Dallas Cowboys Alleged Domain Price Stupidity

Part of the problem with domain name disputes and domain complaints is the fact so many companies are unwilling to spend a fair amount of money buying already registered domains to protect their valuable brands.

A more or less perfect example is how the Dallas Cowboys representatives made a bid of only $275 (really $275 and not a misprint) for the great Cowboys.com domain name at an auction when other auction bids were in the general area of 200k or higher.

However, strangely the Cowboys allegedly grossly misunderstood the auction price level (in spite of the fact a series of auction bids had worked their way up to more than $200,000., while they were present in-person at the venue) but somehow were oddly thinking a bid of just $275 would buy that great domain. Isn’t that amazing! They say the truth is stranger than fiction. A story like that is so far fetched it could not be made-up!

There is a TV show about the World’s Dumbest and the Dallas Cowboys reps at the domain auction (who I heard it said at least one was a Cowboys attorney) should definitely be on that show based on the alleged auction bidding events.

The proposed world’s dumbest appearance would include the upper management where for just 275k (which should be insignificant to an assumed billion dollar plus business) they later cancelled their absurd $275 bid after being informed the bid should have been $275,000.

This incredible true story about some of the alleged dumbest people on the planet is very hard to believe but this did in fact happen a few years ago.

It’s Always Tough Giving a Buy Price or Sale Price

One of the the most frustrating things about the domain name and website business is that in the normal course of business (even if the name or its website is not listed for sale) there will be occasional unsolicited offers to buy your domains and/or websites but most everyone has great reluctance to make the first move regarding a sales price.

In all likelihood, the typical great reluctance by both buyers and sellers to name an agreeable price results in the large majority of web site or domain-name potential transactions failing.

A prospecive buyer does not want to give a specific offer because of two reasons:

1. The prospective buyer is thinking the offer may be more than sellers expected price so seller will accept it right away and he would pay more than was needed.

2. Conversely, buyer is thinking his proposed price is too low so seller may act negative and not respond at all or else act insulted replying with a sky high price of say $50,000 for a domain he really would normally sell for $5,000 or less as an example.

A potential seller does not want to give the buyer a specific buy-it-now price due to two reasons (this is especially applicable if the buyers full identity is not known):

1. Seller may be thinking the accepable buy price is lower than what buyer was really willing to pay. Thus buyer will accept the price and domain or website would get sold for less than its potential price.

2. If proposed buy price is perceived as too high by the potential buyer it may turn buyer negative and buyer will nt reply at all. That would be unfortunate since seller may in reality accept much less than the quoted high price but never has a chance to negotiate the price since buyer already walked away or went on to an alternative name for sale or a newly registered domain.

Not really sure what solutions there may be to this ongoing problem, which in-effect stands in the way of a great number of sales. Anyone know a way to avoid this?

Good Domains for Websites Sold for Under $1000

It’s interesting how the BuyDomains.com reported domain sale prices (substantial $950,000 total sales last week) vary so much. Some names which were reported as sold by BD last week stand-out as really good domain name buys based on end-user product sales possibilities, combined with their low sale prices and good keywords in well paying categories (such as in the financial markets for example).

Knowing to a degree how BuyDomains and Afternic operate I am sure many of these domains were purchased by website developers after successful email or phone price negotiations with BuyDomains and Afternic (which flexible pricing they typically offer) with the intention to make money from the future targeted websites using good keyword domains purchased at reasonable prices, including these examples.

The best buys are domains which are also in high-paying product categories, names such as AnnuitiesAdvisor.com ($900), DomainFutures.com ($488), FreeTradingSystem.com ($440). InternationalAssetProtection.com ($688), CommunityCollegeStudentLoan.com ($488) and CanadaHotelReservations.com ($450).

Those nice domain names were all priced reasonably at under $1,000. In fact, in my opinion, that low-priced group of names are better than many of the names which BuyDomains.com sold at much higher price levels last week. That may or may not be an anomaly but I would not be at all surprised if it was really a common occurrence since so many dubious value names are sold on a daily basis from what I can tell.

Lowball Offers are Not Necessarily Starting Points

Some folks claim lowball offers for domain names are simply a starting points and a negotiating method to initiate negotiations, with an assumption both parties realize the real value of the domain.

The “starting point” view doesn’t work too well with me. If I start out with a reasonable offer of say $800 (not desiring negotiations) for a name which I feel is really worth no more than $800 (especially without any known traffic) and the seller counters with a price of say $11,000 I know right away an eventual sale is most unlikely, if not impossible.

Actually had that scenario happen recently when the owner later wrote again asking me to make a new higher offer but I countered with a new lower offer of $400 due to the declining economy and lesser desire for the name vs originally. He then indicated maybe he would take a price much closer to my original offer after all if I had not gone down in the offer, to which I said no more higher offers and the domain sale negotiations were therefore finished.