Stop giving it away for free, why I removed LTO (1.Viewing)

I finally finished a sale yesterday and it ended up at 12 payments of $1000 each.

The lander I used was identical to the one shown above. The domain was a .ca advertised at $12,000.

The client used the "Prefer to discuss it first" link to try and dicker me down to 10k and it almost worked because I figured 10k USD was a tidy profit and even after commission I would still far exceed the 10k in CAD.

However, I did not have "Make Offer" activated so I want to continue the illusion that the domain was FIRMLY priced at 12k.

So what did I do as part of the negotiations?

I offered 12 monthly payments of 1k each and the buyer accepted. In other words I used the LTO as part of the price negotiations instead of giving it away for free.

This is the reason I removed LTO on my landers, it's kind of a mixed bag, sometimes it sells domains and other times you can use it as part of the negotiations.

I personally prefer no MAKE OFFER and no LTO active, the DISCUSS FIRST button is your best friend and gets me the most responses.

And for others lease to own works out of the box

RedRider said:

And for others lease to own works out of the box

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Yes, probably after the MAKE OFFER part, in my case I prefer CONTACT OWNER which appears to mostly be the first thing the client does. Then instead of giving away a discount use the LTO as a price negotiation.

right now at DomainEasy for most of my domains I set options for BIN, monthly payments (usually up to 12 months, or 24 for higher priced names) and the option to contact owner.

How was it dealing with Spaceship as a seller?

This is exactly what I've been doing (and telling others to do) for many years, set a price, then when they want to negotiate, counter with favourable payment terms, not a price reduction.

This has always been an area where marketplaces and their landers fail - their LTO terms often feel worse than the buy-now price, thanks to fees/interest/etc.

So, did you use spaceship to handle the monthly payments? or once the buyer contacted you, did you just handle the payments directly? What, if any, was the commission paid to spaceship?

domains said:

How was it dealing with Spaceship as a seller?

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I think spaceship and domaineasy are quite similar but I actually prefer the domaineasy system, it's nicer in every way.

I am using both and the commission is better at domaineasy but spaceship with namecheap gets more traffic due to their searches.


The one reason I like listing is because USD becomes a non issue and the 35% exchange more than makes up for the 10% market commission. Every time I deal via MapleDots landers it's in CAD so I will take any USD when I can get it.

rlm said:

So, did you use spaceship to handle the monthly payments? or once the buyer contacted you, did you just handle the payments directly? What, if any, was the commission paid to spaceship?

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Spaceship is 10%, they handle everything, went smooth as silk and quite honestly I loved the 35% gain from USD.

I have had a number of sales on spaceship lately all at BIN in the 6k range so after exchange and less commission I still made about $7,300 CAD.

This was my first LTO though, and I was heavily negotiating with the client offering 10k usd for a 12k usd domain. Offering it at 1k per month for 12 months made the deal without further negotiations. I'm glad I removed all my LTO's recently because it certainly helped offering it as part of the negotiating process instead of just offering LTO to begin with.

MapleDots said:

Spaceship is 10%, they handle everything, went smooth as silk and quite honestly I loved the 35% gain from USD.

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Well - I'm not sure how you can call it a 35% gain from USD since I'm sure that you, the buyer, or anyone else would certainly be factoring in the exchange rate and fully take that into consideration.

MapleDots said:

I have had a number of sales on spaceship lately all at BIN in the 6k range so after exchange and less commission I still made about $7,300 CAD.

This was my first LTO though, and I was heavily negotiating with the client offering 10k usd for a 12k usd domain. Offering it at 1k per month for 12 months made the deal without further negotiations. I'm glad I removed all my LTO's recently because it certainly helped offering it as part of the negotiating process instead of just offering LTO to begin with.

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I have to wonder though, if you already had a buy-now price set, would it have just sold at that price had you not given them the option to negotiate? The whole point of me setting a buy-now price is to not negotiate and keep it simple.

I don't use buy-now prices very often, but sometimes I'll set one (on my own commission free lander) when a failed negotiation happens through a buyer-side broker like godaddy. Once the broker confirms the buyer has walked away, I'll set the buy-now price at the same price I told the broker (but at the CAD equivalent, if applicable). This way if the buyer decides the commission-free price is acceptable, then they can easily choose to do so. And they don't have the FX hassles and added expenses to deal with either.

rlm said:

Well - I'm not sure how you can call it a 35% gain from USD since I'm sure that you, the buyer, or anyone else would certainly be factoring in the exchange rate and fully take that into consideration.

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You would think, but the first thing that happens on my landers is everyone says no USD for a .CA
On Spaceship that never even comes up and I don't have to negotiate it.

rlm said:

I have to wonder though, if you already had a buy-now price set, would it have just sold at that price had you not given them the option to negotiate? The whole point of me setting a buy-now price is to not negotiate and keep it simple.

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I had BUYNOW set at 12k and the buyer contacted me via the contact button and said he would be a player at 10k.
I told him BIN was firm at 12k and he said he would think about it. I later contacted him and offered LTO at 1k per month and he accepted.

Spreading out a larger sale over monthly payments vs lump sum may also help decrease taxes, if it keeps you in a lower tax bracket.

MapleDots said:

I have had a number of sales on spaceship lately all at BIN in the 6k range so after exchange and less commission I still made about $7,300 CAD.

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mostly .ca or other extensions? what do you find is selling now?

domains said:

mostly .ca or other extensions? what do you find is selling now?

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I have my shoot for the moon stuff but what is selling for me is...

5k
7k
10k
12k

Those are the price ranges I'm actually selling at in most cases.

Believe it or not I sold two three word domains lately all aimed at very specific industries. I look for Industries that are using 3 word domains and I register the singular or plural depending of what they are using. Then I list it in the 5-7k range and after that I have a secret weapon that sells the domain almost 50% of the time.

Businesses that use targeted words are easy sells if you know how to make them stumble upon your domain. It has to look like its their idea to buy it and not me soliciting it. There I have a secret weapon that works like a charm.

domains said:

mostly .ca or other extensions? what do you find is selling now?

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.ca sells if they're price reasonably