Recently, I came within minutes of closing a deal – only to watch the buyer pull out.
The reason: a $500 price difference.
Despite the buyer’s financial capability, his definition of a budget apparently clashed with my definition of an acceptable ROI. My asking price was already discounted and in accordance with the current domain market conditions.
Early on, the buyer indicated that they had just registered a dashed version of the domain. My sales pitch contained two points: dashed domains don’t pass the ‘radio test’ and traffic is thus lost to the non-dashed version. Also, should they decide to create a brand, the dashed version is a no-go from the start.
It’s interesting how even educated buyers with a multi-cultural background can turn a deaf ear to well-defined arguments. Sometimes, things just don’t work out.
But whose loss is it, really?
When the buyer pulls out from a deal because they are comfortable with their alternative $10 domain registration, eventually it’s their loss – not the domain seller’s.
An experienced domain seller will use a deal that fell through to their advantage; in my example, I cannot wait for the developed web site on the dashed .com to begin its expected traffic leakage to mine!
That’s when the fun begins: I can then increase my asking price and double the impact by presenting the content of my choice on the domain they failed to acquire. While my expert advise during the negotiation process might have been free, it comes at a price later on. Educating buyers is a freebie only as long as the deal closes.
Moral of the story: you can use a failed transaction to your advantage; while buyers are a dime a dozen, domain assets only appreciate in value.
but if you were to get their leakage what good is it if it would show parked adds relevant to their offerings and resulting in a udrp?
jay – That’s a reverse domain hijacker’s approach 😉 The dashed domain that was just registered is predated by several years by the non-dashed, so a UDRP would be out of the question. Even in the event of an eventual trademark; see the SaveMe.com case.
Monetization of a domain via ads is a legitimate use, although I wasn’t really intending to do that. Emulating their content is an even better approach.
I once had an inquiry about a domain ending in an S. The buyer didn’t like my $XXX price and regged a similar name ending in a Z. However, he eventually dropped that name a couple years later. The general public still largely does not place more than a ~$50-$75 value on keywords so they will register all kinds of odd combinations to get a domain for $10.