Receiving lowball offers via email isn’t something new; the stories I could share are numerous, but for today I’ll be focusing on the ‘poor student’ type.
Apparently, those poor students have moved on from making lowball offers from behind a disposable email address, to actually registering an account on Sedo.
While it’s good to ignore those idiots instead of responding with a scathing email about their idiocy, by using Sedo one is more or less obligated to respond.
My counter-offer to their $60 offer was met with the following comment:
“Come on man, 3k for a domain. I just need this for a school competition, can you lend it/rent it to me?”
At that point, obviously, I canceled the transaction.
Sedo should change their requirements regarding how one qualifies to open a Sedo account; those with sub-100 IQ should be blocked out.
You can also set a minimum price for your domain and
avoid the hassle of low bids.
Alan – The problems arising from setting a minimum price are numerous; the same with setting a BIN. In a nutshell, you’d have to monitor an entire portfolio constantly for updates, as markets change and certain keywords become popular. I prefer to deal with reasonable offers and make a counter-offer. The obviously fake ‘poor student’ mentality, I have no time for.
ha, we must’ve been on the same wavelength, I just published a similar story on a lowball offer I received at 4.cn.
Mike – Great timing 😀 Maybe my ‘poor student’ is from China?
So if you have names on this system don’t they make you get an appraisal to justify if you have a name that is worth more than 10k. So if I have name worth 20k or let’s say I think it is worth that:) they won’t allow me to put a bin price of 20k unless I pay them for an appraisal to justify the price. Although I have had a 100 offer on sedo turn into a 15k offer years ago. Can’t complain.
But I think with the introduction of the dns system it may change this whole market into something 10x bigger than what it is now. Will be nice just to set everything at a min bid of 1 or 2k and let sit.
Don – You can set any asking price you want at Sedo, there is no requirement of an appraisal. To make an offer, however, above a certain threshold, one needs to prequalify for that range.
@ Acro
that’s incorect
to list a domain with a min offer or fixed price above 10k sedo want you to pay for an appraisal
what a joke
for top end domains just set min offer at 10k in £ sterling
and btw, yes the poor student thing really pisses me off
blatantly a scammer/liar
there sure is a lot of them around
SexGod – That’s not what I said. You can set any asking price, meaning: when an offer comes in for $60, you can ask for $1,000,000. Another reason I don’t set BIN prices 😉
that’s not an ‘asking price’ that’s a counter offer dude
Acro, setting a minimum offer is the way to go. All my domains at Sedo have a minimum $100 offer (most are negotiation, but some are BIN). Obviously I’m not going to sell at $100, but at least it cuts out some of the lowballers and tire-kickers.
Setting a minimum offer takes seconds – you can also do it in bulk for all of your listed domains. It’s a small effort that could save you a lot of wasted time.
Luke – There is no real point in setting a minimum offer of $100 when my selling threshold is in the thousands, is it? Setting prices takes away the potential of negotiating a sale. When a buyer indicates their inability to reach my asking price, I simply cancel the exchange on the spot. Let’s not forget that by contacting a seller via Sedo instead of the WHOIS info, a buyer announces their intention to be anonymous.
Theo why don’t you set the minim bid at Sedo at the lowest price you would sell any domain from your portfolio? I guess you wouldn’t sell any of your domains for $60.
Why not set it at $300 or $500 for all domains. You will not avoid the $300 offer for the one word .com but at least you will avoid the $60 offers.