Selling a site on Sitepoint - Help please

[Roger Mayne]

I put a site up for sale on Sitepoint Marketplace on Friday for a 30 day auction.

I have had many enquiries asking what my BIN would be. I've told people, and I now have 3 potential buyers offering me the BIN price.

My question is - have I shot myself in the foot? Should I not have offered a BIN? How do I resolve this issue? I've not sold on Sitepoint before so I don't want to offend people, but then I don't want to undersell my site.

Should I ask for "sealed bids" and take the highest offer, or can I keep running the auction to see what it goes for?

Thanks in advance.

[TimPhelan]

Yeh, you kind of messed up. I've done it before too. You probably are going to upset someone no matter what you do. You have a few different options;

1. You can simply tell them the truth and say you will have to actually post the same BIN and the first to post a BIN bid will win.

2. You can post a new BIN that is higher ( if you haven't posted a BIN yet ), explain to them you have three offers at the same price and needed to find a solution.

3. You can pick one of the three and accept their offer as it is, then tell the other two you reject their offer because they don't have a high enough rating or some other reason.

You have to really think about the BIN before you tell people. What I like to do first is see how much interest there is in the site, see if there are any bids, then decide on a BIN. I usually have the minimum bid pretty low, the reserve price the absolute lowest you will accept and the BIN a price you would be very happy to get.

Tim

Originally Posted by swiftdeal

I put a site up for sale on Sitepoint Marketplace on Friday for a 30 day auction.

I have had many enquiries asking what my BIN would be. I've told people, and I now have 3 potential buyers offering me the BIN price.

My question is - have I shot myself in the foot? Should I not have offered a BIN? How do I resolve this issue? I've not sold on Sitepoint before so I don't want to offend people, but then I don't want to undersell my site.

Should I ask for "sealed bids" and take the highest offer, or can I keep running the auction to see what it goes for?

Thanks in advance.

[ahuddy]

First to pay gets it basically. The problem is that a lot of people who say they are going to buy your site never follow through. So you are in a good situation to have 3 buyers. Sure you could probably get a little more money out of it in this case, but just be happy people are interested and willing to pay.

So pick one of them randomly or however and tell them they were first to send in the offer. Tell the other two people a deal is going through right now, but if the buyer does not follow through and pay you will let them know right away and they can buy it.

[Dan Grossman]

Legally, you made an offer by sending out the BIN price and the first to accept the offer formed a binding contract with you. The other offers died the moment that contract was formed. You have to sell to that person or they can sue you in court for breach of contract.

But nobody is going to sue you over a SitePoint auction, so it's up to you what you do to break the tie.

[Roger Mayne]

Thanks for all the responses. Much appreciated. I pride myself on being a man of my word, which is why I am asking this question. If I were an unscrupulous seller, I would simply have put it back out there.

For what it's worth, this is not a public BIN, but only emailed to individuals who asked for it. I've learned my lesson!!

Hopefully, my example will show other site sellers what NOT to do!

Thanks again.

[tommygadget]

I would simply email those three people and tell them that they all accepted the BIN and tell them to make an offer and you'll accept the highest one, no second chances. The BIN is not legally binding unless you update your auction.

TomG.

[Roger Mayne]

Hi Tommy

I already took the advice from ahuddy. I emailed the first bidder and have told the others that they'll get a second chance if he defaults for any reason.

Either way, the auction is still running until I have received the funds.

Thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

[Frank Ayres]

If you are happy with the BIN prices you quoted then why worry about what you could have got?

[Emailrevealer]

Whats a bin #?

[Roger Mayne]

Originally Posted by Emailrevealer

Whats a bin #?

BIN = Buy It Now. It basically is a figure that you will agree to end an auction early for.

[Roger Mayne]

Originally Posted by SpudDS

If you are happy with the BIN prices you quoted then why worry about what you could have got?

Well, I am happy with the figure, but when I see that more people are interested in the site than I first anticipated, it makes me think that I should have asked for more.

Call it human greed.

[Roger Mayne]

Thanks to everyone who helped here. The deal has been done, money received and all the files transferred.

A smooth transaction all round.

Thanks again.