Afternic experiment of January 2020

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hello everyone,

Last month I did an experiment with my entire portfolio by moving from Uniregistry sales lander to Afternic and today I would like to share some data with everyone to understand what happened last month.

As I keep sharing the number of domains in my portfolio which has now grown little over 3,500 to keep in mind.

I was contacted by many fellow domain investors for knowing how the new experiment worked out for me and I’m thankful to each of those for asking me.

My Afternic manager shared the reports from which I would like to disclose some key stats for better understanding.

1. There were inquiries on little over 500 domains in the entire month of January 2020.
2. Had couple of sales, one of which was DKAM.com which sold via BIN for $15,888. My first sale of 2020 and that too of 5 figures!
3. One of the sale happened via GoDaddy cart and the other via Reseller cart which I think means via partner registrar of Afternic.
4. None of those sales happened via sales lander which to me doesn’t mean the change hasn’t worked out. Sometimes the leads are in progress/negotiations going on with brokers and you never know when the domain gets sold.

Overall, I’m happy with the change even though there isn’t a sale made yet via the change I made last month. Also to note, the change I made was after a week was passed. However, I’ll stick to my plan of giving this change a time of at least 6 months and see how it works out.

Feel free to give your feedback or share your experience if you're using Afternic landers.

Thank you!

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

So instead of paying Dan 9% for "doing almost nothing" you are happy to pay 20% to Afternic for "doing almost nothing"...

The fact is very obvious to everyone as Afternic distribution network is super strong and incomparable to any other marketplace. Although I don't defend their commission rate which is pretty high IMO. I made sales into 6 figures last year and half of the sales amount was generated via Afternic and the entire period I didn't use their landers. At the same time, my domains are added at Dan.com and they made zero sales.

Hope that clarifies now.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Thanks for your kind words @Samer which is much appreciated

@Pay.My.id
Thanks!
I'm always certain the sales going to happen when the lead is in some progress. It's better than totally closed lead yeah...

@alcy
Almost 99% of my domains are set to BIN at both Afternic and Sedo.

@BrandCollectors.com
Thank you!
Most probably yes.

@namemarket
Inquiry numbers would be higher because that 500+ is the interest shown on the number of domains. There will be multiple inquiries on some of those as well for which I don't have any data. Also to be frank, those 500+ are not the genuine inquiries as many of them are totally junk, spam and sometimes people looking for different thing and ends up filling the form which leads to nowhere. But overall, the numbers are satisfactory to me since I was getting around in same numbers when I was handling the leads myself.

I haven't updated my portfolio yet but one can see around 30% of the portfolio at DomainsWeb.com

 

[namemarket]

....there were inquiries on little over 500 domains in the entire month of January 2020......

That is an incredible statistic with 500 inquiries on 3,500 names in just one month. If that pace continues you will get 6,000 inquiries this year which averages nearly 2 per name. Truly stunning stats. Probably better numbers than anyone else in the long history of NP. What is your secret?

P.S. Can you PM me a link to your list?

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

well it means he has qualiuty names. but it also means 500 inquiries and only couple of sales is still not good. so i think one of us missed the main point here

The reason behind lots of genuine inquiries but not the matching number of sales is I target only endusers and my prices are well above what other investors target. My usual starting is $1888/$1988.

Also as far as the ROI is fantastic and yearly turn over in the range of 2.5%, I think that's what matters the most.

 

[premkumar]

I think the trick is using Godaddy. Try Godaddy landing page, people trust Godaddy not afternic, they don't know Afternic is Godaddy company. Godaddy landing page may s**ks but it bring lot of credentials.

 

[domeen]

So instead of paying Dan 9% for "doing almost nothing" you are happy to pay 20% to Afternic for "doing almost nothing"...

You can always make Afternic prices +11%

 

[boker]

The fact is very obvious to everyone as Afternic distribution network is super strong and incomparable to any other marketplace. Although I don't defend their commission rate which is pretty high IMO. I made sales into 6 figures last year and half of the sales amount was generated via Afternic and the entire period I didn't use their landers. At the same time, my domains are added at Dan.com and they made zero sales.

Hope that clarifies now.

I could be wrong, but checking last available revenue data for all the top players, Godaddy had something like 28 millions from domain sales, sedo 26 million, uniregistry 19(but that was the revenue for everything, including as registrar, ngtlds and own domains) dan had around 15 million and afternic 1.3 millions( way too low). So either something is not right, either afternic doesn't sell as much as everybody will like. Probably because of the high commissions, some big players are using dan, epik or own landing pages instead of using afternic.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Congrats Abdul. I only use my own landers (on my own website), 100% redirect to my website. The only other place I list is at Afternic. Approx 75% of my sales last year were from Afternic, almost all from unpriced domains. Any priced domains on Afternic are at my expected price + 25% to pay for their 20% commission. I have approx 3600 .com domains and about 700 of everything else. I have never sold any non-com domains to an end-user. So I must be doing something wrong there. I have close to zero sales from my website. So I think I'm doing something wrong there also. My main question for you is how do you evaluate and price all those domains? That's probably my biggest headache.

Thanks!

I haven't made any sale from my website where 30% of my portfolio is showcased.
About your non-com sales which has never happened, I think that and other sales which aren't happening at the desired speed is the issue what @alcy mentioned. You must price your domains at Afternic. Also setting up BIN at Afternic brings in more sales.

Regarding valuating your own domains, I'm not sure if you've gone through this but I would like you to check this if you didn't got a chance to read in past - https://www.namepros.com/threads/how-do-i-valuate-domains-and-set-an-asking-price.951601/

Feel free to give your feedback

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

@AbdulBasit.com Thanks for the update! Do you have only .com in your portfolio?

I calculated last year and found that approx 90% of my domains are .com. Rest are mostly .net and .org and few .cc/.im.io

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Do you receive price requests? Do you have make offer option, in addition to buy now option? Can you communicate with buyers: as far as I know you know nothing about buyers, and you can't communicate with them at Afternic. I also I think Afternic has a robot which picks domains randomly and makes price requests on them, this way they create lots of room for themselves to play, and no room for sellers, you have to guess whether the buyer is real or not, rich or not etc.

I rarely receive price requests because 99% of my domains are set to BIN at Afternic. With BIN set on domains, there are no chances of receiving price requests.

No, I'm unable to communicate with buyers and don't know who the buyer is. But that doesn't matter to me because I want to sell at my price, no matter who the buyer is. I adjust according to my overall situation including financial position, cash flow, etc.

 

[Samer]

@AbdulBasit.com following your journey since; Uni to Afternic lander, after careful thought.

appreciate share man; a real life case-study.

Hold no allegiance either, just wish u continued success, moving forward; this is awesome!

Samer

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Thanks for sharing, Abdul. I wonder if you can share roughly what % of them are offers under your acquisition price/errors/fake offers? I would guess that only around 10% or so will be genuine and worthy leads. If this will be the average for a year, that means a 0.75 or so STR, at this price point?

Well, the genuine offers are much higher than 10% and probably be 50% or more but sales are very few. The reason behind that is my prices are suitable only for endusers and when the right enduser with right budget knocks my door, the sale eventually happens.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Great experiment! I suggest to do split test and put half of your domains on Dan landers, that will be very interesting.

Thanks a lot for sharing great valuable info with us.

I'm happy to try out new things but I haven't found any reason to be convinced in trying Dan as I find it worthless paying them 9% commission for doing almost nothing!

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

True that and I actually upped my Afnic prices but that's not the point.

The point is that Afnic landers offers nothing extra than any others and charges double the fees.

In terms of branding Afnic is on the same foot as Dan, they're both unknown to a potential buyer. Is not that Afnic is a super brand (like GoDaddy) known all over the world, so nothing to gain here.

In terms of design quality Dan's landing pages are far superior imo.

Dan also offers the chance to sell names by installments, Afnic not so much. A startup might not afford let's say Abdul's $20k price in one go but they might be happy to pay this over 6 or 12 months, so you might get some extra recurring sales.

Dan also pays very fast, you don't need to wait a week to get your money.

I've seen fellow domainers saying a huge impact on their sales (positive) when Afternic landers started using GoDaddy logo so many people around the world are aware of GoDaddy unlike Dan which isn't popular.

The only good thing I find at Dan is their payment plan option which is what Uni and Afternic both are missing to date. They should introduce this feature which will bring in lot of more sales.

 

[Nikhil Jain]

Afnic landers offers nothing extra than any others

I do understand the basis of the points that you have raised above. But I am not sure if you have seen those Afternic landers. The major reason for trying out those landers would be that they hold the GoDaddy logo if you see. So the test here would be to see if conversions are better using that GoDaddy branding and trust or no.
To test it out, set nameservers on one of your domains to ns3.afternic.com and ns4.afternic.com.

The only reason I have refrained from trying out these landers is the fact that these (at present) do not offer BIN and Make Offer options, which eventually offers lower control over leads.

But that is something that will be worth watching out for from Abdul's experience with these landers.

 

[Name Trader]

Congrats Abdul. I only use my own landers (on my own website), 100% redirect to my website. The only other place I list is at Afternic. Approx 75% of my sales last year were from Afternic, almost all from unpriced domains. Any priced domains on Afternic are at my expected price + 25% to pay for their 20% commission. I have approx 3600 .com domains and about 700 of everything else. I have never sold any non-com domains to an end-user. So I must be doing something wrong there. I have close to zero sales from my website. So I think I'm doing something wrong there also. My main question for you is how do you evaluate and price all those domains? That's probably my biggest headache.

 

[Mister Funsky]

Thank you for taking the time and effort to share with us!

 

[Ostrados]

Great experiment! I suggest to do split test and put half of your domains on Dan landers, that will be very interesting.

Thanks a lot for sharing great valuable info with us.

 

[loredan]

The fact is very obvious to everyone as Afternic distribution network is super strong and incomparable to any other marketplace. Although I don't defend their commission rate which is pretty high IMO. I made sales into 6 figures last year and half of the sales amount was generated via Afternic and the entire period I didn't use their landers. At the same time, my domains are added at Dan.com and they made zero sales.

Hope that clarifies now.

I get your point and agree that Afternic's distribution network is the best out there but you don't need to park your names with them in order to access this. If a potential buyer comes straight to your landing page you're basically gifting Afternic and extra 11%. Think how much you would have saved in a year?

That's why I think you should use different landing pages such as Dan or Epik.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I get your point and agree that Afternic's distribution network is the best out there but you don't need to park your names with them in order to access this. If a potential buyer comes straight to your landing page you're basically gifting Afternic and extra 11%. Think how much you would have saved in a year?

That's why I think you should use different landing pages such as Dan or Epik.

I know exactly what you're trying to say and that's the main reason which never allowed me to take this step which I took starting this year.

I think paying that extra 11% is fine when I compare with all other platforms. Also I used to park with Uni sales lander and made many sales directly without the involvement of brokers. I don't see much harm in trying them out for some time and see the results. The worst thing could be I'll be going back to Uni landers. But I'm hopeful to continue in long run as I expect better results in coming months...

Thanks for your suggestion though

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

A turnover of 2.5% is much better than typical however with an amazing 500 inquiries in just one month it seems far too low, imo.

I agree with what you're saying but I'm still happy because the results are fantastic for me as my starting sale price is usually $1888/$1988 which is why the number of sales aren't that good but the amount of sales covers up everything.

 

[TauseefKhan]

thanks for sharing Abdul Basit. I think you'll see comparatively better results in coming six months.

one of the benefits of Afternic is its premium and standard networks. although its nameservers don't show buy it now prices. But, your name is streamed into hundreds of registrars searches. Which leads to greater chance of making a sale.

I have this compilation of Afternic partners. (may need little correction - but worth reading)

afternic premium partners:
godaddy
network solutions
register.com
enom
tucows
namecheap
name.com
dynadot
tierranet
dotster
domain.com
epik
domainthenet
srsplus
mydomain
ipage
power
bulkregister
hover
eurodns
protrada
namescout
fatcow
rebel.com
internic.ca
onamae.com
joker.com
rucenter
net.cn
webnames.ru
dotology
aplus.net
chengmi.cn
uniteddomains
xinnet
namesilo
amen.fr
amen.pt
nominalia
register.it
key-systems
rrpproxy
yijie.com
namepal
n@me
na.wang
ovh.com

afternic standard network
godaddy auctions
instra corporation
onlydomains.com
logicboxes.com
resellerclub
hosteurope
bigrock
missdomain
101domain
123reg.com
domains.com
domainmonster.com
domaintools
noktadomains
directnic
bluehost
hostmonster
fastdomain
domize
domaindiscover
ultimatedomains
justdropped.com
regtons
estibot.com
melbourne.it
dnmic.cn
dnbiz.com
yumi.com
turticaret
domainallies
hexonet
heartinternet
imenaua
midphase
register.ca
22.cn
namestadium
dnprice.es
webnames.ca
nameful
namepal
zennames.net
internet.bs
...
dofo
namech_k
domainr
domaintyper
domaineye
domainhub
whois.ws

https://www.afternic.com/domain-reseller-network

 

[BrandCollectors.com]

congrats! on namepro it would sold for $158 )

 

[Fortnite]

Thanks @AbdulBasit.com for all the posts you share. This is yet another amazing insight, you cannot imagine how much knowledge is acquired while doing so..Congrats on your sales and inshaaAllah the new change works and benefits you.