I tried something last week that I would not normally do and it happened to work! I received a domain offer which I thought was from a "good" buyer. The main reason why I thought it was a good buyer, was because of the signature in the email.
The signature included the persons full name, business name, phone number etc.
98% of the email offers I get normally cause me to do a lot of digging to try and figure out who the buyer really is via IP address, email address etc. as most people / companies try to hide who they are. I have found that "good" or "real" buyers are really not that alarmed to let you know who they are, at least most of the time.
The offer itself started at $750 which also happened to be better then the $20, $50, $100 etc. type offers we all get no matter what the value of the domain is.
So what did I do?
Since I list my domain names with Afternic.com, I thought.. why not hand off the contact details and get my account rep who is a domain broker the shot to try and get the max dollar for my domain that I was asking. I knew it would cost me 20% (commission fees), but I also felt this was the one time buyer that I was looking for and I also still controlled the amount I would sell at.
I adjusted my buy it now price by about 10% to make up for the 20% charge ahead of time and was realistic with my offering price, which is also important.
The buyer was located in New Zealand, which I personally would not of phoned, but my rep Maureen did. She was able to speak with the interested party and offered the domain name at my buy it now price of $2,999 with her magic touch. The buyer replied back to Maureen a short time later and accepted the offer.
This process may not be for everybody, but I thought I would give it a try and I am happy with the results. That is all that matters anyway really 
. If you are happy with the amount, you should sell.
If you have your domain names listed with Afternic and select the Expanded Promotion, your rep should be willing to work with you on any offers you wish for them to follow up with even if the offer doesn’t come directly through Afternic. I simply emailed my rep with the offer and asked that she contact them and try to work out a deal. That is what she did!
Just thought I would share this little process so you are aware of it. The domain that sold BTW was the 3 character domain 1BB DotCom.
Leonard Britt
After Afternic’s webinar last week I decided to try expanded promotion with about 5% of my domains as a test. I’ve only sold one domain at Afternic this year for $250 so if this works I’ll “expand” the test…
NameTrader
Not a bad idea if you have end-user pricing on your Afternic listings, which you should especially if you’re doing their 20% commission expanded promotion. Having no asking price on the listing and trying that may be worth trying too – then the sky’s the limit and the broker would get as much as they feel they could negotiate the buyer to.
Congrats on the sale, Jamie. As much as my Afternic sales success has mostly dwindled in the past few years, with their expanded promotion I nabbed a $3,000 sale off of BuyDomains. $25/yr is a small price to pay to get names listed on BuyDomains through the expanded promo…they move so many domains it’s ridiculous.
-Steve
Jamie Zoch
@Steve,
Thank you! I agree that the $20 a year for the membership is worth it, because it gives you the chance with the amount of eyes that see Afternic/BuyDomains and all other places they list the domains. I have also had little luck getting offers directly on Afternic / BuyDomains and I have not figured out exactly why.
nSathees
That’s the right way to go. As these reps have much more experience in negotiation, they have a great chance of getting the max $ for the name.
Congratulations!
Stephen Douglas
I never had good results with Afternic, compared with Sedo (best) Snapnames (used to be the best), and Whypark.com’s (“This domain is for sale” links. It seems that when users land on a website that looks like a working website, they’re more impressed and send in the offers. I get a higher percentage of offers per domain off Whypark than any other source.)
This story though is very enlightening. I never looked at handing off a domain sale enquiry to a domain broker site such as Afternic, Snapnames or Sedo. That is a great idea, although I’m wondering if Mike Robertson, Jonathan Stanfill, and Bari Meyerson, and Amber West would appreciate me forwarding all my domain purchase enquiries to them to handle… but hey — lately my new focus is on broker fee percentage rates and what that broker does to really SELL my domain to EARN that percentage.
I don’t want to step on the toes of my friends at the domain selling websites, but I gotta be honest to my own clients, my blog readers and myself regarding selling domains. Are you listing domains somewhere but feel you’re doing all the work, or they say they’re an “auction” but you’re only getting one bidder and at your reserve price, with no say if you want to accept that “only bid”? At least if someone clicks a “This Domain For Sale” (TDFS) link on your page, you can bargain. I can say fairly that Rick Latona’s team is actually “hands on” in promoting your domain… at least as long as you show yo care. Gotta hand it to them. Same goes to J-Stan at Snapnames.
I feel another blog article idea coming up in my head. Thanks JZ! (Jay-Z, hmmm… don’t get into a rap war bro! But you have legit rights to JZ!)
Let’s give you your cool nickname of “JAM-Z”. Yeah. that’s the ticket!
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