If you own numerics, LLL dot coms, CVCV dot coms and so on, you’re going to receive a *lot* of inquiries. Perhaps more for your short domain portfolio than for all of your other domains combined.

Unfortunately, most of them (the overwhelming majority) are automated offers and the other party is simply trying his/her luck. In other words, a lot of people contact short domain owners in bulk, hoping that some of them are willing to sell at ridiculously low prices.

Why are short domains chosen?

For a lot of reasons, for example the fact that they’re relatively easy to appraise. Or the fact that there’s no language barrier and the list could go on and on.

Anyway, the bottom line is that to put it differently, most offers won’t come from serious buyers.

Should you reply to all of them?

Personally, I usually don’t reply and as a general guideline, my way of thinking is something along the lines of: if the inquiry at least *seems* legitimate then yes, I’ll answer. If not, I won’t.

A few signs that the inquiry is legitimate:

1) A reasonable or relatively reasonable offer is made right off the bat, I pretty much always reply to inquiries if the people making them at least went through the trouble of putting a decent-ish offer on the table

2) If the email has something about it that sets it apart from most inquiries. For example, anything that makes me think that there’s at least a small chance that we’re talking about a potential end user

3) If the inquiry has been made by someone I know/trust/worked with

… I’m sure you get the point.

After a while, you’ll become pretty good at spotting obvious automated messages and I for one don’t see why you should waste time replying to them.

Of course, writing a simple reply doesn’t require all that much time but if I’m convinced the person who is inquiring isn’t serious, investing even a second of my time dealing with him/her seems like overkill 🙂