How about this for a new forum section...

[Marcoose]

OK, let's be honest. We've all been there..... found a domain and been offered a price but not sure whether the asking price is too high. It's always good to get a second opinion in this industry and maybe we at at AD could provide that. How about an appraisal section for domains that aren't owned by the OP. Of course this could open up the door to others sniping the domain but that would be the chance the OP would take. Maybe they could just say, how much is this domain worth? and hope that members are honest enough to stay away (maybe I'm being too naive). Maybe the section could only be accessible to members with over X no of posts so every Tom, Jim and Shirley doesn't get wind of the name.

It's 3:30 am and this might be a truly awful idea but after the chatter yesterday about shaking things up on here, I thought I would put it out there.

 

[viceroy]

I don't know, I reckon it could work but there'd be a huge question of trust... When I first started, I pm'd a couple of the more experienced Acorners for a valuation before I took a gamble on a big name. They were great, helpful (and patient) and let me go after it- suffice to say it was a good buy at a good price! I think I'd be a little nervous to put a potential purchase out into the open though...

 

[Edwin]

I'd definitely vote against it - not interested in threads by random people giving their 2p on the value of our domains if I didn't instigate it. And that's one of the things that could happen if you relax the "you must own the domain being appraised" rule...

 

[RobM]

...or how about appraisal that *weren't* indexed by search engines.....

 

[Marcoose]

...or how about appraisal that *weren't* indexed by search engines.....

The section would obviously have to be blocked from spiders.

Edwin - I would have thought though that 99% of your sales are to end users that would have never heard of Acorn? I do understand what you're saying though.

 

[foz]

Use the "exclusive" area? Not indexed.

 

[Pred]

i feel you have to own it to get appraised publicly
everyone has use of pm function and can ask a couple of friends or preferred members on acorn
people will always help and give opinion privately

 

[Sussexite]

It sounds like an open goal for pointless disagreement and ill informed bullshit to me.

 

[Edwin]

It sounds like an open goal for pointless disagreement and ill informed bullshit to me.

100% spot on. The current rule is very effective.

 

[Bailey]

i feel you have to own it to get appraised publicly
everyone has use of pm function and can ask a couple of friends or preferred members on acorn
people will always help and give opinion privately

Agreed - and if you don't get a PM response - then you ain't got any friends

 

[sdsinc]

found a domain and been offered a price but not sure whether the asking price is too high. It's always good to get a second opinion in this industry and maybe we at at AD could provide that.

I don't think anybody else, no matter how experienced, is qualified to dictate the right price when you are the end user.

For certain types of domains like LLL.com there are predictable ranges but even then it's reseller pricing.

I would like to mention that as an end user I have paid too much for domains a few times, because I wanted them, or I was in an auction with other bidders.
'Paid too much' is relative, it will just take more time to recoup the investment.

So I think the acceptable price depends very much on the benefits expected from ownership of the domain.

Regardless of estimated value the seller must be willing to come closer to your budget.

As a seller I tend to stick to my guns, so if you told me that ten experienced domainers appraised the name at 2K while I'm asking 7K, it doesn't change a thing to me. Nobody is going to tell me how to price the domain.

Worse, if you used an automated appraisal as leverage

 

[domsaleuk]

OK, let's be honest. We've all been there..... found a domain and been offered a price but not sure whether the asking price is too high. It's always good to get a second opinion in this industry and maybe we at at AD could provide that. How about an appraisal section for domains that aren't owned by the OP. Of course this could open up the door to others sniping the domain but that would be the chance the OP would take. Maybe they could just say, how much is this domain worth? and hope that members are honest enough to stay away (maybe I'm being too naive). Maybe the section could only be accessible to members with over X no of posts so every Tom, Jim and Shirley doesn't get wind of the name.

It's 3:30 am and this might be a truly awful idea but after the chatter yesterday about shaking things up on here, I thought I would put it out there.

Personally I think something like this is a good idea as second opinions are generally a good thing to have but I think any section where prices are being discussed on Acorn should really be made non accessible by search engines and I agree it should only be accessible to people with a certain number of posts. I also think the whole subject of “domain valuation” should be discussed more anyway as I think a lot of domainers have a very strange way indeed of valuing domains. Whilst I appreciate that domains are bought and sold for different reasons and that the reseller market is a very different place to the end user market, at the end of the day a domain is a domain and whether being bought by a reseller to sell on, or for development to make money before selling on, or just to sell to an end user the things that give the domain its intrinsic value should still be the same.

I think it would be a very good step forward to have a much better structure for valuation generally, but I know from conversations that I have had offline this is unlikely to go down well with the domain community as a whole. However personally I think the whole methodology of domain valuation needs looking at and given an overhaul and that a system needs to be put into place with specific notice taken of what end user buyers with the deep pockets are likely to be looking for, because what they are looking for is in my view what dictates the value no matter how many times the domain is bought, sold, half developed etc in between. It is just that in the in between stages it will change hands for a lower percentage of its ultimate value and/ or not be developed to its optimum potential.

I find it very strange because I don’t know of many if any other industries where sellers don’t take any notice of customer needs or purchasing habits but it seems to me that within the domain industry decisions on how to value products (i.e.domains) get made with very little thought being given to what drives the decision making processes of the typical customer(s).