Godaddy brokers (4.Viewing)

I'm getting kinda sick of buyers who pay godaddy $120 USD for broker services, who then simply just send a template email with no offer and just asking what my price is. The majority of the time these are a waste of time for both of us. You get paid for your time, but I don't. I think GoDaddy should start paying me half that fee if they want me to respond to these inquiries going forward.

@jamesiles Any thoughts on that?

If the broker doesn't make an offer then the buyer has no money. It's as simple as that.

Just totally ignore them and you'll see their (cough) "top offer" eventually. One time I received at least 5 'blank template' inquiries before the GD broker unveiled the buyer's full offer price of $250, along with the boilerplate "cash offers are rare" bullcrap. And if you hit the rare buyer with some cash in their pocket, you'll see that offer too, and a lot quicker.

No offer = no response

DomainRecap said:

If the broker doesn't make an offer then the buyer has no money. It's as simple as that.

Just totally ignore them and you'll see their (cough) "top offer" eventually. One time I received at least 5 'blank template' inquiries before the GD broker unveiled the buyer's full offer price of $250, along with the boilerplate "cash offers are rare" bullcrap. And if you hit the rare buyer with some cash in their pocket, you'll see that offer too, and a lot quicker.

No offer = no response

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The part I don't understand is, if they have no money, who the hell pays $160+ to just put a price request in via godaddy when the domain had a contact form landing page and my whois is public??

rlm said:

my whois is public??

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The Rick Schwartz rule

Nothing like putting something up for sale but not letting the buyer know who owns it, chances are greater and trust is instantly built when WHOIS is public.

and yet they don’t use it…

rlm said:

The part I don't understand is, if they have no money, who the hell pays $160+ to just put a price request in via godaddy when the domain had a contact form landing page and my whois is public??

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No idea, as my WHOIS is private and I get a lot of these. I think some people believe that the fee gets them the domain, while others are just looking for a cheap deal. Others think they can use their "mad negotiating skillz" to get the price down to pennies on the dollar, but 98.3% of the time with a GD broker you're getting a delusional buyer.

Remember, since most for sale domains are on some form of lander or have open WHOIOS info, these people are almost-always playing an end-around game through a broker, because they want to anonymously lowball. Otherwise, they'd just put an offer through the lander, right?

Used to have whois public and did have some sales because of it. The spam and spam calls got so bad I made it private. Been thinking about getting a PO box and a separate number and making public again

rlm said:

I'm getting kinda sick of buyers who pay godaddy $120 USD for broker services, who then simply just send a template email with no offer and just asking what my price is. The majority of the time these are a waste of time for both of us. You get paid for your time, but I don't. I think GoDaddy should start paying me half that fee if they want me to respond to these inquiries going forward.

@jamesiles Any thoughts on that?

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You mean like this -

Direct link to post on X.com

The first contact from GoDaddy broker was a "how much are you looking for" email. No actual offer.

My response was "I will consider serious offers."

Second response was above, the "cash buyers are rare" response. Still no offer.

No response from me.

A third contact from a secondary GoDaddy broker on this domain, following up as if I never responded to start with. I told them the same thing.
"I will consider serious offers".

Finally, a 4th contact with a $1K offer. It was far too low for the domain, plus at that point I didn't have much interest in dealing with a broker using these tactics. I ignored it.

If someone is paying for DBS, GoDaddy should present an actual offer in the first contact. If the price is unreasonable, the brokers should tell the other party that.

And get rid of this stupid "cash offers are very rare" template. How many times do I have to receive it?

I have said this before, GoDaddy brokers are a mixed bag. Some are great, some not so much.

Brad

I really dont get why someone would say make offer? Expect a huge five, 6 figure offer? Just quote a price and move on

mikeyboy said:

I really dont get why someone would say make offer? Expect a huge five, 6 figure offer? Just quote a price and move on

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The domain was not even listed for sale at GoDaddy. The ball is in the buyer's court if they want the domain.

Someone paid the broker to contact me. They failed to make an actual offer.

I am not dealing with the "cash offers are very rare" brokers. They are not serious in my view.

If they can't take the time to form an actual response. I can't be bothered to price my domain.

Brad

I agree with you that most are not serious. So I don't bother with make offer because when a offer does come in, you know it's not going to be serious.
At least with a BIN, the buyer knows where you stand and there's a small chance there could be a more serious offer. IMO

mikeyboy said:

I agree with you that most are not serious. So I don't bother with make offer because when a offer does come in, you know it's not going to be serious.
At least with a BIN, the buyer knows where you stand and there's a small chance there could be a more serious offer. IMO

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I have some domains priced. They provide liquidity.

I have others, normally higher upside .COM, unpriced. Those provide higher individual sales.

I think a mix works if you have a blended portfolio.

Brad

mikeyboy said:

I agree with you that most are not serious. So I don't bother with make offer because when a offer does come in, you know it's not going to be serious.

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Just to be clear once again, that these "buyers" are not contacting you through a Make Offer lander, they are clicking on a "Get the perfect domain — even if it's not available." link at GD, and paying $119.99 for a GoDaddy broker to procure them a specific domain.

https://www.godaddy.com/en-ca/domains/domain-broker

That domain could easily already have a BIN on it or a Make Offer with a high minimum bid like $10K. In fact, I had a domain with a $15K BIN get one of these generic responses via a GD broker (and eventually a $200 "cash offer" - those are rare!), so placing a BIN is hardly a shield against lowballers using a GD broker.

These jokers are bypassing any known price or offer limit in the hopes of "getting a deal" by using a broker with "mad negotiating skills" and boilerplate nonsense emails. That's why people are pissed off and venting in this thread.

mikeyboy said:

I really dont get why someone would say make offer? Expect a huge five, 6 figure offer? Just quote a price and move on

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Here's the problem. When you have thousands of domains, you simply can't just price everything, so you do it on a case-by-case basis. And I know when I price a domain, I don't just pull something out of my ass, I research it and come up with a price I can stand behind. That process is time consuming and yes of course it is just part of the business. However, at some point you have to stop wasting your time by dealing with numerous tire kickers, low ballers and people who are just naive about the domain industry and pricing. That's the issue - finding the balance of how to appropriate time appraising and negotiating with the serious buyers and filtering out the rest. Godaddy isn't helping to solve that problem. But then again, why would they care, they've already collected the fees and frankly its effortless to fire off a template email.

Has anyone here ever paid for Godaddy's $120 broker service? It would be interesting to know how those users feel. Did they feel they received $120 of service? How does the process work, does the broker have a call with the buyer first? Does a broker give the buyer their opinion on what the price of the domain should be? Do they ask what their budget range is? This is where the broker can really kill a sale. If they say "I think this domain is worth $10,000" or they say "our appraisal tool says this domain is worth $10,000" - then when the seller comes back and says the price is $100,000 then the buyer is going to be defensive.

The middle man just complicates things...

mikeyboy said:

I agree with you that most are not serious. So I don't bother with make offer because when a offer does come in, you know it's not going to be serious.
At least with a BIN, the buyer knows where you stand and there's a small chance there could be a more serious offer. IMO

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I think if you can take the time to stay on top of pricing for all your domains, then yes, that can help and it's certainly a valid strategy. I guarantee that's leaving money on the table, but it should eliminate some of the back and forth. However, if given the chance, people will always still try and negotiate, so I think you're doing BIN's you've gotta remove all options to negotiate.

And BINs have no effect on someone wanting to end-around by using a GD broker, and offer $200 instead. I've had two so far like that, with clear 5-figure BINs on GoDaddy sites/linked directly for type-ins, yet they somehow believe they're going to get it for a few hundred by using a broker.