Here is a perfect example on how to not sell a domain name.


In his defense, and being a domain owner myself, I can understand that it gets annoying having people contact you offering $20 for top-end domains. I think I make it very clear in our conversaton that I am serious about buying his domain and willing to pay whatever price he requests... all he has to do is name the price. I can see where he might be insulted by me offering him $1250 for the domain (which is probably worth several thousand). But wouldn't he have to have a price in mind to deny any of my offers? What's the big deal about naming that price out loud?

I really think if this guy had handled things differently, there would have been a domain sale occurring. About midway I made the decision that not only did I not want to buy from him, but that I would also not bother buying any domains I find with his WHOIS info. His loss I suppose.

Wow, if someone doesn't say it after 3 polite attempts of asking them, I would do the same. I would have given up after 2 tries, I don't have a big heart.

I have a bunch of parked domains that are making like 50 cents a month, but I want to sell them at some point because I can't affoard to host each one of them.

I wonder if craigslist is a good place to have people bid on a domain, something like "best offer gets the domain".

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I'm not sure what was up with this domain seller. I can understand wanting to play hard ball as most domain buyers aren't very serious, but it should never be done to the degree that you lose your potential customer's trust. He (could have been a she) certainly wasn't doing a good job of making me feel comfortable with the domain transaction.

I don't have issue with paying large amounts for domains (based on stats and potential development value), but i'm not going to walk into the negotiation with a blank check and say "here you fill this out with whatever amount you want." Simply, some people think their domains are worth millions and others have no idea, so my first offer is always low. I mentioned to the seller that the domain had no development value to me because I encounter a lot of domain sellers that jack up the price sky-high when they find out you want to build a business around the domain. I absolutely hate when I call about thislongassdomainthatissofrigginlong.com and they say, "$24,000."

I guess I'm left wondering what the buyer was thinking. Did he think I was going to just say "$4 million dollars?"

He/she probably hasn't experienced a professional world where every customer no matter how big or small is treated with respect, or must have simply given up on life or something.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll try those out as time permits.

If you want to see what good customer service is, check out my Zappos Review. I struggled with the review because i don't think I can do justice to just how happy I was. They've gained a customer for life.

Man...that guy's so foolishly arrogant.That's a good example of how important your communication skills are especially if you're in business.I stick to my mantra of "building bridges" all the time.

Hmm, I don't think the seller has as much of an issue with how the domain was used because clearly they had it parked. I think they figured you came in at 4 digits and probably weren't going up to the 5 digit offers.

Some people just don't like to negotiate. They see it as confrontation. Women especially don't like confrontation, so you might be right on that note.

This seller most likely wanted you to hit them with your best offer and in hindsight, that's what they should have said ... give me your best offer. That would have clued you in that they're not negotiators.