Flippa.com

Flippa.com is a site specialized in buying and selling web sites and domains. Sites are sold through an auction system where the seller can specify the lowest acceptable bid and for how long the auction will go on. Buyers place bids on a web site based on the currently highest bid – they can bid any amount that is higher than the current one. A seller can also specify a “Buy It Now” price (called BIN on Flippa.com), which guarantees a sale if anyone is willing to pay this amount.

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The BIN is often so high that most buyers hope to win the auction instead. Sellers of course hope that their web site will be very popular with prospective buyers, and thus do not want to set a BIN lower than the last (winning) bid of the auction. Mostly the BIN is set a bit high though, as it’s easy for sellers to be over-enthusiastic about the value of their site.

When the auction time frame is over the seller can choose to accept or not accept the final bid. Only a bid that equals the BIN forces the seller to go through with the sale, which is probably why the BIN is often set so high.