[Addison]

Certain big domainers set their minimum offers to that. Thus, an innumerable number of buyers see $250 as the price they can enter and think domains can be purchased at that price. If they're making bulk offers on different domains, then they have to use that price on those domains and they'll use it on others, too. They even might start thinking that's a good price to offer.

 

[VaibhavA]

Me too. Why 250$. Is there an article somewhere?