Just sold my first domain at Afternic.

[Ali]

So, in my latest video I talked about uploading everything into Afternic, and pointing all my domains to their relative Afternic buy it now pages.

Well, I just sold my first domain through this method.

I will reveal the information once the deal is finalized

 

[Ali]

Wow, where in the world have my thread notifications been. I haven't been getting updates, but yea. So the deal finally wrapped up, payment has been sent so I feel like I can share the name and details:

Domain: WP(.)Training
Acquired: 9/13/2015 (194 days ago)
Renewal: $89/yr (last I checked - but I know it was ~$100)
Cost: $182.60 EAP Reg
Sale Price: $747
Afternic Fees: 20% ($149.40)
PayPal Fees: 4% ($23.90)
Net Profit: $391.096
ROI: 109.89%
Outbound Efforts: Does playing golf count?
Time Spent: A few minutes registering, and like 4 seconds pricing it and another 30 seconds uploading to Afternic?

This domain isn't mind blowing, but it does have commercial value (Wordpress Training). I priced it to sell, and it worked. $747 for someone who wants to start a training company is peanuts. So all in all, great experience. Even better that it was 100% passive and I didn't have to do @#%^! Just the way I like it.

I will report on other domains that sell in the same manner.

 

[campout]

and the company being under the GoDaddy umbrella

I only wish Afternic was making it more obvious that they are now a GoDaddy company. If you look at their landers, there's no mention of GoDaddy. Why would they not be tapping into the mind-share/comfort that GoDaddy has as being probably the only household name registrar in the US at least??

They should at least put "a GoDaddy company" underneath the Afternic logo. That would have to increase conversions.

IMHO...

 

[Ali]

Isn't one sale a too small sample size to draw conclusion?

Nothing is final, but, it worked. If it works once, it has the ability to do so again. At least in my head.

Do you think this may work just as good or better at sedo?

I've sold a few domains through Sedo, and the experience was great. But, this has proven to be the quickest, and easiest method so far.

As @Recons.Com mentioned, you can't conclude based on one sample, but I can feel at ease knowing the system works. And if it repeats in this manner, then I have no option but to scale it.

More data to come as time goes on. Only thing I can do is test, adjust, re-test, and repeat.

 

[Ali]

Can't remember where, but I read once someone suggesting slightly different pricing across the market places, with the one with most exposure at the lowest and desired price. People see the higher prices and then the lower one which encourages them to buy as they think it's a bargain price.

I'm all for psychological marketing tactics (it can have advantages), but I think this would make you smell unprofessional, like you don't know what your pricing is.

What do you think? It's an interesting idea, and I can see why it could work in some cases, although I think mostly people buy what they want to buy etc, pushy sales is not generally successful these days.


[ Looking forward to knowing the domain from your sale too ]

The problem with varying pricing across platforms is this:

End user might get confused, start looking further for cheaper venue, then also start thinking is this good price, is this good name etc. and end up either not buying anything or going for another name.

Well said. I prefer to have identical pricing. I never want the buyer to feel scared, confused, or perhaps even "need to think about it". If it's uniform across the board, I don't give them reason to walk away or think it through. The more questions they have, the less likely they will buy.

 

[Joe Styler]

This video explains things on Afternic in more detail.

 

[Joe Styler]

Good question. I'm not sure if they cover PayPal fees or not. I will know when payment hits my PayPal. I just figured they didn't, but hey, maybe they do. @Joe Styler any insight into this?

We do not charge any PayPal fees, you should net what you net after our commissions. Part of our commission we charge covers the "escrow" costs including money disbursement like via Paypal. Now Paypal may charge you something to remove the money but that would be how things are set up on your end with your bank etc. For example you might need to pay a forex conversion or something via your bank, but on my personal Paypal account if I were to sell something via Afternic or GoDaddy I would net all my proceeds less the commission in full and be able to withdraw them from Paypal without any extra fees. So you should not be paying anything on this transaction beyond the initial commission.

 

[Ali]

LOL

How many domains have you uploaded to Afternic so far, Ali?

I've been doing the same. With my names that are not eligible for fast-transfer, I'm changing nameservers to Bodis and utilizing the Escrow.com lander with BIN.

I've uploaded around 3,000, but most of those are Chinese domains, so I don't expect Afternic sales on them. There are around 200 or so that aren't Chinese domains which I've uploaded already, that number will increase drastically should the next few months prove this method a wise one. We shall see!

That is truly the key indeed.

Per your afternic recommendation I am going to pick 100 domains and try 50% afternic BIN and for the other half 50% in-house BIN with PP and outreach. Keeping the BIN prices attractive.

I've been burning the midnight oil on dev for a private 'marketplace' over the last week, and working on landing pages that would funnel a visitor from interest to purchase.

Hopefully some of these strategies will increase sale turnaround time.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, I'll let you know how it works out for me.

Definitely looking forward to hearing your results on this! I will continue to provide updates, negative or positive experiences with this method.

Interesting, especially having just read some of the terrible Afternic reviews here on NP. I will have to check out your last vid.

I've been parking everything at EFTY. I like the direct communication with the lead.

Yea, I prefer to use things for myself and draw my own conclusions How does the saying go? One mans trash is another mans treasure? lol

Congrats on the sale. Can't wait to see what the domain was. I'm guessing it was a hand reg. and a quick flip for about $500.

Solid guess, it's almost like you already know

It was a high $xxx sale on a hand-reg from the end of last year. So nothing to write home about, however, it was the easiest sale I've ever had.

Money is in Afternic Escrow, and deal practically closed, so I will reveal more information soon, including pricing. I've been trying out different price points and hopefully I'll gather enough data this year to speak on it more thoroughly next year.

#TheHuntForTheMostScalableAndProfitableModelAndLongestHashtagEver

 

[Recons.Com]

The problem with varying pricing across platforms is this:

End user might get confused, start looking further for cheaper venue, then also start thinking is this good price, is this good name etc. and end up either not buying anything or going for another name.

 

[Recons.Com]

Afternic would be able to double their sales, if they made their site more user friendly.

These awful names have been stuck in "premium" and "trending" for years (see screen). Sometimes I want to buy them just to get rid of them and stop their suffering.

@Joe Styler , can't a company of GD size come up with userfriendly interface similar to BrandBucket.com really promoting stuff that have chance of selling?

 

[Bram C.]

Ali

Why did you take a risk and register the domain given potential trademark issues with WP?

Most domainers would've avoided registering the name.

"WordPress" is trademarked. "WP" isn't.

This is what WordPress.org has to say about it (source : https://wordpress.org/about/domains/ ):

For various reasons related to our WordPress trademark, we ask if you’re going to start a site about WordPress or related to it that you not use “WordPress” in the domain name. Try using “wp” instead, or another variation.

Also, on the official wordpress foundation site (source: http://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/) you can find this part on using "wp" for your domain name(s):

The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.

 

[Ali]

Congrats on the sale Ali.

Have you thought about cutting the middle man out, and having a sales page of your own with a BIN through PP or escrow? I'm going to start doing this soon with domains I am willing to sell cheaper.

Previously I have had 'make offer' or landing pages that just say the domain name and some contact information.

Was any outreach done as well?

Yup, I have thought it about it almost obsessively. Building my own personal domain marketplace is going to happen... eventually. I think that every domain investors wants that.

I haven't cut the middle man out (Afternic) for a few reasons, but most importantly because it's such a large network. More eyeballs to see domains, brokers on standby, I never have to worry about double selling my domains (by having them up as Buy It Now in more than 1 place). I just buy, price, upload, repeat. I will happily pay 20% to have the selling side covered for me.

If I plan to stay in and ahead of the game, I have to see what works best and what is the most scalable. And for me, I want to move towards being more active on the buying side, and more "upper management" on the selling side

Again, this is all but a test, and the data is still too young to assess fully, but I'm happy so far.

Btw - To answer your questions, no out reach was done on this one. Someone found it on their own doing.

 

[DomainVP]

I have to see what works best and what is the most scalable.

That is truly the key indeed.

Per your afternic recommendation I am going to pick 100 domains and try 50% afternic BIN and for the other half 50% in-house BIN with PP and outreach. Keeping the BIN prices attractive.

I've been burning the midnight oil on dev for a private 'marketplace' over the last week, and working on landing pages that would funnel a visitor from interest to purchase.

Hopefully some of these strategies will increase sale turnaround time.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, I'll let you know how it works out for me.

 

[sirlordcomic]

Interesting, especially having just read some of the terrible Afternic reviews here on NP. I will have to check out your last vid.

I've been parking everything at EFTY. I like the direct communication with the lead.

 

[koskov]

Congrats! I'm going to give it a try as well, especially that Afternic is finally available in Ukraine after a long time

 

[Joe Styler]

Afternic would be able to double their sales, if they made their site more user friendly.

These awful names have been stuck in "premium" and "trending" for years (see screen). Sometimes I want to buy them just to get rid of them and stop their suffering.

@Joe Styler , can't a company of GD size come up with userfriendly interface similar to BrandBucket.com really promoting stuff that have chance of selling?

Show attachment 26869

Perhaps, but we have many things to work on and only so much time and development staff. We did not see many names selling on the afternic.com site via this channel when it was actively worked on and rotated, the power is in the distribution network, having your names show up in the search results at network solutions, tucows, godaddy, etc are where many sales happen. Sales lander pages that show your name is for sale and go to an Afternic domain broker via phone or email are also an important sales channel. So make sure your domains are showing that they are for sale and have a way for interested buyers to contact you like through our parked landing page. We like to focus our efforts on where the biggest returns happen for our customers and continue to expand them. We have some exciting things coming for Afternic sellers this year that are in the works now.
Having said that the update you talk about is noted and in our backlog and can be addressed at some time in the future, but likely by being replaced with something that works better to drive sales and not updated with newer names.

 

[Joe Styler]

So your solution was just to freeze the rotation? Do you realize the impression it gives to a person that re-visits your site in a months? What is so special about nvc.org or moon.info that they have trending for few years now? How do they trend exactly? Have they peaked yet?

How about also implementing good search filters? I have tried to search for names with few criteria to narrow down things and it is impossible. All you can do is enter the term and choose extension. No options to provide character length, exclude numbers, dashes, exclude make offers, sort by price etc.

That is a good suggestion. I will send that up to the developers.

 

[Ali]

Ali

Why did you take a risk and register the domain given potential trademark issues with WP?

Most domainers would've avoided registering the name.

To me, Wordpress is about the growth of the community as a whole - so they've "allowed" the acronym "WP" (wise choice) to be used in a proper, positive, and productive manner to grow their community even further. It makes sense for them to do so being that all of the themes, plugins and otherwise are solely created to be used with the Wordpress CMS - so they let it "slide" I guess. I wouldn't go around registering "Wordpress+Keyword" by any means though - that they don't like. Again, with everything, it's about the bigger picture of the variables at hand. If this were another acronym, it could go another way. So take it with a grain of whatever you like best.

 

[Kachi]

Congrats on the sale Ali.

Have you thought about cutting the middle man out, and having a sales page of your own with a BIN through PP or escrow? I'm going to start doing this soon with domains I am willing to sell cheaper.

Previously I have had 'make offer' or landing pages that just say the domain name and some contact information.

Was any outreach done as well?

I think Bodis has a BIN page with direct Escrow.com link

 

[distlej]

Godaddy owning Afternic has certainly increased the number of eyeballs that see your domain. This makes them a worthy competitor to Sedo's MLS.

However, also be aware that your Afternic's Buy Now listings will appear on Godaddy auctions with a "minimum offer" of 65% of that Buy Now price.

So, if you list a domain with only a Afternic Buy Now of $2495, the domain will appear on Godaddy auctions with a minimum offer of $1622.

I have contacted my Godaddy account rep about this but I was told that the process is automatic.

 

[Joe Styler]

You want to list BIN names between $250-$25,000 because that way it is loaded into the most partners on the network.

You can list with no BIN price but it shows up in less places. The video explains this in detail.

You can set a min offer on Afternic on a domain with a BIN and offer. That min offer will be followed by Afternic but not all the partners including GoDaddy. But it is important to note that this applies only to domains with a BIN and an offer. The BIN price is shown in most places in the network over the offer, so for instance if you have joe.com for $1k Bin and and offers of over $200 will be considered a customer going to GoDaddy.com will see the BIN price on the main website and the BIN price will also be more prominent on the auctions.godaddy.com page. The reason for this is the names with prices sell a lot more than the unpriced ones, the video goes into that as well and shows real customer examples.

Hope this clears things up a bit more.

 

[campout]

Just a regular ol' domain.

lol "just a regular ol' domain" selling for darn near $1,000 a minute after it goes live. We're in a good business

 

[Ali]

lol "just a regular ol' domain" selling for darn near $1,000 a minute after it goes live. We're in a good business

LOL! When you say it like that...

 

[thekiller]

Good question. I'm not sure if they cover PayPal fees or not. I will know when payment hits my PayPal. I just figured they didn't, but hey, maybe they do. @Joe Styler any insight into this?

They send payment via Mass Payout so there is no fee for the recipient. So you will receive full 80% sales amount.

 

[Nazz]

Congrats on the sale. Hopefully, the first of many!