Hey, I've got a friend who wanted to buy a CVCV.com domain for a business. The domain has been parked since 2001, has no PR, no search trend (it's a rare word). And the seller wants $16k. WTF? Worth it? The seller is an arrogant bastard (I spoke to him on the phone). How do you negotiate with such a seller?
4 letter domains that are pronouncable and brandable can be expensive. Obviously the seller knows that if he hold on to that, he could make good money in the near future. You can try to get professional help in evaluating and buying the domain. Search for the domain in godaddy, and follow the "use a domain agent to buy" link. Frankly there is no point in expecting the seller to be nice and respectful. If you want the domain, concentrate on that. Probably you were trying to be smart by offering peanuts for something he valued a lot! For me the price looks high, but not unexpected!
i say... tell your friend to get himself a good keyword domain instead. that should save him about $15,991.00 (he can put that into some marketing & promotion) then when mr. cvcv (big deal) calls back... tell him to f*ck off. he can probably relate to that kind of talk. GOOD LUCK.
It is his right to quote the price he wants, a contract is based on mutual considerations and needs. If your friend find it too high, just get another domain. I don't see any needs to be using 4 letter words on such an issue, it is a willing buyer willing seller market.
As someone who owns a few CVCV.com names and gets spammed to hell by people, I understand. It's either put up or shut up. Getting these $100 offers or even $500 offers isn't anything special (or even thousands more recently). Zero page rank and links, this ALWAYS makes me laugh. It seems of this forum those can be the only source of value. WRONG. People still type-in domains into their address bar skipping your oh-so-precious search engines and directly navigate to what they want (DING DING DING HERE IS THE VALUE IN MOST GOOD DOMAIN NAMES!) If you chose his name to buy (or try to) chances are you a) aren't first. b) aren't the only one checking it out. c) probably not first to get mad they wouldn't sell for your (im just guessing here) lowball offer. So you can bitch, but he beat you to the domain by 7 years, that is all you can do. So choose something else or bargain (almost every price quoted isn't fixed by any domain seller). But bargain smart - from the first reponse you know what sorta of range the seller is thinking, you lowball twice in a row most people will just ignore or block you (i would, and do!).
The best you can do is point out the weaknesses in the domain name. 1. Traffic - Does it have any? No Alexa or Compete rank? 2. Pagerank - It has none 3. Has the domain name been appraised? If not, how did he come up with his valuations 4. Compare similar sale prices It's his domain name and he can be as arrogant as he wants. Try to bring him back to reality by offering a fair price after you point out the domains weaknesses. Also point out that your budget does not permit a higher offer and that you will purchase another domain name if he does not accept. No matter how rare the word may be, domain name dictionary words will fetch a solid price. Good luck
Pointing out the weaknesses... I don't think that is such a good idea. Clearly they are the ones with the important data (traffic/revenue). Telling the seller his name sucks and offering him less is not going to get your negotiations anywhere. I'd tell you to piss off as you wouldn't be taken as a serious buyer instantly. The minute someone tells me I have no page rank or links it sets off a myriad of bull$hit detectors telling me not deal with this person, and I am not alone in that.
Regardless of its worth i wouldn't negotiate with an arrogant seller, to me its not worth it, id find an alternative.
This is bringing flashbacks of the guy who e-mails me every week for one of my domains and doesn't understand I'm not interested in selling... Wonder what he thinks about me! Was thinking about caving in this week and just setting a high price tag! I agree with kohashi's points 100%. If you can't afford the $16K, make an offer which you can afford and see what the seller says. You might as well? Or contact the .net owner... assuming that the net is taken.
Then I would simply get another domain name. Most domain appraisals take into consideration pagerank, traffic, and revenue. These are not bullshit statistics and are often used in negotiations. Whether at this forum, another forum, or in private sales, this data is normally demanded. If someone would not provide me some traffic info, and expect me to hand over $16K, either he thinks I'm some noob that just stepped off the bus or his domain has crap for traffic. dnforum.com has some reasonable rules for selling domains. They don't just want the domain sellers to post the domain info, they require screenshots of stats, traffic sources, revenue, etc. It certainly helps by weeding out the noobs and scammers.
you fail to understand the difference don't you. If I post my name for sale on a forum like this or even auction at sedo, snapnames, traffic, whatever: I AM LISTING FOR RESELLERS, pricing as such, behaving for a reseller market. The minute you come to ME trying to buy it's a different ballgame. That is end-user approaches. End users don't value simply on traffic like resellers, and many domain sellers of premium names don't sell on multiples. Threatening to go buy another name after contacting them off whois is just laughable, you contacted them in the first place, they weren't begging you to buy it. Do you also walk into McDonalds say you want a cheeseburger and threaten to go to burger king unless they lower the price? PS. Domain appraisals are crap. I have tried modeling with stuff such as links/page rank. Let me tell you, for domain sales, page rank is statistically insignificant for domain sales, links are pretty insignificant as well. Strongest metrics were traffic metrics (overture counts).
I think he learnt that the hard way .net's owned by the same dude. You can actually do that in McD you know. You do get a discount
offer $4k on sedo, so he can open an auction and if the name is really worth $16k some other buyer will join the auction.
What the fish is CVCV any way? I think CV.com would be good but cvcv <?> , nah! However, it could be worth $16K if it means something to you. It may not mean something to everyone, so if you really like it pay $16K. I personally would have told him that it is a second choice to CV.com and I am not sure if I really want it, but I would offer you $100 and then see what he says. But that too late for you unless you get some else to call him.
If your biz reeeealy needs this domain then find a way of raising the cash otherwise skip and register something that has not yet been taken. IMO its not worth 16K but the domain owner knows better try negotiating upto 10k or 9k if like I said your biz really needs this domain.