Go Daddy Domain Buy offer - how to counter?

[banyquis]

Hi, there. Technically been a member for a while, but it's been a long time since I've actually logged in. I'm definitely still in newbie status.

Recently, I received an email indicating there was an offer for one of my domains through Go Daddy's Domain Buy service. I assumed this was legit as I definitely went to GoDaddy.com to see the initial offer.

The domain is SHOP<major league and/or major university sports team mascot>.COM, but with the actual team name, of course. The initial offer was $300. The domain currently goes nowhere, so there's nothing existing to add to its value.

My question is, how do these things tend to work? I'm assuming this is a major low ball offer, but don't know what's a reasonable counter. My gut tells me that someone offering that much as an initial pass is willing to pay a good bit more. I also have a handful of other domains with the same naming formula, so I could possibly also see what they do with this domain and mimic that recipe as well in order to develop the others.

Anyone have any guidance how I could proceed? Anything would be much appreciated. Cheers!

[Banned: theinvestor]

You need to ask yourself how much you want and then go from there for your stategy when you counter offer.

It sounds to me that $300 is well above average price for the name.

[banyquis]

Okay, maybe I didn't frame my question well...

I guess I'm trying to understand the mind of the buyer better. When you've (meaning anyone reading this) made an offer for a domain how do you typically make an initial offer? Try with a blatant lowball first, right at your limit or some other approach? Like for homes people tend to say (or at least used to say) 85-90% of the asking price is respectable for an initial offer.

What are the typical strategies any domain buyers out there tend to use? I feel like this is good info for me to know, but also helpful for my particular instance as well. Thanks!

[Maxwell]

Okay, maybe I didn't frame my question well...

I guess I'm trying to understand the mind of the buyer better. When you've (meaning anyone reading this) made an offer for a domain how do you typically make an initial offer? Try with a blatant lowball first, right at your limit or some other approach? Like for homes people tend to say (or at least used to say) 85-90% of the asking price is respectable for an initial offer.

What are the typical strategies any domain buyers out there tend to use? I feel like this is good info for me to know, but also helpful for my particular instance as well. Thanks!

The difference between your real estate example and domaining is that an asking price exists on the home which you can base your offer on, while a "make offer" price tag on a domain name can warrant a $20 offer, or a $500,000 offer.

A domain name like that is below average (especially with trademark issues being a hazard). Since it's no Cars.com or Insurance.com, the mind of an informed purchaser would have an initial thought that you paid reg fee for the name. If they did their research on WHOIS, they'd know exactly when the name was registered and can make the assumption of what you paid on that basis.

From my experience, $100 and $300 are the most common numbers for initial offers. Further negotiations can take the number anywhere.

I'm assuming you handregged the name yourself and paid something to the effect of $8 for it. In this case, $300 is a $292 profit (less GD's commission).

I wouldn't try for more. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. There's no sense countering at $1,000 at the risk of losing the sale. What good does standing your ground do when you let a profit walk out the door?

I say this to everyone who asks "Should I take this offer?"; there's no such thing as a bad profit.

What works to your advantage here, is that you own many variations of the name. If they build an affiliate store on it, send them an email (should be easy to do through the "Contact Us" section, or via their WHOIS email, offering them the rest of the names at a good price. They've expressed interest for the first name, so there's a good chance they'll express interest for the rest.

There's a reason they are using the GoDaddy service... because they don't want to be identified. If they sent you a regular email to your WHOIS email, you could uncover all sorts of things about them. For example, if their email address was for a large sports memorabilia distributor, you'd know they were deep pocketed and could afford much more. By being shrouded in mystery, it's a 50/50 shot that they're loaded, or they're a poor bloke and $300 is all they can offer, bringing a huge advantage to the buyer.

The bottom line: take it. You've been blessed with an offer they are contractually bound to honor if you accept it. Don't blow it by giving them the option to cancel on them.

[myst woman]

this may be the only offer you get. can you afford to turn it down?

[south]

Counter with less than "major league and/or major university sports team mascot" could get it from you in a UDRP, imho.

[LimitedEdition]

grcorp gives some great information, however you are the seller and they want what you have. Counter-offer $450 and see if they will negotiate. If not, you can still accept their $300 offer. Someone who is reaching out to you to purchase your domain will stay interested if the price is right so you might as well to try to squeeze a little more out of it.

[banyquis]

Cool, many thanks for the excellent info. I can certainly "afford" to not make the sale, but I'm also down with some profit is better than no profit. Ultimately, though, I think I will see if there interested in just a bit more. I like LimitedEdition's $450 amount. It's not too obscene, but I'm guessing a poor bloke just scraping enough together would make an initial offer of $300. I'll post back here with how things go. If it blows up in my face, feel free to say 'I told you so.'

Oh, also, I'm rather confident I'm safe from any domain name dispute. The mascot name is generic enough that I don't believe it can be trademarked in any way, nor does it apply to a single specific team. It's definitely not shopfightingirish.com or anything like that. Actually, now that I think about it, this could be something totally not sports team related. Although, as grcorp indicated, I'd love to either see what they do with the domain to try to mimic or maybe offer them the rest of my stockpile of similar names.

Cheers!

[wael]

Because there are trademark issues, I would simply accept the offer, or if you really want to push it then counter with a little more than twice the offer, $700, and shoot for a deal halfway at about $500.