Keep Your Website Sale PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL
About a month ago, a website seller in Dubai contacted me because he was having trouble getting a good price for his website. My research on his website quickly indicated that it had been sold a while back and even stated the Sale Price.
I instantly recognized what the problem was. Every prospective buyer with an Internet connection and basic Internet research skills knew how much he had paid for the website. So they all had a dollar reference point and were making lowball offers to the seller.
It’s human psychology at work.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t take the seller on as a client because his sales numbers were lower than we focus on. But it’s a great lesson in human psychology that I learned from a similar experience a few years ago.
I learned this lesson in our domain name investing division. I purchased a premium one-word domain name that I planned to build a big website on. Ultimately, I changed my mind about the project and decided to sell the domain name. Within about 8 hours of offering the domain name for sale, I received 15 all-cash offers as such:
– 10 offers were exactly what I had paid for the domain name
– 3 offers were slightly above what I had paid for the domain name
– 2 offers were slightly below what I had paid for the domain name
I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then I did some research on my own domain name. I quickly realized that the domain seller, a big corporation in Canada, had made the Sale Price public after I purchased it.
So my prospective buyers had a reference point. 10 of them decided they were not willing to pay me a dollar more than I had paid for it. 5 were “rebels” who decided to go against this natural herd mentality.
It was a very valuable domain name so I did sell it at a 50% profit. But I learned a lesson that money can’t buy. Take it from me, do not make your website URL & Sale Price public. It limits your future opportunities. As a Seller, allow Buyers’ emotions to determine what they’ll pay for your website.
Needless to day, we never disclose our clients’ or prospective clients’ names, website URLs, and website sale prices. So, if you can, please keep your website sale PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL.
Let us sell your website for you.
Author: Kris Tabetando
Kris Tabetando provides mergers & acquisitions (M&A) advisory and brokerage services to Internet companies. He also partners with investors to acquire & manage Internet businesses.
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