It is always risky to post an article like this because I am going off of only data that I can find on the net. I have sent an email to the seller and have not heard back yet but I am pretty confident with my findings to post this…. With that being said, Sedo.com has brokered the sale of ThinkPoint.com for $25,000 USD and was this weeks highest reported .com domain name sale at Sedo.
In doing a little digging (because that is what I like to do), I happened to notice ThinkPoint.com was also listed for sale on Afternic.com. This is not uncommon for domain owners to list with both Afternic.com and Sedo.com. One thing that is a little different, is more people seem to price domain names listed on Afternic and NOT on Sedo.
Using Google Cache feature because the domain has since been removed, I found the listing for ThinkPoint.com on Afternic.com from about 1 month ago (1-21-2010) and the domain name was listed with a $3,000 Buy It Now! There have been NO changes in whois for years, until the recent sale at Sedo, so I am confident in saying this $3K BIN is accurate.
So the domain sold for $25K and not $3K, WTF? I would have to assume the buyer discovered the domain name listed on Sedo, because the domain was parked with Sedo. At that point, the interested party likely made an offer via the "this domain may be for sale" link and a counter offer type deal took place or the buyer simply made the $25K offer at the point of contact.
So what is the moral of the story?
1.) Sometimes it pays NOT to list a price for a domain name. If the buyer stumbled across the listing on Afternic.com with the Buy It Now for $3,000 USD, they would of saved ohhh about… $22,000 USD.
2.) Do some Research when buying a domain name, it may be listed in more places than one and may also hold a price or a different price than the first place you saw it.
3.) It is likely the interested party will visit the domain name Directly when they are interested in it!
4.) Luck is important and appears to have been on the Sellers side this time!
nidal kadri
It happened the samething for me when i was willing to buy on sedo.com two domains and were selling for $35k each in counter offers from the seller. I did an extra research and bought them on buydomains.com for less as buy now price:
Here are the domains related to the story:
BusinessThinkers.com and GreenPlatform.com
Adam
Buyer is reading this now kicking themselves.
One problem nobody talks about when pricing domains is when a name “hits” big. Think about the popular trends that come out of nowhere and make an “unsuspecting” domain popular. If you have it listed with a BIN price you can be leaving LOADS on the table. Just think if ipad.com dude had it listed for sale . ouch
Jamie Zoch
I agree Adam! They are likely kicking themselves hard. It is hard, because the likely hood of the Home Run type sale only comes around once in a great while but when it does, it is nice! Yet it hasn’t happened to me….. maybe one day (hopefully soon)