Recently we have been catching people who have be contacting our sellers outside of the normal channels. Please don’t do this to us.
We work very hard on our newsletter and deserve to get paid when a domain sells.
Using a combination of technology and human labor, we have put in place certain things that will tell us if you attempt to circumvent our efforts.
If you want a domain from our newsletter for less than the asking price, you are expect to make the offer to us. We will pass the offer on to the seller.
If you are the seller, and one of our customers contacts you, you are expected to still sell through us.
© 2010
Off with their heads!
Not only is circumvention unethical, but I suspect it’s against your seller TOS, correct?
Correct. We don’t ask for exclusivity but we ask that we don’t get circumvented. I suppose it’s time to start getting more formal exclusivity agreements in place for newsletter sales.
Rick,
If you don’t ask for exclusivity then you cant cry wolf. We get your email but I probably read it 4 times a month. I suspect with the overload of lists many are in the same boat. If we send an email to a name that happens to be on your list why should we care? Honestly, its up to you to hold the seller accountable, not the buyers.
Granted we haven’t done this but in theory – who cares except you?
Good business is about getting good value for your dollar. You can use words all day long to describe the efforts placed to combat this kind of stuff but it sounds like begging and pleading to me.
Hold your sellers accountable. Only way to do this.
I have no idea whats on your list 90% of the time and when we email potential sellers I never ask
“Excuse me sir. Before we talk about selling your domain do you happen to have the name listed anywhere else”
Again, not just your venue – any venue. A buyer doesn’t care if they have a seller willing and waiting to sell.
Put the correct pieces in place and you wont have this problem.
Alan
If the newsletter is selling domains well, I’d suggest a short exclusivity period. Buyers won’t want to wait until that’s over b/c they’ll be afraid the domain has sold.
I think it’s the sellers responsibility to honor the agreement/commission.
I see exactly what the problem is…the problem is that Rick is too nice of a guy to hold the seller accountable for commissions for a certain amount of time and does not want to get the seller stuck in a long term contract…so there is really no way to win this argument….just need to do your very best by doing honest business with each other!
I think you need to get like a 30 day exclusive when you list domains. There are scummy people in every industry that will try to save a few bucks and screw you, the guy doing them a favor and presenting domains for sale.
My 2 cents.
Alan speech make sense. One don’t allways read all the newsletter issues nor remember all listed names. It’s possible the seller be directly contacted by one of your subcsribers without any bad intention to shortcut your service.
Maybe a simple exclusivity contract for a short period (a pair of weeks after the newsletter issue) should be the solution. But this will not refrain unscrupulous sellers that may wait the end of this period to sell directly.
I was also thinking to obligate sellers to use whois privacy and no signs of ownership in the associated site but again unscrupulous people may wait to bypass you.
So finally the only that really works it’s this trust relationship you established and hope people understand it cost you resources to maintain such service and as normal you must generate some profit to can continue to provide it.
It’s not politically correct but publicly show the people that abused your service may seriously refrain others to do the same. But how to get sure this guy is really guilty (see first point)?
It’s complicated to find the best solution
No way you can completely avoid this circumvention unless you temporarily change the Admin contact for the period of ‘exclusivity’ to you. That way there can be no movement. If you can trust the seller, then they should be able to trust you, no?
The only other option is to charge a Listing Fee, as opposed to a Sales Commission, but I understand what effect that would have on your bottom line…UGH!
Am I just missing it or is each name NOT catalogued following its ‘Day in the Spotlight’ for a possible future sale. Seems like sellers would get more bang for their buck and sales would likely increase. I may have just missed that link…?
It’s very hard to prevent. I’ve had the same problem myself on my newsletter and site also. And as we’ve seen before Rick, some sellers contact you and then contact me at the same time and give us each the impression we’ve got it to handle.
Contracts don’t help either. Tried that also. It’s too time consuming when you deal with thousands of buyers and sellers. The amount of time you spend going back and forth with paperwork is too costly. Utlimately if someone is going to screw you, they don’t care about having signed a contract anyways.
The only way to deal with this as far as I’m concerned is simply to ban those found guilty from being listed again, simple.
Also, contact the other business’s like yourself and advise them of who is ripping you off.
Be tough!