On Namepros nothing sparks more anger, debate and disgust than the domains wanted threads on Namepros.
It comes from both sides of the aisle, actually three sides, buyers who post threads, sellers who respond and then those that don’t participate, but rather sit back and laugh and also block people because their budget or request has offended them so much.
Selling on a domain forum is tricky, for the most part everyone has some knowledge about domains, and if they don’t, they can research right there on the same forum.
Sometimes others will pm them to let them know they are overpaying or selling too cheaply.
There is a bit of cognitive dissonance in the domains wanted section. Someone will post they have a $50 budget but are looking for really good names and might increase their budget to $100 for a great name.
What?????????? Look it’s fine to operate at whatever level of the socioeconomic landscape you like, but you have to have some consistent thought.
Some people like to buy garbage and they can turn it into something more. People love flea markets and some love walking the beach with a metal detector. Someone might get lucky and find a Picasso at a flea market, but they don’t go out setting those parameters as a requirement.
Either you are looking to buy a quality domain name or you are not, if you are, you need to have a better budget.
Some people go out of their way to say I am looking for wholesale prices? In one respect that makes sense, you are looking to resell. But as some members constantly point out, you might have a false definition of wholesale pricing. What exactly is $50 the wholesale price for? Rick Schwartz would probably say “Pigeon Shit” most domain investors think $50 is not worth their time to even respond to you.
On the flip side there are people looking to get lucky, maybe someone will have something they really like for just $50, because they got renewal dates coming up, or they just don’t fancy the name anymore.
As XYNames wrote here in a thread that questioned if there were any good names on Namepros?
I haven’t tried to sell anything on here. First of all, we are all resellers here, so obviously anyone buying here needs to buy so that he may re-sell for a lot more. I respect that, but I’m not selling wholesale, but even if I were selling wholesale, I feel like people here are trying to buy for well below wholesale.
And then…these offers to buy posted on here, such as for example offering to pay 2% of estibot which estibot is notorious for underpricing domains in the first place. So someone is offering to pay just 2% of an already very low appraisal? I could post a sarcastic comment on almost every single Want to Buy (WTB) thread on here clowning the buyer, I mean, Are you kidding? but then it’s not my place to comment on something if I’m not interested in participating in the offer anyway. But still I shake my head when I see what sort of “offers to buy” are posted on here, I hope I’d never sell any of my inventory that cheap. I assume that the sellers who do PM the buyers are offering some garbage that is not even worth the minuscule ridiculously low offers that the buyers are offering to pay – I doubt too many sales are concluded. More like, the namepros buyers are trying to trick the namepros sellers, and the namepros sellers are trying to trick the namepros buyers, and nothing gets done.
I have read threads where the person was looking to buy a first name and a common one, not some goofy spelling as they put it, and they had a $200 budget. With the popularity of marijuana threads on Namepros, some might wonder if some posters are high?
You see the looking for one word .com, must be a real word, none of that made up bullshit, budget up to $500, must be really good, don’t assume I will pay $500 just any name. Sometimes people give examples like purple, orange, project, etc…
For just any one common word .com, a whole $500? Gee golly willikers mister, thanks a lot.
Then we flip the script to the sellers, who seem to think when someone posts $15,000 budget, looking for one word .coms, only .com. It’s cool to send .nets or .io or .co, because .co is shorter than .com bro.
There are 100’s of replies which means you have to be insane to wade through this on a daily basis.
Some get upset when they don’t get a reply, but here is the tricky thing with replies.
A hypothetical example:
Buyer: Looking for color animal.com $500 budget
Seller: ChartreusePelican.com $500
Buyer: Thanks for the submission, but I am going to pass.
Seller: Why? Why? Are you telling me chartreuse is not a color bro? Because it is. Have you never seen a pelican?
Buyer: Well to be honest I have never seen a pelican in person but I do know what it is, thanks. P.S. I know chartreuse is a color.
Seller: Well hey why I got you, do you buy any .io domains because I got a couple killer .ios bro.
Buyer: Yeah you didn’t have me, I made the mistake of replying back to a domains wanted submission.
I have had people say to me they want to name and shame all those that have sent them off requirement submissions, kind of like a Hall of Shame for domains wanted.
Others report submissions as spam and depending on the situation I believe Namepros will issue warnings which can lead to an account suspension if you accumulate enough points.
There is no perfect solution, I read a thread on Namepros today where one gentleman wants Namepros mods to authenticate buyers.
Let the buyers with zero feedback first prove their authenticated identity with NamePros management with their proof of ID cards.
Namepros is free, that ain’t ever happening, if you don’t like what’s on one channel, change the channel. But there is no perfect fix, I understand that poster’s frustration, I have often tweeted out that domains wanted makes for some of the greatest comedy on the net.
There are some serious buyers, Brad Mugford, Vito at Media Branding, L2 Media, just to name a few. I can confirm these people buy names, have real budgets and purchase names.
The domains wanted stew is composed of some real buyers willing to pay fair prices for the names submitted, some sellers who pay attention to the requirements and only send those. Then the majority is buyers looking to get lucky that some noob does not know what they own and sellers who use it as free scratch off game sending every name they own at every thread, usually priced at the high point of the budget.
I do think what some don’t realize is that they are affecting their overall rep in the community, which can be important when starting out especially, people are blocking, ignoring, basically shunning those that start ridiculous requests with ridiculous budgets. It’s not worth it in my opinion, but that’s for each person to decide.
Ronald Smith says
Brilliant!
Snoopy says
The problem is that Namepros is 95% people who have no clue what they are doing, trying to sell names that have no chance of selling for more than $10.
So someone starting a “wanted thread” is like putting a pot of honey in front of a bear, he is going to make an approach even if it doesn’t fit the criteria. The people starting those threads are equally clueless, to start a thread thinking someone is going to reply with a bunch of good domains at low prices.
Here is a classic thread, (first one listed in Namepros wanted forum)
https://www.namepros.com/threads/looking-for-dictionary-coms-4-8-characters.1107257/
Now what is the chance that someone with good quality domains will reply to someone wanting to spend between $100 and $15,000 on one word .com’s? Yet it has 16 replies, you can bet the replies are pure nonsense. Both the buyer and the people replying are off in fairy land.
Stuart says
Snoopy, you don’t even use NamePros so why are you speaking on it? What’s your username? I use NamePros every day and have never seen you there, so keep the ignorant comments to yourself… they are valueless.
Doron Vermaat says
The Pelican example made me laugh Ray. I have bought domains on NamePros after posting a wanted thread a few times and always make an effort to reply to each and every submission that is within the description of my wanted thread and although most members are very much appreciative of the reply, even you’re taking a pass, there are always some that like to get into a discussion or ask you why you’re taking a pass on their submission.
Overall, I find it extremely time-consuming buying domains from NamePros by posting a wanted thread but sometimes you might find some great names. For example, I purchased CryptoTalent/com and VRHero/com for Xxx after posting such a request.
Raymond Hackney says
Glad you liked the little hypothetical story, I have heard so many like that. Yeah you can get lucky and that’s cool the names you got. Most people usually are asking $5,000 for names like those.
Doron Vermaat says
There are members on NP that are in it for the quick flip and that’s the way they make a profit. They offer names that fit your wanted request and they move on to the next. I’m positive NP drives a ton of these deals but like a said you have to be prepared to go through lots and lots of below average submissions.
Vito says
Ray, we have talked about this a few times and yeah, you nailed it.
Opening a domain wanted thread at NamePros is sometimes frustrating. A lot of members see that a buyer has asked for a domain request, then they just spam away with unrelated domains that they own for sale.
The dialogue is most frustrating to me though. I used to try responding to everyone, saying Thanks but no interest, good luck, etc. and that is the worst thing to do when you really don’t have time because you open up the doors to a much longer conversation/spam about more irrelevant domains from what you requested. So, I just don’t reply anymore when someone is sending domains that are not what my description asked for. That is why I will write in my wanted thread, “I will respond if interested”
I will say this though. When you do get professional domainers who reply in the way you asked, with pricing, and very close to what you ask for, you really do appreciate it. I try replying to those members because it is so rare and they are clearly a level above most and I do appreciate them. And who knows, if they are professional and in your ballpark you open the doors for a future deal together, which has also happened for me before. I bought a domain earlier this year that someone offered me a couple years ago. It was always on my mind since offered to me a couple years ago.
One member said he looked at my portfolio and saw I had some short brandables and asked if I minded if he sent me some brandables when I specifically asked for one-worders. Now when someone goes that far and is that polite to ask if he can send some stuff I was not asking for, well now that is respectful, professional and just cool.
With all of that being written I still think it is worth posting a “Domains Wanted” thread if you are specific about your domain request and honest about what your price point is. I have bought a few over the years that have come from a ‘wanted” thread and as frustrating as all of the random spam has been, I have gotten lucky and don’t regret it.
Raymond Hackney says
Exactly you really grow to appreciate people who take the time to be professional.
Aditya Agrawal says
I donot agree with Raymond and others posting as super awesome and experienced buyers and victims.
The non-sense goes both ways. Even I have posted buy threads with budget upto $15000. The most experienced of the Domainers tried to dump their HorseShit on me. Buyers have really no right to complain because when the same buyer becomes a seller, he will send horseshit to the buyer to get rid of them. Real cash domains are rarely transacted on namepros. Everyone wants to hold on the the gold and sell it to end-users. This is the ugly truth.
So ideally people are looking for best out of waste domains on namepros and then complaining about the waste being stinky.
Raymond Hackney says
If you read the article, I said both sides buyers and sellers. Plenty of time was spent on each side of the coin.
Ronald Smith says
Look at this request https://www.namepros.com/threads/aged-two-word-coms-specific-niches-required.1112828/#post-7008599
It’s ridiculous most names don’t have that many tld’s taken. And for a whole $500 wow wee.