Big Businesses, I just don't get it!!!!!

[Mediamarket]

My take is that the folks you end up talking to at large corporations don't have any interest in going through the hassle to make an extra $1K for their company (or whatever the offer was). Having to renew, then process the sale just represents more work and they don't have internal processes setup to handle the sale of a domain. Domains are treated as expenses and not managed out of profit centers and so since there is nothing in it for them personally they don't have time or inclination to negotiate selling a name.

Most of the admins receive hundreds of 'what is your price' solicitations and frankly get weary of responding because most of the offers are guys wanting to buy for $100 and flip on this very forum and often aren't professional in their approach or responses (if they respond at all).

Just my experience in having managed a corporate domain inbox and my experience selling and buying for companies. One day though I think companies will see it different and be more active in the domain aftermarket - some seem to be heading that way now.

[katherine]

Last year I contacted the owner of IAB.com as their name was expiring. Not interested in selling, hung up on me.
Sold at Snap for $67,500.
Is this clueless or plain criminal ?

[stu]

I used to work for a large multinational company. Most employees (both managers and staff) cannot make decisions of this kind for fear it will be the wrong decision. So they bat it over to somebody else in another dept (legal) whose staff are even less capable of making this kind of decision. It's a quagmire. Making no proactive decision is often seen as better alternative than making a proactive decision because no criticism can be attributed. For me. I think it's almost impossible to buy a low profile name from a multinational company. If I was the manager of their Domains Dept, I wouldn't sell it because selling a domain for peanuts (a couple of grand) is not worth the time and effort for a multi-billion dollar company and I wouldn't want to have any criticism for the decision to be leveled against me. I probably would NEVER sell any domain. Paying the reg fee every year is already in their budget and safe. There is no budget for making a profit on those domains. So no need to do it. It's below the radar. If and when the domain has served it's useful purpose, it's better to just let it drop quietly. Rather than to incur the time of their legal department looking at it (and might even bill my dept for that time). That's if I was the manager of their Domains Dept. Of course many large companies don't even have one. Domains might be held by many different departments. Marketing and Legal come to mind, off the bat. The employees of multinational companies live in a bubble and want to keep their noses clean. Best way to do that is to not make any inconsequential proactive decisions which might come back to bite you.

[Yofie]

I think this situation provides a great business opp for somebody... Maybe me. Maybe You....

I have a couple idea's if anybody is interested.

[stu]

Setting up a business to manage big companies domains has already been done. Although there is probably room for more If you're the salesman, I'm your back-office manager

[BELLC1]

Um...should I mention my wife, Susie, works in the IT dept at P&G?

[domainplus]

I hope they won't ask a company to appraise the domain.

I recently made a respectable offer for a domain name. He said basically that he forgot about the name and will sell it, the offer I submitted was good, but they will get back to me in a few days. Later, I got a simple email saying that they appraised the name, and he will not sell it for less than $50k.

Sometimes I really hate appraisals. My offer was a respectable one, lower than the market value, but the domain is in no way worth that much either.

Hope you will have a happy end Yofie.

I was asked to submit an appraisal from Afternic /sedo for consideration of a possible sale. Which i did.

In the end I got a mail saying that the company does not want to go ahead with the possible sale as the committee has refused any sale of assets pending further use.Why did u then ask me to get it appraised and submit offer in the first place ?

wth ?My offer was pretty much a little above market price and they are never going to do anything with that domain anyway...

[Yofie]

Setting up a business to manage big companies domains has already been done. Although there is probably room for more If you're the salesman, I'm your back-office manager

First the companies need to be educated. Then part of it can be portfolio management as well as many other options.

[mediawizard]

I think $1600 would be the amount of spending money that GE gives a few of its employees for a couple of days.

When your turnover is in billions it becomes a really small amount.

Think whether you would put effort into a 16c sale if you were a millionaire and their attitude becomes more logical.