From a $90 buy to a $12,000 sale on Concert.io, the education behind the sale | 163
selling on concert.ioThe third article in our Behind the Sale series on the Efty blog is now live. I interview domain name investors who reveal all the information on a recent sale in this series. You’ll discover how they made their purchases and sales, how the talks worked, and much more.
Zach Bard, a developer and domain name investor from the American city of Williston in North Dakota, and I are conversing right now.
Zach, give me a little introduction to yourself.
Although I have always focused more on the development side of the business, I have been developing my domain portfolio intermittently over the past eight years. That being said, Since it was always in my area of expertise,.io has been my “weapon of choice” for me. To each their own, is essentially all I can say in response to the fact that.com is “king” and nothing else. I still value my.com domains highly and still own many of them, but I have also purchased and transferred many.io domains to GitHub for start-up projects, customers, and major corporations because of the positive returns. I was able to purchase what I would consider premium brands early on and even now at a fair price because it’s kind of like an unsaturated market “acquisition wise.” As a result, I was able to reduce my risk of loss. using this CCTLD specifically.
What is the name of the domain name you sold?
On April 23, 2017, I sold Concert.io through my efty marketplace www.io.domains.
What did you spend for the domain and what did it sell for?
On August 1, 2016, I purchased it directly from the registrar (NIC.io) for $90 and sold it 8 months later for $12,000
Can you tell me about the talks for this domain name?
The first bid was $1,000. I answered by telling them that if the offer was at the upper end of their budget, it would be too low to accept, but that I would be open to discussing if their budget allowed for it. Responding in this format was beneficial.
I needed to figure out who I was talking to (domainer/end user). They answered saying it was not at the high end and inquired what I was looking for for the domain and that we could negotiate the price further. At this point, I replied with $18,000 and briefly justified the asking price with some past premium.IO sales are included.
They responded to my message with a firm $10,000 offer. I responded by thanking them for their strong offer and letting them know that my target price for the domain was $15,000 and that we were almost there, and I asked if they had any more wiggle space.
They reacted by saying they thought their offer was “fair” and that they would maintain their position at $10,000. I replied one final time, accepting their hard offer and restating my “target price” of $15,000, and I then requested if we might equally compromise at $12,500 in order to divide the difference. They offered $12,000, which I accepted and paid for. Escrow.com was used to complete the deal since that was how the buyer preferred it.
Zach, thanks for sharing. Would you want to add anybody else, please?
In the end, it turned out that the buyer was a big corporation, and they did an excellent job of hiding that while we were in escrow. I was approached through a personal/disguised email as opposed to a business email. In my experience working with these larger corporations, this is a standard procedure, but it’s important to know if you’ve never closed a transaction with a customer of this size. The start-to-finish procedure you put in place for your negotiations has a significant part in your ability to close a transaction, as I have discovered through time via trial and error. Implementing tools into your process, for instance, minimums placed on your “make offer” pages to assist identify who is on the other end. Being personable and establishing credibility with your asking price through sales history, statistics, and so on will help you land a higher price tag. I always strive to price and present my asking pricing in such a manner that the customer should have no trouble recovering their investment if they decide to move emphasis in the future and sell off the asset. Again, I’m sharing this particular sale and strategies that have shown to be effective for me time and time again in the hopes that it can assist others in their future endeavors. Being personable and establishing credibility with your asking price through sales history, statistics, and so on will help you land a higher price tag. I always strive to price and present my asking pricing in such a manner that the customer should have no trouble recovering their investment if they decide to move emphasis in the future and sell off the asset. Again, I’m sharing this particular sale and strategies that have shown to be effective for me time and time again in the hopes that it can assist others in their future endeavors. At the end of the day, you have to invest the time to learn, investigate, and consult other domainers through chat rooms and forums. I have respectable sales to back up my strategies, but I never consider myself an expert or even vaguely assert that I know it all because I am constantly learning new things. If you are not a member of NamePros, I urge you to sign up so that you may read and learn from the forums. Participate and pose inquiries. There is an abundance of experience available. Observe DomainSherpa’s video’s/interviews. The bottom line is to participate in your classmates’ practices and do your homework. It would have saved me a ton of time and money if I had done it sooner. Last but not least, I want to express my gratitude to you for giving me the chance to share this sale and to the Efty team for creating a fantastic platform that enables individuals like me to create a fantastic PROVEN marketplace with a 0% commission free platform.
Disclaimer: Efty is not in possession of user sales information. Therefore, we only provide data on sales that have been made public. Read our full governance here.