Can anyone recommend some good alternatives to DAN that don't have such high commission fees? DAN user interface is still nice, but Godaddy really screwed the pooch with increase on commission fees from 9% to 15% and 25% for not using their nameservers. I guess that's no surprise. Too bad DAN sold out for an exit paycheck. Bummer.
I guess Efty is in a prime spot to add DAN users like me who are looking to jump ship.
Any ideas or recommendations? Thanks!
No, really GoDaddy removed all incentive to list your names anywhere but Dan/Afternic.
If you have $20,000 in sales per year, about $10k is coming through your lander, and $10k via Afternic. So you are paying an overall commission of $3,000 ($20k * 15%).
If you decide to set up your own lander and pay no commission (just escrow fees) on $10k coming through your lander and $10k via Afternic, you are going to pay commissions of $2,500 ($10k * 25%). If you add in escrow fees and other costs you're likely going to be over the $3,000 anyway.
So for me as a creator of biix.com (where there was 2% commission and lease options), there's really no purpose for me to promote that solution to others or even use it myself. The selling points of biix was a low 2% commission, lease options, and the trust of escrow.com as opposed to Dan.com, which no one had any brand recognition with until they were bought by GoDaddy. If you can potentially get the same or higher sales by just using Afternic/Dan, then you should just be using Afternic/Dan because the savings are so nominal now by having your own lander somewhere.
Positives to solely using Afternic/Dan:
1.
Afternic is a must if you are selling domains and opting for their Premium Network with instant purchase. If you aren't using it, then you are getting up to 50% less sales than you would otherwise. Some people don't like the instant purchase option, but if you look at how much more those domains are promoted, you should be opting for this feature. Their ability to make you sales without your traffic is so significant that years ago when their commission was 30%, I was happy to pay it because they made such a positive impact on my sales.
2.
Leases need to be an option or you'll be losing sales. I've had a buyer recently who in no way could make a $10k purchase work, but they had a great business that they were trying to grow. After offering a lease option (for over $400 per month), it was an easy decision for him. With the ability to use the lease option at Dan, it makes the sale of your larger domains much more viable while still receiving the 15% commission rate.
3.
Trust needs to be at the forefront of your plan because you don't want the trust issue to cross the mind of your buyer. I've seen people have their highest sale on one platform, then setup their own lander that had no shot at selling a high-value domain. Don't do this. Know that everything matters in your sales process.
Negatives:
Transparency - you really don't have a lot of insight as to what deals are in discussion unless you communicate with your Afternic Account Manager. But it sounds like they have a dashboard coming that will address this as well.