BINs Taking Away Some of the Fun

For the last few years, I have found domain investing to be a bit less fun than before. Business has been quite good for the last several years, so it’s not the money issue that has made it less exciting. I haven’t really been able to pinpoint the issue until I was chatting with a friend this morning.

I came to the realization that my usage of buy it now (BIN) pricing on 90+% of my portfolio is making this business less fun. I have nearly all of my inventory listed on Dan.com and GoDaddy with BIN prices. After having the best sales year last year and the first half of the year on fire, I removed the Make Offer functionality on almost all of my Dan.com listings under $10k. People can either buy the domain name for the list price or purchase it via payment plan.

The result for me has been far fewer negotiations, and that has made this business a bit less exciting.

Previously, I had my domain names listed for sale via Afternic/GoDaddy, and the landing pages were all on my Embrace.com inquiry forms. There were many tire kickers, but even discussions with those people were interesting. I still use Embrace.com for all of my higher end inventory, but there are fewer negotiations these days because of the BIN listings.

One benefit of my BIN listings is that I don’t have to get involved in these negotiations. It saves me time and energy not having to deal with prospective buyers on lower value deals. They can either buy the domain name or not without discussing it with me. This has given me more time to spend with my family. For instance, I pick my kids up from school every day and twice a week I bring my daughter to soccer practice and play soccer for an hour and a half with my son. I am not attached to my phone answering purchase inquiries.

I have been trying to figure out why the day to day domain investing activities aren’t as fun or exciting. I think it’s because I am less involved in the sale of my domain names than I once was.