They Don’t Always Come Back

A couple of weeks ago, I received a $4,000 offer on a domain name I acquired in auction for $69 in October of 2020. The domain name was priced at just shy of $20,000, and I have not received any other offers or inquiries for it in the last year +. I offered to reduce the price a bit and the prospective buyer came back with a best and final offer of $5,000 as he had an alternative option as a backup. I made one more counter offer and the buyer stood at $5k.

This is the kind of domain name I consider to be replaceable inventory. I typically buy several of these domain names each week, and there is nothing I would consider inherently special about this domain name. A decent $5,000 offer coupled with the fact that I did not receive any other interest in the last year led me to reconsider the offer and decide I would take it.

The buyer did not respond to the offer I gave him. A couple of follow-up messages yielded no reply either. Presumably, the buyer moved on and ended up purchasing his alternative domain name.

Fortunately, I think, the value of the deal was on the lower end of the scale. Thankfully, losing a $5k offer won’t impact business one way or the other. I might not be saying the same thing if I turned down a $200k offer or even a $50k offer on an average domain name. I’ve lost more deals that I thought I had in the bag than I care to count.

For my business to thrive, I have to turn down decent and good offers in order to try and convert them into great offers. This is easy enough on domain names that are hard to replace, but it can be more gut wrenching on the average names where I try to maximize a deal. When things are humming, it’s easy to move on from a lost deal. When times are slower, a lost deal can be a bummer.

I’ve always thought that someone who makes a realistic to strong offer on a domain name will stay at the proverbial bargaining table until a deal is reached or until all the negotiation is completely exhausted. After many failed negotiations, I’ve learned that isn’t always the case.

It’s easy to tell someone else to turn down a big offer to try and convert it to a life changing deal. For my own business to thrive, I need to be willing to take less than ideal deals and use the money to fund other purchases. The challenge, for me, is understanding what deals to accept and when to hold the line.