discuss A Wake-Up Call for the Domain Industry

[Haroon Basha]

It’s truly alarming to see a respected domainer like @AbdulBasit.com stepping away from the Afternic marketplace. This is not just an isolated decision — it’s a reflection of the growing frustration and despair among small and mid-level domainers.

The domain industry is going through a deeply troubling phase. Costs are shooting up. Everywhere. And honestly, it’s getting harder and harder for small domainers to stay in the game. Costs are spiraling out of control on every front:

• High registration and renewal charges are eating into profits.
• Transfer fees have become another unwelcome burden.
• Marketplace commissions are touching unbearable levels, often exceeding what’s fair or sustainable. Commissions have shot up — and it feels like there’s no ceiling anymore.
• And to make matters worse, PayPal’s usury-like transaction fees are cutting even deeper into already thin margins.

For small domainers trying to survive, these rising costs make the business increasingly unviable. Honestly, the domain industry’s taking a beating these days — fees everywhere, and nothing seems to slow down. The once “merry and cherry” days of domain investing — when fair prices, reasonable commissions, and transparent systems gave us hope — seem to be long gone. I’ve been in this business for 20 years, and I’ve never seen so many domainers feeling this helpless.

Unless marketplaces and payment processors take meaningful action to reduce commissions and charges, the domain community risks losing its diversity and spirit. In my view, unless these marketplaces reduce commissions, small domainers like us don’t stand a chance. Only the biggest players will survive, while the small independent investors — the true backbone of this industry — will be thrown out.

It’s time for the entire domaining community to raise its voice for fairer policies and a sustainable future. It’s high time we all spoke up. Something’s got to change — and soon. Otherwise, we’re all just watching the industry we love slip away.

What’s your take on this situation? Are other domainers facing the same pressure?

 

[arronmic]

make sense, paypal do sucks too much

 

[Eric Lyon]

Unless marketplaces and payment processors take meaningful action to reduce commissions and charges, the domain community risks losing its diversity and spirit. In my view, unless these marketplaces reduce commissions, small domainers like us don’t stand a chance. Only the biggest players will survive, while the small independent investors — the true backbone of this industry — will be thrown out.

You mean like NamePros 0% commission and NO fee's landing pages that let you customize them and monetize them yourself?

I've personally generated $400 in revenue with them in the last few months, so it amazes me more people aren't using them or at least testing them out to see if they will work for them.

I switched to NamePros Landing Pages and went the unconventional route, which, so far, has been working for me.

• Made $100 here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/do...ander-monetization-generated-100-usd.1357435/
• Made $300 here: https://www.namepros.com/threads/do...zation-generated-100-usd.1357435/post-9468461
• Total on NamePros Landers: $400 so far.

To each their own. What works for one may not work for another and vice versa.

 

[Yanosh]

AbdulBasit is not a small or mid-level domainer , he probably has a portfolio of over 10000 quality domains.
He’s a top tier domainer and it makes perfectly sense for him to go Solo.
He’s not leaving Afternic to go elsewhere , but to have his own lander.

He can do that because he got a large portfolio of quality names.
Small or mid-level domainers can’t, because without Afternic or Sedo or Atom or Spaceship we would be selling nothing.

 

[Gabriel360]

Plus at any point in time, somebody could just decide to harass you with a UDRP claiming your correctly spelled English dictionary word is a typo of their misspelled brand name.

 

[Nathan K]

Is this in response to an announced commission increase?

I would like to see commissions reduced too, however the costs that you mention in your post don't seem to have increased much in the past 20 years.

One thing that has increased is the cost of quality domains at auction.

 

[pb]

And people publishing AI-generated content as "handpicked domain news"...

 

[alop]

for some respected for some not so much.. but that's here nor there

 

[alop]

Thanks for keeping us in the loop : ))))))

 

[Nametree]

It's surprising, but not that alarming. I don't know his numbers, but based on the volume of sales he's previously reported (and I'm sure there's a lot more he hasn't), Afternic commissions must be a hard pill to swallow.

If you have 10,000 domains and can build your own marketplace and drive traffic to it, it's probably worth trying to save tens of thousands of dollars. If you believe (or have data to prove) that more of your sales come from type-ins than not.

My hunch is he'll be back sooner than later. Like it or not, GoDaddy provides a service that's impossible to compete with for the majority of domainers: they put your names in the registration path. Atom, in a different way, provides a valuable discovery service. That's worth a commission.

Is either worth a 30% commission? You can argue against it. If you have really high value domains, buyers will find their way to you. If you outbound and do it successfully, you don't need marketplaces. But if you don't have the best of the best inventory, and you don't outbound, you may find your sales volume drops more than 30% when you move off these platforms...

Building brand trust takes a lot of time, and a lot of money. I hope it proves out worthwhile for AbdulBasit. I will surely be watching closely and trying to learn from his experiments.

But for small-time domainers, lower commissions won't save your business. Buying fewer, better names, and pricing them right, might.

You can always use your own landers, and price Afternic listings 30% higher.

 

[biggie]

Hi

is the domain sky falling again?

doom and gloom, waaah, waah!

imo...

 

[Vertibox]

For small domainers trying to survive, these rising costs make the business increasingly unviable. Honestly, the domain industry’s taking a beating these days — fees everywhere, and nothing seems to slow down. The once “merry and cherry” days of domain investing — when fair prices, reasonable commissions, and transparent systems gave us hope — seem to be long gone. I’ve been in this business for 20 years, and I’ve never seen so many domainers feeling this helpless.

Unless marketplaces and payment processors take meaningful action to reduce commissions and charges, the domain community risks losing its diversity and spirit. In my view, unless these marketplaces reduce commissions, small domainers like us don’t stand a chance. Only the biggest players will survive, while the small independent investors — the true backbone of this industry — will be thrown out.

For most business, it is always the same - join and play if you can, but if the going gets too bad/hard, you can choose to get out. You can always do something else. If there is something structurally wrong or bad about a market, a correction will follow.

For those who can’t wait for the market to correct itself, perhaps hold onto the best 50% or so of your names and let the rest expire. Renew the 50% for 10 years at today’s prices and then just sit back and wait. You can then check in every year or so and see if anything has changed/improved. If enough people do that, registrars and registries will take note and then pricing may improve.

As for marketplaces, they are all just parasites, doing next to nothing for domain owners and demanding outrageous commission for the privilege of being on their sites. I’ve given them all the finger a while ago and I won’t ever return. They are all riddled with tons of arrogant & ridiculous rules, restrictions and outrageous demands, that you would think they have some power, when they do not have any.

If your name is good enough, then you don’t need to do a single thing. Not a thing.
Let buyers approach you through the whois or have a simple enquiry page if you want.

Marketplaces are for average and less than average names but mostly, they are chock full of crap names. Markets began to enable lots of people who are selling the same/similar things to get noticed.
When you have a great digital asset, you don’t need to compete with anyone, at all.
When your digital asset is more or less junk, then you need to shout about it to all and sundry, all the time, with the kind of dog-panting hope for a buyer like the desert has for water. This is what marketplaces are mostly made up of - perpetually hopeful sellers with crap names.

 

[789.xyz]

I have been calling for a boycott of Afternic.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/my...spaceship-should-we-boycott-afternic.1365673/

 

[JB Lions]

He's using Efty it looks like. I tried some of his domains, 10 different ones, all Price Request Efty landers, 1 example - http://www.tacobar.com/

Will be seeing what he uses to close. Sales thru Efty/MangoPay or some other place like Escrow or elsewhere.

---------
Of course those with bigger budgets/knowledge can do their own sites like DomainMarket.com, HugeDomains.com etc.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

It’s truly alarming to see a respected domainer like @AbdulBasit.com stepping away from the Afternic marketplace. This is not just an isolated decision — it’s a reflection of the growing frustration and despair among small and mid-level domainers.

The domain industry is going through a deeply troubling phase. Costs are shooting up. Everywhere. And honestly, it’s getting harder and harder for small domainers to stay in the game. Costs are spiraling out of control on every front:

• High registration and renewal charges are eating into profits.
• Transfer fees have become another unwelcome burden.
• Marketplace commissions are touching unbearable levels, often exceeding what’s fair or sustainable. Commissions have shot up — and it feels like there’s no ceiling anymore.
• And to make matters worse, PayPal’s usury-like transaction fees are cutting even deeper into already thin margins.

For small domainers trying to survive, these rising costs make the business increasingly unviable. Honestly, the domain industry’s taking a beating these days — fees everywhere, and nothing seems to slow down. The once “merry and cherry” days of domain investing — when fair prices, reasonable commissions, and transparent systems gave us hope — seem to be long gone. I’ve been in this business for 20 years, and I’ve never seen so many domainers feeling this helpless.

Unless marketplaces and payment processors take meaningful action to reduce commissions and charges, the domain community risks losing its diversity and spirit. In my view, unless these marketplaces reduce commissions, small domainers like us don’t stand a chance. Only the biggest players will survive, while the small independent investors — the true backbone of this industry — will be thrown out.

It’s time for the entire domaining community to raise its voice for fairer policies and a sustainable future. It’s high time we all spoke up. Something’s got to change — and soon. Otherwise, we’re all just watching the industry we love slip away.

What’s your take on this situation? Are other domainers facing the same pressure?

Thank you Haroon brother for bringing up the issues we all domain investors are facing. I agree with you.

There are things which needs to fixed in the system but I highly doubt it will be done because once you become too big, then you stop bothering about small fishes in the pond.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

AbdulBasit is not a small or mid-level domainer , he probably has a portfolio of over 10000 quality domains.
He’s a top tier domainer and it makes perfectly sense for him to go Solo.
He’s not leaving Afternic to go elsewhere , but to have his own lander.

He can do that because he got a large portfolio of quality names.
Small or mid-level domainers can’t, because without Afternic or Sedo or Atom or Spaceship we would be selling nothing.

Currently I'm having 11,000+ domains and I forgot to mention in my original post that I've delisted all my domains at Afternic and Sedo so the buyers will have only option to contact via WHOIS or the lander. So there will be no distribution network sales via Afternic/Sedo partner registrars.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Is this in response to an announced commission increase?

I would like to see commissions reduced too, however the costs that you mention in your post don't seem to have increased much in the past 20 years.

One thing that has increased is the cost of quality domains at auction.

Commission remained at 15% for me like for others. But they took away "Verified Domain" or "Premium Domain" thing and some other features and labeled as nonsense Boost which does nothing more than charging us 5% additional fee. I never enabled the nonsense Boost until I was with Afternic. Also, one of the bad things is that if you use any other lander and still sell a domain via GD/Afternic, then you pay additional 10% fee which I consider it as a punishment fee of going elsewhere.

Those were the 2 major reasons for leaving Afternic along with several others.

Overall, it was a great experience using them and I enjoyed the support I received from the brokers and my rep.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

It's surprising, but not that alarming. I don't know his numbers, but based on the volume of sales he's previously reported (and I'm sure there's a lot more he hasn't), Afternic commissions must be a hard pill to swallow.

If you have 10,000 domains and can build your own marketplace and drive traffic to it, it's probably worth trying to save tens of thousands of dollars. If you believe (or have data to prove) that more of your sales come from type-ins than not.

My hunch is he'll be back sooner than later. Like it or not, GoDaddy provides a service that's impossible to compete with for the majority of domainers: they put your names in the registration path. Atom, in a different way, provides a valuable discovery service. That's worth a commission.

Is either worth a 30% commission? You can argue against it. If you have really high value domains, buyers will find their way to you. If you outbound and do it successfully, you don't need marketplaces. But if you don't have the best of the best inventory, and you don't outbound, you may find your sales volume drops more than 30% when you move off these platforms...

Building brand trust takes a lot of time, and a lot of money. I hope it proves out worthwhile for AbdulBasit. I will surely be watching closely and trying to learn from his experiments.

But for small-time domainers, lower commissions won't save your business. Buying fewer, better names, and pricing them right, might.

You can always use your own landers, and price Afternic listings 30% higher.

I'll never pay any company 20% commission, let alone 25% or more for any reason. It's not worth it for me.
I've 11,000+ domains and have enough data which is encouraging to leave and try out any other landers.
For sure I'll be sharing the new journey on the way.

 

[Future Sensors]

Commission remained at 15% for me like for others. But they took away "Verified Domain" or "Premium Domain" thing and some other features and labeled as nonsense Boost which does nothing more than charging us 5% additional fee. I never enabled the nonsense Boost until I was with Afternic. Also, one of the bad things is that if you use any other lander and still sell a domain via GD/Afternic, then you pay additional 10% fee which I consider it as a punishment fee of going elsewhere.

Those were the 2 major reasons for leaving Afternic along with several others.

Thank you AbdulBasit.

@GoDaddy --

Losing a Top Seller who was featured on your blog last year is significant.

Will Afternic reevaluate the commission structure, the external-NS punishment, and the Boost program that appear to have contributed to his departure?

Sure, you can kill Dan.com and clone Atom on your new Ultra Premium site. But unless you fix the core issues sellers complain about, you'll continue to drive sellers away.

 

[789.xyz]

My hunch is he'll be back sooner than later. Like it or not, GoDaddy provides a service that's impossible to compete with for the majority of domainers: they put your names in the registration path. Atom, in a different way, provides a valuable discovery service. That's worth a commission.

I disagree with your point. On GoDaddy’s domain search page, their so-called AI suggestions are completely random, and they never show second-hand domains other than .com — even when I’ve already set Afternic’s DNS, such as for geng.xyz. I own over a thousand domains, and I still can’t figure out their logic.