GoDaddy Broker - Respond or Not? (1.Viewing)

I've had a couple of theses myself so I'll give my two cents.


First, none of my domains are on the godaddy network so anything brokered is bonus to me because the commission is paid by the buyer.

Second, it's a crazy low offer but the person spent almost $100 after taxes (if currency conversion is involved) so they have to be at least interested in establishing a dialogue.

Third, since GoDaddy is doing all the work just quote a price and let them handle it. It's not like it's costing you any time or effort to simply quote a number.

Fourth, if you get 10 of these and one turns out to be real you're laughing all the way to the bank (assuming you get asking or near asking price).



@DataCube - thank you for tweeting

I did respond to the broker out of courtesy, but not with an asking price.

I am not all that interested in pricing a domain in response to a lowball anchor point.

I basically just said I am not interested, and if the buyer is willing to make a serious offer I will consider it.

Serious buyers tend to come back with serious offers.

I have dealt with GoDaddy brokers countless times. They know I am not going to entertain a $50 offer.

I just sold a similar, but probably worse, domain today for close to $6K.

Just for reference, this domain sold for $500+ at GoDaddy expired auction and I was willing to go much higher to win it.

I have sold comparable domains for numbers well into (5) figures.

Brad

Min bid offers are coming in like mad and it seems that researching and pricing domains is all I do every night - unfortunately none of them have turned into sales.

I have come to understand that these are just hobos running around with spare change in their pockets, looking to steal domains. Due to this, I plan on ignoring any offer less than 4-figures for a period 30 days.

Serious buyers will up their bids, while the low-balling crumb bums will just fade away.

On that note, I just got a $500 offer and price request from Afternic when my minimum bid on that domain is $2K.

Like I said on NP, exactly what purpose does the "minimum bid" serve at Afternic? Is it a user "make work" project?

A brokerage platform or process that allows buyers to have ridiculously low offers placed in front of domain owners is a flawed platform IMHO. Part of what a professional broker should be doing is educating the buyer client about realistic budgets for premium domains, which clearly did not happen here. Then again, for $69 "brokerage" help, you get what you pay for... ;+)

MaiTaiMan said:

A brokerage platform or process that allows buyers to have ridiculously low offers placed in front of domain owners is a flawed platform IMHO. Part of what a professional broker should be doing is educating the buyer client about realistic budgets for premium domains, which clearly did not happen here. Then again, for $69 "brokerage" help, you get what you pay for... ;+)

Click to expand...

That's a good point, but, probably a bit unfair too because they are two completely different models that are geared towards two completely different audiences. I'm usually the last one to defend GoDaddy, but there are probably a LOT of broker inquiries coming in for domains that a specialty broker can't really justify working on based on a commission alone, and thus need to charge an engagement fee to justify it.

If you're a broker that only works on at least mid-5 and 6+ figure domains, then you get the choice to turn down or accept individual cases.

But obviously many inquiries are from people with a small budgets so that model would never work, and these people would then go unserviced. With GoDaddy's market dominance, I can only imagine that they must collect $69 every minute of the day offering this service.

It's kind of like a payday loan. Everyone's horrified to see that interest rates are supposedly so high, but no bank wants to serve those people either. And the interest rates are actually not that high, its the initial effort, like the application fees and background checks that end up being a big chunk of the expense, and clearly those things require time & effort & costs that need to be recouped.

So in both cases, you've got small time people that no one wants to serve. Asking that $69 engagement fee seems, in all honesty, pretty reasonable - assuming you get a knowledgeable broker. Even if it is as simple as having the broker set some reasonable expectations, that's a $69 lesson that is probably worth it to the buyer.

@jamesiles - Just how many brokers work under the GoDaddy network? I'm always surprised how many different names I get emailing me from GoDaddy. Not sure if that's due to turnover? Or just a large number of brokers.

@MaiTaiMan - Just out of curiosity, do you ever charge any engagement fee if the domain is too low in value to justify working on? Or a flat fee? Or do you just turn them down?