Flipping Easy

One of the most common questions I’ve run into in this industry is whether or not to set a Buy It Now (BIN) price when selling a site. Rather than answering that question directly, let’s explore the issue a bit and I think you’ll come to the same conclusion I did.

For those of you that don’t know how a BIN price works, it’s basically setting a price at which you’re willing to not only sell the site, but also end the auction immediately and accept no further bids. For example, if I’m selling a site and the starting bid is $200, I might set the BIN price at say $1,000. If a buyer comes in and bid’s the BIN price, the auction ends and I sell the site to that buyer for $1,000.

From a buyer’s perspective, there are only a few reasons one would want to bid the BIN price.

1. You want to get your hands on the site immediately and don’t want to have to wait for the auction to end.
2. You don’t want to deal with all the hassle of bidding and tracking an auction.
3. You are worried that bidding will push the price of the site higher than the BIN price.

The Eager Buyer

Now, the question at hand is whether or not you should, as a site SELLER, set a BIN price. And, while those three reasons are perfectly valid if you’re the buyer, they aren’t all that favorable to the seller. I don’t know about you, but if someone so desperately wants to buy my site (reason #1) that they can’t wait for the auction to end, that’s not the kind of buyer I want to left off the hook easily.

I tend to keep my auctions short (that’s a whole other post) and I highly doubt a buyer that is interested in the site will give up simply because they have to wait a few days. Chances are, they will bid at some point in the process and I don’t need to tell you that the more people you have bidding, the higher your final selling price is going to be.

The Bargain Shopper

Along those same lines, if a buyer thinks that the final selling price is going to wind up being more than the BIN price (reason #3) why in the world would I, as a seller, want to stop the bidding process early? Could the bidder be wrong and in actuality the site will sell for less than the BIN price? Absolutely. But, if one buyer thinks your site is worth more than the BIN price, chances are others will as well.

Discouraging Bidding

The next question everyone asks about BIN pricing is almost always “What should I set the BIN at?” The question is asked because if you set it too low, you’ll be leaving money on the table, and if you set it too high, you’ll show buyers that your expectations are high and you might very well discourage bidding in the auction. If a buyer would normally be willing to bid up to $1,000 for a site, but the BIN is set at $10,000 do you think they’ll bother? I know I wouldn’t.

If this all sounds like I’m not in favor of using a BIN price when selling websites, you’re absolutely correct. I simply don’t want to risk putting a damper on the bidding process that’s going to drive up the price of my site.

Do you disagree with me? Tell me so! Share your opinion in the comment section below!

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