Some Thoughts On Selling Domains At A Fixed Price vs. Make Offer

It’s an age old question in the Domaining world and one that spurs a lot of debate. Should you price your domains or list them for sale and wait for someone else to make an offer. First I’ll cover both sides of the debate and then tell you my current thinking.

Why List Domains At A Fixed Price
Proponents of fixed price domain listings favor this option due to increased liquidity. There is a general thought that if your pricing is right (i.e. not astronomically high) then a fixed-price listing has greater liquidity.

Why List Domains As Make Offer
Proponents of unpriced domain listings favor this option due to higher selling price. The idea here is that once you know someone has interest, you can work-out the price and wait for them to show their hand before you show yours. If you have a domain that you’d sell for $2,500 but get an offer of $4,500, you could counter at $6,000 and have a deal since you know what the potential buyers opening bid is.

My Thoughts
Like most businesses I am always paying close attention to data, I love data, and it never lies, but it can be different for everyone. I used to be a fixed price guy, then after I sold a domain that I had a $10,000 offer on for $2,500 via a fixed price listing I moved to unpriced listings and now I think I’ve found a middle ground.

I think it’s a huge mistake to list all of your domains with fixed prices. Sure, it might increase liquidity, but you’re going to miss-out on bigger deals that you might not know were at your fingertips. That being said I also think it’s a huge mistake to list all of your domains as make offer because you really have to have a very large portfolio with domains that gets tons of offers to make this profitable.

So my strategy now is to list about 75% of my domains with fixed pricing and leave 25% unpriced waiting for offers. The 25% are my best domains, the names that I know have specific end-user interest and are in markets where buyers have solid budgets. The other 75% I price, but I don’t just randomly price them, I focus on the profit margin I want to maintain and use that as my guide. This typically means that I price my names at 3x – 10x what I paid for them and I rarely dip below 3x.

Sure, I could have a name that I bought for $1,000 sell for $3,000 when another buyer would have paid $5,000 but I might not have ever made the $5,000 sale and I can make the $3,000 sale quicker and bank a 3x profit which is never a bad thing.

Like most things in life it’s all about balance and the domains that I keep unpriced I have a much longer time horizon on and I’m willing to wait for the right buyer that really appreciate the value. That being said, cash is king and cashflow is critical and this is why fixed priced listings are still very important to me.

Now it’s your turn. Are you a fixed price guy (or gal) or do you prefer unpriced listings, or do you take a blended approach like me? Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton