Stealth Acquisitions (1.Viewing)

With NameAgency.com advertising STEALTH Acquisitions, what is your opinion of that?


My opinion on stealth acquisitions has always been the same, the seller leaves money on the table when they don't know who the purchaser is.

I know, a lot of you will say as long as you get your asking price you should be happy, but in my opinion the asking price can change depending on who is knocking at the door.


So picture this....

A real estate broker comes knocking at your door and he says he has a potential client for your property. He tells you your property has a market value of 1.2 million and the potential client may even go as high as 1.5 million. Do you sell? No questions asked? NO WAY!!

Find out who the potential client is, he owns 3 other properties around you and wants to develop. Now you have the ability to negotiate price based on facts and you can make the most educated decision possible when selling your property.


Stealth Domain Acquisitions are no different, for all you know Facebook could be launching a new service and you sell the domain for 10k when you could have gotten 250k.


If I am selling a domain at BIN you can swoop in and buy it anytime and it does not matter who you are, but if I am selling a domain with "make offer" that means I am trying to maximize my potential profit margin. It basically means the price is fluid depending on who is asking.

Is there any other reason you would not put a BIN price on a domain?

Now why are domainers selling the domains to stealth end users when a broker comes calling?
The broker is hired by the company to grab the domain at the lowest price possible and the domainer wants to get the highest price possible.

If you want one of my premium domains you have to fill out my inquiry form or I will not quote a price.

MapleDots.ca/inquiry/?domain=red.ca

Helping clients acquire domains discreetly is one of the reasons buyer brokers, such as yours truly, exist. In some cases, this is because the buyers got burned, or feel like they got burned, going direct to a domain owner in the past. Buyers can behave badly, as can brokers, but some domain owners can behave very badly as well. There can be good and bad players on all sides. Typically, the broker's client is afraid of being gouged on price, and will seek out the help of a buyer broker. A good and ethical buyer broker is not going to try to screw over the domain owner on price, but instead will seek to get a deal done at a reasonable price for all parties. I spend a ton of my time trying to convince my buyer clients to set realistic budgets for their target domains, and I burst a lot of buyer's bubbles, although I don't often get much credit for that from the domain owner/seller. And as I have said many times in the past, just because the buyer is a large company doesn't mean they have a huge budget for the specific domain, especially if the domain is for one of many products/services they own or is for a campaign that will have a limited lifespan. I have some Fortune 500 clients who, quite justifiably, won't spend more than $10-20k for a domain name (.com, not .ca) because they could use a subdomain instead. And I have some serial entrepreneur clients working quietly on their next venture who won't think twice about paying six or seven figures for a domain (.com, not .ca).

These days when talking to my buyer clients I talk about "viable" price and budget, not "lowest" or "cheapest" price. The deal has to make sense for all parties, otherwise there will be no deal.

MapleDots said:

If I am selling a domain at BIN you can swoop in and buy it anytime and it does not matter who you are, but if I am selling a domain with "make offer" that means I am trying to maximize my potential profit margin. It basically means the price is fluid depending on who is asking.

Is there any other reason you would not put a BIN price on a domain?

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I generally put BIN on lower upside domains that are easily replaceable, and leave domains with higher upside unpriced.

The priced domains provide steady cash flow to pay for renewals and other expenses, turn a profit, with negotiated sales on top of that.

MapleDots said:

Now why are domainers selling the domains to stealth end users when a broker comes calling?
The broker is hired by the company to grab the domain at the lowest price possible and the domainer wants to get the highest price possible.

If you want one of my premium domains you have to fill out my inquiry form or I will not quote a price.

MapleDots.ca/inquiry/?domain=red.ca

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It's your domain, so you can do as you please. If you don't want to deal with a buyer broker that is your prerogative.

Honestly though, sometimes they are the ones who can set realistic expectations for the buyer and drag them to the finish line.

It really depends on the quality of the domain. If you are selling some uber premium domain, that might be a different story.

Brad

DataCube said:

It's your domain, so you can do as you please. If you don't want to deal with a buyer broker that is your prerogative.

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It's not that I won't deal with a broker, I won't deal with anyone on one of my PREMIUM domains without knowing the end user.

There are always exceptions, like if a truly fair offer is made but in most cases I would not sell a domain like RAMS.com without knowing who is actually bidding on it.

MapleDots said:

It's not that I won't deal with a broker, I won't deal with anyone on one of my PREMIUM domains without knowing the end user.

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That's fair, but brokers are unlikely to disclose that information.

Therefore, in most situations it has the same outcome as not dealing with them.

MapleDots said:

There are always exceptions, like if a truly fair offer is made but in most cases I would not sell a domain like RAMS.com without knowing who is actually bidding on it.

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Yeah, that makes sense. It would really depend on the domain, the broker, and the offer.

I have used buyer brokers to acquire domains before. Not everyone who has a buyer broker is Microsoft, Meta, etc.

Many are just ordinary joes who don't know much about the field and/or buyers that don't want to get gouged.

Brad

DataCube said:

I generally put BIN on lower upside domains that are easily replaceable, and leave domains with higher upside unpriced.

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I think this is the most sensible and practical approach to selling large inventories of domain names. Separate out the ones that are toughest to replace (LL, meaningful or popular one-words or phrases, etc), leave those with a make-offer or generic contact form.