I admit I don’t have the most valuable portfolio on the planet, so I don’t frequently get contacted by the big privacy protection firms like Mark Monitor, CSC, and NetNames on behalf of their confidential (and sometimes big $$) buyers.
However, 
I was recently contacted by one of these types of firms on one of my better domains, and it made me pause to think about how best to respond.
Half my brain told me the top secret buyer behind the inquiring firm surely had a budget that would lead to my early retirement and eternal cocktails on the beach.
The other half of my brain told me the value of my domain didn’t go up just because this firm reached out to me.
I decided to mostly agree with the second half of my brain and not dramatically adjust my asking price, but, well, since I didn’t have a firm asking price to begin with, it was probably 10-20% higher than if someone with a generic email address was inquiring. The buyer’s identity is really only one of many variables that plays into an asking price on any given day……others include the state of the domain market, my cash position, other acquisitions I’m chasing and, yes, the side of the bed that I woke up on.
I didn’t get a deal done on this specific domain, but the discussions aren’t totally dead yet either.
I’m curious…….how does your asking price and psychology shift, if at all, when a privacy protection firm reaches out to you?
If you are not going to significantly raise your price when a potentially big end user comes knocking then why bother even looking at where the offer is coming from? The only time I would keep the price the same’ish is if I was elated to get an offer on the domain because nobody has made an offer in years and I want to get rid of it.
I’m in agreement with you, Anticareer, though it sounds like you would have gone higher than my 10-20% bump.
At least with CSC they are basically clueless when it comes to negotiating domain sales so you give them your asking price and if it is over the budget for the interested party (their client) that’s it because CSC does not encourage their clients to make counter offers, they don’t educate their clients and the CSC employees knowledge of domain aftermarket is basically non-existant so CSC is basically just college grads sending emails while being clueless and not really caring about getting the domain for their client.
The only “advantage” CSC aka Corporation Service Company has is that their offer emails heavily mention that they recover infringing domains and have demand letter and UDRP drafting services.
They basically intimidate un-experienced domain investors into giving their domains away for next to nothing with this strategy.
In my opinion this CSC Global business tactic is sleazy and immoral and they should remove this kind of language from their offer emails.
Thanks for your comment —- I don’t think CSC will be asking you for a testimonial on why to use them. 🙂
Get them on the phone.
You’ll be able to answer a lot of your questions on their intentions and budget better.
John, I think that’s part of the reason why they use privacy protection firms…..so that a domain seller won’t know the buyer’s intentions or their budget.