Nadia’s tweet about delivering a domain in person reminded me of a sale I made eight years ago, while on a trip to Greece.
The buyer, a bank executive, was after an adult domain I had for sale and was willing to meet up in order to have it “delivered”.
It was definitely an interesting proposal, since I would be in Greece anyway, so we met at a popular mall and proceeded to an Internet cafe, packed with smoke and teenagers playing online video games.
After handing me 500 euro, I gave him a piece of paper with the eNom account username and password that contained the sole domain, and he logged into one of the machines.
He then changed the DNS and the account password, we had a beer and then parted ways. It was quick and definitely a departure from using Sedo, escrow or PayPal.
For the record, he still has the domain parked and undeveloped. It seems that grand plans about domain development almost always fail to materialize.
What a cool story! I’m sure at first you were wondering whether it was legit…after all, we’ve all been scammed or stood up on Craigslist before. It’s pretty neat that you were able to meet one of your buyers and get the deal done quickly. The detail about the teenagers and video games made me laugh!
Nadia – We exchanged emails and phone numbers, so I called him from Athens. The supermalls in Greece are quite upscale as they are sparse, so they’re popular hang-outs. Maybe set up a Domain Store at the mall? 🙂
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Great story.
I think a mall domain store would be cool, but I’m not sure if it would be a viable business model.
🙂
Maybe once the vanity domains are up and running!
“Get your .lol here, only $19.99! (Premiums priced higher)”
I have sold some domains that are either parked or resolve to nothing.
While I like the money, I’d like to see my former domains to be used.
But that’s life.
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We definitely need more transactions in person like this 🙂