Don’t fall for this double offer domain trickery

Got an active inbound interest for one of your domains? That’s great.

Then again, unless your minimum asking price is met, that might not be a good sign.

Assuming you’re using a third party platform to sell your domains, such as the Uni Market, offers arrive with some information about the prospective buyer.

In recent months, Uni Market domains are being automatically added to Afternic, without the ability to opt out. Unless one has an Afternic account double-listing these domains, that is.

The current interaction between the Uni Market and Afternic leaves a lot to be desired.

One new issue I’ve come across is that leads from the Afternic DLS don’t share any information about the buyer, when viewed from within the Uni Market platform. It’s the nature of how Afternic does business and earns its 20% cut.

The trickery I’m referring to is the double offer by the same person using a platform that doesn’t share any intel with the seller.

With this method, the other party places an offer via Afternic, a bit less than your floor price; a few days later you receive another offer with a considerably lower price. The psychological effect is that it creates pressure for the seller to weigh their options: accept way less money, or money close to the minimum asking price?

The answer to this artificial quandary is to decline both offers. Negotiate the high offer upwards, above your minimum asking price, and decline the lesser one without much of a counter.

It’s not an easy game to play but eventually you’ll get the hang of it.

Comments

  1. Thank you for the information. I can see this very hard thing to do by an ordinary end-user. But for others it’s easy. Hopefully AF and Uni get this sorted out.

  2. Hi Mark – The issue isn’t exactly fixable; my angle is more or less a strategic response to such inquiries that arrive one after the other, with a wide gap in their offers. But yes, I’d like to see more detailed information arriving from Afternic to the Uni Market platform.

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