How much is stupidity worth?

A pharmacy company recently released a new product that will revolutionize weight loss. This product is going to be promoted on Oprah.

What they did not do is register its trademark or domain name. I did

I contacted a lawyer and he says that they have a weak case if they want to take me to court. So the pharmacy company has offered to buy the domain. They want me to come with a offer and I have no clue how much to ask.

So how much do you think such a domain would be worth (to them)?

 

You would charge a little bit less than it would cost them to find a new brand name.

At least if it was me (the pharmacy company) thats what I would be thinking.

Andy

 

One thing is for certain, stupidity really should cost them.

Hopefully one day we'll all enjoy the story about the domain turned brand and what it was worth.

It is not an easy thing to put a pricetag on. You have to balance greed and risk of them moving along with plan B (the change of brand name).

A 101 in trading has allways - as far as I know - been to let the opponent begin the pricing.

Maybe you should buy time by throwing the ball back on their court for starters? If they want to buy it they must have an idea what they can afford. That might just be more than you anticipated.

 

This is how I calculate it:

This pill is going to be huge, because it will be on Oprah. So I would expect a lot of people searching for the name of directly typing the domain.

Weight loss products are high paying in adsense. So based on that and other advertisement on my page. I have no clue how much it would cost them to change the brand. I do know how my financial position is (as a student).

How much would 12.500 sound?

 

Great catch, i also got one of the domains and i got a site in the SE's listed in the top 5 for the keywords.

 

My guess would have been somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000, so I don't think you're way off

Maybe it's in the low end, but as I stated earlier this is a matter of striking a fine balance.

 

Too cheap. Remember to ask for a higher price than you want. It's to be expected in this type of situation.

What to actually and reasonably hope to get for the domain is something of a game of brinkmanship. Obviously, if you ask for too high a figure, they will decide to go with a cheaper option which is probably rebranding. Go too cheap and you swizz yourself out of some cash.

Personally, I would say that if they are already using the name and have printed up all of the labels, merchandising, etc., etc., then their re-branding costs would probably be in the $25k - $50k range, so you may want to base your price on a figure that makes buying the domain from you an attractive proposition.

If you want to play it safe, remember you only stumbled onto something they have worked hard on already and made a simple mistake. The lower your price, the more chance there is of it being a very straightforward deal.

 

Hehehe.. Now what exacly is your advice here? Should he go high or low? Or maybe both

I will repeat my first point: Try to get them to make an opening statement (price offer), then take it from there.

Just like they will expect you to aim too high you will expect them to aim too low, but lets say they offer you $15,000 to start with, it's a lot more fun than if you started by offering $12,500.

 

Well, without knowing the specifics I can only give a guesstimate. I would begin at $25k and see what develops.

 

It will cost them between 8.000 and 16.000 to take me to court.

Re branding will cost them a lot more, yet if I ask huge amounts, they will play it hard.

I searched the internet and there have been a lot of cases where people got between 5K and 25K for a domain name. I also found a lot of examples of people asking huge amounts like 200K to 1.000K and ending up with nothing!

 

I think you can get the highest out of them if you play smart.

What you need is to know how much are they ready to offer.

I would try to ask some related and unrelated questions to try to get any amount out of them, or just try to prepare them for a huge amount, before you tell them how much exactly you want.

good luck, Michael

 

Silly prices will get you nothing, that's for sure.

A word of advice ... put up a page or two using the domain name. The subject can be anythiing you like although preferably not pharma. You then have some bargaining power should they try to wrestle the domain from you using the ICANN disputed domain service.

By agreeing to sell, it could be argued that you only purchased the domain in order to hold it to 'ransom'.

 

As addition to mcFox's reply: When you put up a page make it non related to their product, use the term for a webdesign company or something.

 

Hey, these "idiots" may have dropped the ball on the trademark and domain name, but they were smart enough to get their product on Oprah. If you start getting greedy, you may end up in a battle that's over your head.

Also keep in mind that if you get sued, you'll have legal fees as well... even squatters have to pay to play

 

Thanks for the advise.

I have already put the site online with information that has nothing to do with their site. I did not buy the site to sell it. But to setup an independent information site about pharmacy products (including theirs) and make money from the ads.

They contacted me, that they want to buy it, before I had the chance to put it online.

 

This is strike one against you

This is strike two. If you write back and ask for any amount of money for the domain, that will be strike three and you can kiss your "lottery ticket" goodbye. You will lose any/every URDP or trademark filing that they care to throw at you.

 

but they asked me to give them a price, because they wanted to buy

Plus that their name has not been registerd, used before and has no trademark

 

Exactly. When you give them that $50k price, they will use that against you to show you registered it with the intention to sell it back to them, which helps to show bad faith.

This is what you will be asked to prove in a WIPO/UDRP hearing:

 

Thank you for the information. This is a local domain.

 

You mean a country code like .nl?