A morning in the life of a poor domainer

bulkcorn · May 6, 2014

One Monday in 2014 @ 10:09 am:

Prospective Buyer (out of the blues) : Domain Offer - £100
Seller : Thanks for the interest but £5k. Counter-offers welcome.

Prospective Buyer:

Dear xxxxxxxx,
I'll go on with another domain.
Please don't waste my time with ridiculous £5000 or £1000 or £500 request for this domain.
That makes me completely loose my interest in buying this site.
Hope you'll find some crazy people to buy this domain at more that 20 times what's reasonable.
I really don't think you will, anyway.

Best Regards

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

:lol: :lol: :lol:

DaveP · May 6, 2014

Each to their own really. Mind sharing the domain name?

RobM · May 6, 2014

Tell him it's 'lose' as in loser

bulkcorn · May 6, 2014

DaveP said:
Each to their own really. Mind sharing the domain name?

Domain is a 'xxxxxxx'.com :lol: :lol: :lol:

RobM said:
Tell him it's 'lose' as in loser

English is not the official language of the aggrieved prospective customer's country. I did not want to hurt their feelings any further, so I did not attempt to correct the spelling error, and I also couldn't risk a torrent of abuse on Monday morning! Bad for market, you see! :lol: :lol:

Retired_Member38 · May 6, 2014

So he's offering £100, you're asking £5000.

Answer this one honestly :lol: who's closer to the true value?

I'd like to see an arbitration system when buyers/sellers couldn't agree a price. They push the domain to a service who decides on the final sale price. But the experts can't just choose a value... they can only select either of the seller or buyers valuation :lol:

diablo · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
So he's offering £100, you're asking £5000.
Answer this one honestly :lol: who's closer to the true value?

There is no "true" value. Value is in the eye of the beholder and not inherent in a domain or any other product or service.

We don't even know if the buyer truly valued it at £100 or whether the seller truly valued it at £5,000. My guess would be neither truly valued the name at those prices. Both were almost certainly opening gambits, but so far apart, no dice.

Retired_Member38 · May 6, 2014

I'm sure the OP has a value in his head of what would be a 'fair market price' for it. Just curious as to who's being more silly, the £100 or the £5000...

bulkcorn · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
.....So he's offering £100, you're asking £5000.

Answer this one honestly :lol: who's closer to the true value?

I am!

Monkey said:
......I'd like to see an arbitration system when buyers/sellers couldn't agree a price. They push the domain to a service who decides on the final sale price. But the experts can't just choose a value... they can only select either of the seller or buyers valuation :lol:

We could test it on Monkey.co.uk! I'll offer you £200 for Monkey.co.uk!

diablo · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
I'm sure the OP has a value in his head of what would be a 'fair market price' for it. Just curious as to who's being more silly, the £100 or the £5000...

That's my point. Neither is being "more silly". Just because I don't value something as highly as you might, doesn't make either of us silly or wrong.

Retired_Member38 · May 6, 2014

diablo said:
That's my point. Neither is being "more silly". Just because I don't value something as highly as you might, doesn't make either of us silly or wrong.

Carinsurance.com. I offer £500, the seller asks for £200,000. Neither of us are being silly then?

bulkcorn · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
Carinsurance.com. I offer £500, the seller asks for £200,000. Neither of us are being silly then?

£500 would definitely be a silly offer from someone with your domainer knowledge for CarInsurance.com!

£200,000 is not a bad counter-offer for it! You'd negotiate!

Retired_Member39 · May 6, 2014

I reg'd SheffieldRecycling.co.uk about 2 weeks ago, after a quick google search i found SheffieldRecylingServicesLtd.co.uk. I sent them an email, they respond how much. I say looking for offers "around" £150, i got back no thanks, guess it wasnt even worth £30 to them

diablo · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
Carinsurance.com. I offer £500, the seller asks for £200,000. Neither of us are being silly then?

In terms of value, no.

Retired_Member38 · May 6, 2014

Really... so you think its perfectly sensible to offer £500 for a domain than anyone with any sense would agree is a 6figure+ domain?

I realise domain value is subjective.... but when one person is saying £100 and the other is saying £5000 then clearly one of them (at least) is being idiotic.

diablo · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
I realise domain value is subjective.... but when one person is saying £100 and the other is saying £5000 then clearly one of them (at least) is being idiotic.

You've just contradicted yourself. If value is subjective, how does it make either party idiotic?

There is no intrinsic value in domain names or anything else.

Retired_Member38 · May 6, 2014

diablo said:
You've just contradicted yourself. If value is subjective, how does it make either party idiotic?

There is no intrinsic value in domain names or anything else.

I'm saying value is subjective, but its within reason. When you go to extremes then clearly one person is just being stupid. Given the OP and his bidder are 50 multiples apart... one of them is being completely unrealistic.

diablo · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
I'm saying value is subjective, but its within reason. When you go to extremes then clearly one person is just being stupid. Given the OP and his bidder are 50 multiples apart... one of them is being completely unrealistic.

Value is subjective full stop.

It might be unrealistic to expect a seller to accept your offer when the offer is far less than what he values the domain at, but since the domain has no intrinsic value it doesn't make either the buyer or seller stupid.

Edwin · May 6, 2014

Monkey said:
I realise domain value is subjective.... but when one person is saying £100 and the other is saying £5000 then clearly one of them (at least) is being idiotic.

The mistaken (not "stupid") party is always the offerer. Why? Because only the domain owner has the power to decide whether a particular domain name sale happens or not. The buyer has zero say - all they can do is try and make it financially compelling enough for the domain owner to sell.

Of course, a domain owner may find there is no common ground between their expectation and that of offerers, but it's still the offerers who are "wrong" in the sense that they have an expectation of being able to get the domain name for what they're offering, and that won't happen.

If you value a domain name at £100 and the owner of the domain name values it at £5,000 then you're stuck (if you want that particular name) and they're not. The buyer and seller are not in a symmetric relationship when it comes to having the power to decide if a trade happens or not.

Worst case for the domain owner: they have to pay the renewal fee for another year.

Worst case for the offerer: they have no chance at all of buying the domain name.

Brassneck · May 6, 2014

Edwin said:
Worst case for the domain owner: they have to pay the renewal fee for another year.

Or if the seller actually bought the domain off somebody else as an investment they might end up with an asset that declines in value (like many .uk domains over the last few years) if no other potential buyer comes along. The owner might well be considered stupid in this case.

Retired_Member38 · May 6, 2014

Brassneck said:
Or if the seller actually bought the domain off somebody else as an investment they might end up with an asset that declines in value (like many .uk domains over the last few years) if no other potential buyer comes along. The owner might well be considered stupid in this case.

Look at DVDplayers.co.uk in the current sedo auction... consider how much that would have sold for a while back in the days of massive emd boost & dvd drives actually being a new product...