Ridiculous asking prices!

[Proninja]

On a few occasions now I've approached owners of domains (that are up for sale) with an offer. With the exception of one that I subsequently bought, all have come back with insane counter offers.

For example, I thought it might be quite nice to own my surname .co.uk. My surname is not a common one and .org.uk was still available, as was .me and many other less popular extensions. Equally, my surname has no alternative meaning.

I made an offer of low £xxx and the guy came back asking for £5000. I can get my surname as a dot com for £1000 on sedo through a "buy it now" listing and I pointed this out to the seller. He was not willing to budge.

I didn't even bother continuing.

And this is my experience with almost every domain I've tried to buy - vastly unrealistic asking prices.

So, is this something you guys do intentionally? Or do you genuinely believe the prices you quote?

In the end I bought the org.uk address for 3 quid.

 

[RobM]

What is unrealistic to you may not be to someone else. As you are not forced to buy I'd say you did the right thing buying an alternative.

 

[Proninja]

I can accept that what is realistic depends on the individual, but when presented with clear evidence that they are over valuing (other extensions still available, the dot com being sold for a fraction of the price) why do they refuse to budge?

Given they're paying recurring annual reg fees, surely it's in their interests to offload asap.

 

[foz]

I made an offer of low £xxx and the guy came back asking for £5000. I can get my surname as a dot com for £1000 on sedo through a "buy it now" listing and I pointed this out to the seller. He was not willing to budge.

Buy the .com then, value there.

 

[websaway]

What was the name ?

 

[spiderspider]

Many sellers are like this. They have their head in a time warp, and are trapped in 5 years ago land.

What you have to remember, is that the value of many .co.uk domains have dropped through the floor. Some sellers are still holding out, in the hope that as you contacted them, you will pay the £5K asked for.

I have screen shots of domains I have made offers on, using Sedo. Seller comes back with a price and I counter. Seller comes back with same price. I counter, again, seller won't move and comes back at same price.

Happens all the time, in all walks of life. get used to it, and move on.

 

[markb]

I would just forget about the domain for now, many people own domains and advertise them for sale, and will probably never sell them as they are holding out for that one person that may or may not come along and offer them exactly what they want. Possibly try them again a few months down the line. I once made a couple of offers on a domain of £25k and then £30k and the seller turned them both down. I ended up buying the domain a year down the line for less than £10k.

 

[websaway]

let him tell us the name and then we can give an educated/informed opinion.

 

[Murray]

For some people I think holding on to the dream of getting x,xxx is more enjoyable than xxx in reality.

 

[nick-harper]

I have seen this when buying websites, people want thousands even the website doesn't make a penny and have any traffic at all...

You will still see the same domains for sale next year while they keep paying renewals...

 

[atlas]

As a seller, you want to maximise profit, where profit is a function of your asking price and the probability of selling the domain over an acceptable waiting period.

Depending on the domain and the seller's acceptable waiting period, that is going to result in a wide variety of pricing strategies.

If you've got a good quality domain and are willing to wait a long time for a sale, you can maximise profit by doing like Rick Schwartz and just sell 1 or 2 domains per year at a very high price.

At the other extreme, if your acceptable waiting period is quite short, your profit maximising strategy may be to sell quickly at a smaller profit.

And then there are a whole continuum of pricing strategies in between.

In the circumstances, I don't think that you can look at a price of a domain and say that the asking price is ridiculous. Rich Schwartz would never sell a domain for as little as £5000.

Particularly for a surname, where someone may well name their company after themselves, if you've got a long enough waiting period, £5000 may well be reasonable.

The fact that £1000 for a .com surname was outside your budget and you chose to hand register the .org.uk shows that you are likely not the target market of the seller. I know very few people who would sell a .com surname for £1000 and a lot of people who would be happy to buy their .com surname for £1000.

It's not a big deal - it's just how the market works. If you don't get the price you want, buy another domain rather than complaining.

 

[websaway]

As a seller, you want to maximise profit, where profit is a function of your asking price and the probability of selling the domain over an acceptable waiting period.

Depending on the domain and the seller's acceptable waiting period, that is going to result in a wide variety of pricing strategies.

If you've got a good quality domain and are willing to wait a long time for a sale, you can maximise profit by doing like Rick Schwartz and just sell 1 or 2 domains per year at a very high price.

At the other extreme, if your acceptable waiting period is quite short, your profit maximising strategy may be to sell quickly at a smaller profit.

And then there are a whole continuum of pricing strategies in between.

In the circumstances, I don't think that you can look at a price of a domain and say that the asking price is ridiculous. Rich Schwartz would never sell a domain for as little as £5000.

Particularly for a surname, where someone may well name their company after themselves, if you've got a long enough waiting period, £5000 may well be reasonable.

The fact that £1000 for a .com surname was outside your budget and you chose to hand register the .org.uk shows that you are likely not the target market of the seller. I know very few people who would sell a .com surname for £1000 and a lot of people who would be happy to buy their .com surname for £1000.

It's not a big deal - it's just how the market works. If you don't get the price you want, buy another domain rather than complaining.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. He offered low xxx but would not pay the asking price for the .com therefore the buyer and seller of the co.uk were miles apart on valuation versus desire to own. The fact he was prepared to use the org.uk meant he clearly wasn't the intended target for the seller.
I asked for the poster to post the domain, he seems reluctant to do so, so I assume the post was a hypothetical situation.

 

[scottmccloud]

If the .com can indeed be bought for £1000, then I think a low £££ offer for the .co.uk is reasonable, and it is the seller that is being unrealistic.

That said, we can't really be sure without knowing the domain in question.

 

[Brassneck]

. The fact he was prepared to use the org.uk meant he clearly wasn't the intended target for the seller.
.

So who was likely to be the intended target of a reasonably uncommon surname with a fairly cheap .com available and the .org.uk not registered?

 

[websaway]

So who was likely to be the intended target of a reasonably uncommon surname with a fairly cheap .com available and the .org.uk not registered?

The intended target of this so far hypothetical situation is the person who want's the name and prefers the uk version and has not got a budget out of proportion to the sellers asking price.


It's far too convenient for buyers who want a particular name to make a case as to why asking prices are too high.
You can only arrive at an intelligent conclusion if all the facts are to hand.

 

[ian]

It's far too convenient for buyers who want a particular name to make a case as to why asking prices are too high.

I wouldn't agree, what difference is there between making your own price comparison on a domain value versus that of any other tangible product for example? It would be fairly reasonable to assume in most cases (especially a non-geographical surname) that the .com is worth more than the .co.uk, so the potential buyer has made an offer accordingly; it has nothing to do with whether they may or may not be the right buyer, but a distinction between the buyers opinion versus the sellers expectation.

Obviously it is hard to know in this particular case without knowing the domain name, but to me anyway, it would suggest the seller is being unrealistic, like some are when waiting for the 'right buyer' to (maybe) come along.

 

[websaway]

Many sellers are like this. They have their head in a time warp, and are trapped in 5 years ago land.

What you have to remember, is that the value of many .co.uk domains have dropped through the floor. Some sellers are still holding out, in the hope that as you contacted them, you will pay the £5K asked for.

I have screen shots of domains I have made offers on, using Sedo. Seller comes back with a price and I counter. Seller comes back with same price. I counter, again, seller won't move and comes back at same price.

Happens all the time, in all walks of life. get used to it, and move on.

In my experience the seller cannot come back with the same price.

 

[websaway]

I wouldn't agree, what difference is there between making your own price comparison on a domain value versus that of any other tangible product for example? It would be fairly reasonable to assume in most cases (especially a non-geographical surname) that the .com is worth more than the .co.uk, so the potential buyer has made an offer accordingly; it has nothing to do with whether they may or may not be the right buyer, but a distinction between the buyers opinion versus the sellers expectation.

Obviously it is hard to know in this particular case without knowing the domain name, but to me anyway, it would suggest the seller is being unrealistic, like some are when waiting for the 'right buyer' to (maybe) come along.

To emphasise my case for knowing the full details..... Taunton or suchlike could be classed as an uncommon surname.

 

[spiderspider]

In my experience the seller cannot come back with the same price.

In mine, they can and do. Want screen shots?

 

[websaway]

In mine, they can and do. Want screen shots?

No but you could offer actual facts of the name and prices as an example of unreasonable price expectations, by either buyer or seller.

So
a name
your offer
asking price
sellers counter offer
your counter offer.

outcome.