Acro.net – Technology Rants & Raves by Acroplex®

In late 2009 I accepted an offer on Sedo for one of my domain names; a dictionary .net with several uses. The buyer was from a country in the Middle East and a newcomer to Sedo.

After waiting patiently for payment for more than 30 days, it became obvious that the buyer would not fulfill their obligation and Sedo canceled the transaction per my request.

They also banned the buyer from the Sedo marketplace as a deadbeat and provided me with the buyer’s name and info. Unfortunately, the buyer’s locale made it impossible for me to proceed with any form of legal action, as I would have done if they were in the US.

Fast forward to the future, 20 months later.

I received a sizable offer for the same domain and decided to send the domain into a Sedo auction. Unfortunately, it ended with a single bid: that of the person who had made the offer.

The buyer paid promptly and issued a request for an invoice, thus revealing his name – and that’s where the transaction turned very interesting: it was the deadbeat buyer from 2009.

I’m a realist when it comes down to domain pricing: the market’s liquidity dictates the pricing – as long as one decides to sell instead of holding long term.

Naturally I would have proceeded with the transaction, as I’ve done with hundreds of others on Sedo. But this wasn’t an ordinary transaction, it was a mockery of honest trading. It’s one thing when someone gets a good deal based on circumstances or the willingness of the seller to sell lower; it’s another thing when they reneg on a deal and break the contract.

I contacted Sedo, notifying them that the deadbeat buyer was somehow back on Sedo and that I wasn’t going to proceed with the transaction. What matters to me isn’t losing a sale but rather, having justice delivered. It’s a matter of ethics to honor a contract and by going around that, the buyer was essentially not playing a fair game.

Sedo deliberated for only a couple of hours before letting me know that they agreed with my position; the buyer had been banned for a while and was allowed back in at a later time per his request for “good behavior”.

Sedo froze the payment at escrow and informed the buyer that they’d have to come up with the remainder of the payment, honoring the initial contract.

It was a brilliant move by Sedo: the buyer’s eagerness to pay indicated that they had both their money and their reputation at stake. If they didn’t pay, they’d have to reverse the charges and lose every chance of every being on Sedo again. To my pleasant surprise, the next day the buyer accepted to honor the original contract.

I sat tight for a few more days while Sedo processed a split payment and finally the deal was complete. It took 20 months from the initial contract to the completion of the transaction but that’s fine since justice was delivered. It also more than doubled my anticipated revenue from the sale.

The way that Sedo handled the transaction was truly fantastic and communication via the phone was superb in every aspect. It’s also gratifying to see that the buyer decided to play fair in the end, so kudos to him for that.

You’ll find out about the $6,200 sale in next week’s DNJournal.

When it comes down to receiving payments from Sedo, either for the monthly PPC revenue or for domain sales, nothing beats the speed and efficiency of direct deposit (ACH).

This is the fastest method to receive your money from Sedo, faster than Paypal, check or bank wire. With the ACH option – that requires a special routing number from your bank – the cash is there within 24 hours of Sedo issuing payment.

Sedo has streamlined the process even further, by combining payments.

For example, if your monthly PPC revenue payment is due at the same time as the proceeds from a domain sale, it will arrive in a combined transaction.

Of course, this will save Sedo a couple of dollars; just be aware of that, in case you are looking for a separate transaction that just so happens to be already in your bank account

Have a great Friday and expect many more domain sales next week as the domain market is truly on an upturn.

For updates, follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/acroplex

Nowadays it seems that people are impatient with a twist: they don’t want to listen and yet, they expect results.

After reading a post at DNForum about people blaming Sedo for taking a long time to verify domains when added to one’s account, I came up with these short and sweet tips that always work for me.

Enjoy.

• Update the DNS of your domain to ns1/ns2.sedoparking.com BEFORE adding them to Sedo. Since DNS takes 24 hours to propagate, wait this much prior to adding a domain to the Sedo account. For new domain registrations it’s instant.
• If you are the first to add that domain to a Sedo account and it has the DNS set as above, verification takes less than 5 minutes.
• If your domain WHOIS matches that of your Sedo account email, verification is instant.
• If an automated verification cannot be established, an email will be sent. Make sure you follow instructions.
• Are you impatient? Instead of calling Sedo “lame”, call their customer service number. They’d be glad to assist you on the spot.

Even when adding domains that exist or existed in some other person’s Sedo account, I never had to wait more than 3 days and that only when the weekend was in-between, e.g. Friday to Monday.

This June it will be my 7th year using the services of Sedo for parking, selling and buying domain names.  While PPC has had its ups and downs, domain sales have never been stronger.

It’s not just the volume of sales, it’s the ability of Sedo to use its best asset: its people.

Potential buyers come from all places, cultures and speak different languages. Negotiation can sometimes break off for no apparent reason, even right in the middle of a transaction that otherwise looked promising.

Having had an offer from a Belgian bidder, I researched the particular domain and feeling confident about their apparent budget, I responded with a suitable second counter-offer.

At that point, the buyer pulled out of the transaction, leaving me scratching my head; for a domain that was acquired for $10 I was definitely disappointed.

So I spoke to my account manager at Sedo, and she performed a little bit of magic for me. After contacting the buyer and explaining – in their native language – what the process entailed, she came back to me with the news that a new round of negotiations would begin.

This afternoon, I found a notification in my mailbox that the buyer from Belgium had placed an offer that matched my asking range; on top of that, they were expressing their apology for misunderstanding the process.

I could not be happier; from $10 to $x,xxx for a .ORG that’s a great ROI.

It shows how important it is to have recovery mechanisms in place, such as establishing direct contact with the other party. This is not the first time that such a negotiation was re-instated; Sedo has done this for me on several occasions.

Thank you Sedo, it’s been a great seven years thus far!

As a domain seller, I’m always looking to maximize my ROI; Sedo’s platform offers some room for negotiation.

However, the use of the pre-selected options is rather minimal and some are rather useless. For example, “Please justify your asking price” sounds like a time-wasting response.

There is one option that is quite ominous and that’s “This is my final offer“.

When placed by the offer-maker, it’s an indication that he’s ready to pull out of further acting upon the domain.

Or is it?

A week ago I was in the middle of one such negotiation, when the deal stalled. My asking price and the placed offer were quite apart.

Then, the potential buyer played the “This is my final offer” card.

Big mistake.

When the gap is large, making such a statement won’t push me into “surrendering” the domain. Domain buyers beware: if you use Sedo to attempt to buy domains anonymously, you immediately indicate that you don’t want to negotiate directly; after all, my contact info is in the WHOIS.

So I typed up a nice response to the buyer, explaining why his offer was laughable; for a domain registered before 2000 he was instantly gaining Google juice for the exact terms. I didn’t forget to send him a couple of other potential buyers, using ZFBot as my search tool.

Then I waited. On the last day of the offer, he accepted my asking price.

Epic triumph.

So don’t go around playing the “Final Offer” card to a domain seller that knows when you bluff.