Afternic - Official Thread

[GoDaddy]

Hello NamePros!
By popular demand, we have launched a dedicated feedback thread for Afternic, the GoDaddy-owned domain name marketplace.

We have created this thread as a way for you to tell us what works, what doesn't work, and what features you'd like to see at Afternic (please be constructive with your feedback). We're looking forward to hearing from the domain investment community to help us shape the future of Afternic.

We will also be sharing Afternic product updates in this thread.

Please note that this thread is not meant for support. Please email our support team at [email protected] for assistance.

 

[Altetra]

I have an idea for Afternic Support, many of us can't afford to call due to long costing distances, the email support is very slow.
Afternic can add something which I use on my websites, a internal chat system, domainers to support, nothing else, feel free to write and get a reply, of course no immediate or obliged by Afternic staff, reply as you can.
It looks like Telegram and any other chat app out there.

 

[cabotower]

I have an idea for Afternic Support, many of us can't afford to call due to long costing distances, the email support is very slow.
Afternic can add something which I use on my websites, a internal chat system, domainers to support, nothing else, feel free to write and get a reply, of course no immediate or obliged by Afternic staff, reply as you can.
It looks like Telegram and any other chat app out there.

they have a toll free number don't they

 

[Altetra]

they have a toll free number don't they

Maybe yes, but if my English is crap, better to abstain to call them.

 

[cabotower]

Maybe yes, but if my English is crap, better to abstain to call them.

"I have an idea for Afternic Support, many of us can't afford to call" ?

 

[vh121245]

You use afternic service like you serve the emperor, you make money for them but you can't say anything. If they're happy, they'll respond to your email. If they're not happy, they won't pay and block your account.
Sedo

 

[SuperPorky]

Also experiencing a payout delay, what is going on with Afternic

 

[Maged Khatab]

Thanks for sharing your experience, @Maged Khatab. This issue has been resolved, and .finance names are now heading to the GoDaddy Cart correctly.

I confirm this issue has been resolved.

Thank you!

 

[DomainRecap]

Also experiencing a payout delay, what is going on with Afternic

It's obvious that the broker team at SlowDaddy simply cannot handle the increased demand and everything has dropped down to a crawl. Days for them to contact customers, a week to get back to sellers with the buyer's counter, and weeks to close a deal.

There also seems to be differing tiers at SlowDaddy, with a guy online at X stating that from Offer to Counter to Counter to Acceptance all took LESS THEN 24 HOURS. And it was just a $5K deal, not some 6-figure monster where I would understand the extra attention. I can't even get my offer forwarded to the buyer in less than 2 days, let alone close multi-step deals in 24 hours - something is definitely going on around here.

Without the ability to self-broker and not being in the special "24-hour closing" service tier, SlowDaddy is virtually impossible to use as a sales venue. For example, in September I had about the same amount of offers from private, Dan and Afternic sources, and I sold 2 private, 3 on Dan and ZERO on SlowDaddy.

It just takes way, way, way too long to get anything done on SlowDaddy, which costs you sales, while you can "strike while the iron is hot" everywhere else, quickly identifying deadbeats and hobos, while concentrating your focus on the real potential buyers and then closing deals.

On SlowDaddy, it's just waiting and more waiting.

 

[vh121245]

the most annoying thing is afternic customer service. it can take weeks for them to respond to your email

 

[Janoss]

Afternic seems to be severely understaffed and taking too long to respond in all aspects from brokerage, transfers, customer service and payments. Dan with their small team were doing all these things much faster. I'm not sure how Afternic will manage after the Dan migration. @GoDaddy really needs to add more resources to Afternic.

 

[silentg]

I'll need that right now.

Sold a domain that has transfer lock and Afternic is waiting for buyer to respond if they want to accept the domain push at current registrar.

If this was Dan, sale would've been closed on the same day.

Here's the update: Buyer hasn't responded. Unless they respond and say OK, the sale will complete when the transfer lock is removed.

 

[GoDaddy]

I did not see this clearly outlined anywhere in the Dan Migration FAQ and I would love you to clarify further. @GoDaddy

My scenario:

I have my domains listed at both Dan and Afternic
I have opted out of migration
I use NS1.DAN.COM and NS2.DAN.COM as my nameservers
I have chosen my default Afternic Lander

When Dan shuts down, my domains should then resolve to Afternic landers right?

And as for the "for the best long-term results, we recommend switching to Afternic nameservers" I assume this means that the domain Dan.com could be sold or otherwise divested in the future, therefore Afternic nameservers are recommended.

Also, I noticed the Afternic Custom Lander has some weird outcomes when choosing Make Offer, Make Offer + BIN, etc. options, and I was wondering if there are plans to streamline this to allow all these pricing options to appear on the Custom Lander.

For example, if I choose "Make Offer + BIN" as my lander option, then all my BINs will use the Custom Lander, while my Make Offer listings are shunted to the Request Price Lander. I'd like both types of pricing to be on the Custom Lander to provide some consistency.

And will the Customer Lander ever support Make Offer? It shows up as an option but it doesn't work and shunts everything over to the Request Price lander.

Thank you.

Hi @DomainRecap,
Thanks for clarifying your situation. Since you opted out of migration, using ns1/ns2.dan.com will show an Afternic lander if the domain is listed for sale in your Afternic account. Regarding the Custom Lander, it does support Make Offer. Can you DM us more details about your statement that it "shunts everything over to the Request Price lander"?

Hey ! Thanks for giving us this chance to share feedback. Here are some thoughts:

1. I think it would be great if you acted as intermediaries between buyers and sellers for offers, like Dan.com used to do, so sellers are notified of all incoming offers.
2. To make selling easier, maybe consider partnerships with other registrars to avoid that 60-day waiting period for domain transfers.
3. A dedicated Q&A bank could help address common inquiries, and a team should handle questions directly.
4. Speeding up payments to sellers would be awesome—maybe classify sellers based on past transactions for trust levels.
5. Improving the verification process for domains during listing would streamline things; a refresh button for pending verifications would help.
6. Expanding your advertising strategies like other platforms would be beneficial for selling domains.
7. Introducing a broker feature where registered brokers can market domains for a commission set by the seller could be valuable.
8. And a special shoutout to the entire team for your hard work!

Looking forward to seeing these improvements!

Hi @cindydomains, Thanks for your detailed list! Here’s a recap:
- Self-brokerage is coming to Afternic in Q1 2025.
- Pushing names to registrar accounts is possible, but it’s best to discuss this with the TA team on a case-by-case basis.
- Our help.afternic.com site should answer most questions.
- We’ve significantly sped up payments since last year (https://blog.afternic.com/expedited-payout/), and more automation is on the way to make it even quicker.
- We appreciate your feedback on verification. There are no plans to change it currently, but we’re keeping an eye on feedback.
- Our distribution network shows eligible names to up to 85 million searches per month. Expanding this network and optimizing listings and seller services are our current priorities.
- Our expert brokers handle inbound leads, and this will remain unchanged. Check out the last section of this post to see the impact: https://www.godaddy.com/resources/news/afternic-launches-the-lead-center

Thanks again for your feedback!

@GoDaddy @Afternic

My lead center has been frozen for weeks, no new leads are showing.
Other people mentioned having this problem as well.
I tried to contact Afternic support but when I try to fill the form in the help center and send it I get an error, and I tried to contact support via email but it's been two days now and I didn't hear back from them.

Can you please look into this matter
Thank you

Hi @mogo, Could you DM us your Afternic username? We’ll connect with the Afternic team to look into it.

@GoDaddy
Why doesn't Afternic provide invoices for their services?

This week I sold a domain on Afternic via their brokerage/escrow service for which I paid a 15% fee. Since I'm a business based in the EU, for compliance with the reverse charge mechanism, I'm required to pay VAT on my purchases and to store the invoices I receive as a customer.

I have never had any issue with other marketplaces: Sedo, Dan and even smaller ones like DaaZ have always automatically generated an invoice for the commission whenever I have sold domains via them.

For the last couple of days, I've been exchanging emails with their support and they're telling me all they can provide is a pdf with a general overview of the sale.

What I fail to understand is: given that is a service I purchased (and paid $2,500 for it), why in the world can't Afternic provide an invoice like every other business?

Hi @the_poet,
We announced in August that automated invoicing is coming soon, eliminating the need to contact Afternic support. It's due for release in the next week: https://blog.afternic.com/whats-new-august-24/

Had a small sale and received the usual payment email about an hour ago:

Show attachment 263748

But there's nothing from GoDaddy in my PayPal account yet. Until now, the email above always meant I had the funds.

Maybe this is because today is Saturday (or already Sunday where I am)? Why send the email then, when the funds haven't really reached me?

Hi @Rhinnnn,
Previously, our payment system triggered emails late in the process, so you often received them after the payment was received. We’ve moved it earlier in the process so you now get the email before the payment arrives. Usually, the payment follows the email on the same day, but it may occasionally take a day or so.

When open the negotiation mode by ourselves? @Afternic @GoDaddy

Hi @kesen, Self-brokerage (handling negotiations yourself) is coming in Q1 2025.

@GoDaddy Hello, when I search on godaddy.com search for a domain that let's say I put a price of over $100,000 on Afternic there is neither the option "make offer" nor "Lease to Own" unlike my other domains.

It makes sense not to have a LTO option because unfortunately Afternic only has LTO available for domains priced up to $100,000 (as opposed to Dan where there was no limit) I would suggest that you consider increasing this limit.

Anyway, I understand not having a LTO option on Godaddy search for the time being. What I don't understand, is why this particular domain doesn't even have a "Make Offer" option.

Hi @Domain Pro Seller, We’re not planning to test having a Make Offer button alongside Buy it Now in the GoDaddy registrar path at the moment. We want to highlight the clear action of purchasing the name, but there is a phone number for motivated buyers who want to make an offer.

I have an idea for Afternic Support, many of us can't afford to call due to long costing distances, the email support is very slow.
Afternic can add something which I use on my websites, a internal chat system, domainers to support, nothing else, feel free to write and get a reply, of course no immediate or obliged by Afternic staff, reply as you can.
It looks like Telegram and any other chat app out there.

Hi @DomainNature,
We agree, and that’s why we’re releasing Live Chat soon! We'll share more details once it's live.

Also experiencing a payout delay, what is going on with Afternic

Hi @SuperPorky,
Please make sure to contact our support team and your assigned TA agent. You can also DM us the domain so we can track your progress with the Afternic team.

 

[DomainRecap]

Here’s a recap:
- Self-brokerage is coming to Afternic in Q1 2025.

 

[mogo]

Hi @mogo, Could you DM us your Afternic username? We’ll connect with the Afternic team to look into it.

@GoDaddy
Hi,
I just sent you my username via DM.
Thank you

 

[Domain Pro Seller]

Hi @Domain Pro Seller, We’re not planning to test having a Make Offer button alongside Buy it Now in the GoDaddy registrar path at the moment. We want to highlight the clear action of purchasing the name, but there is a phone number for motivated buyers who want to make an offer.

@GoDaddy Yes, but there is an inconsistency between godaddy.com and godaddyauctions.com, as someone can make an offer from godaddyauctions.com to the domain they want, but for the same domain they cannot make an offer on godaddy.com.

Anyway, please consider allowing the lease to own option for BIN over $100,000 on Afternic/Godaddy. There was no such limit on Dan.

 

[jiy k]

A Caption above one of my domain in GD Portfolio says:
"Your Domain is Hot. ___.com is attracting significant interest from other GoDaddy customers!
Then where are the leads? How many views ? only 3? Ohhh. So how come it is so attractive. What are the metrics to determine that my Domain is hot.
No, they only want me to enable auto-renew as my domain is hottie, attractive and attracting GD customers, so sometime in this decade it will get sold.

 

[Kyle Tully]

Sold a non-FT, non-Boost domain at Afternic yesterday, sent auth code right away, transfer complete later that day, got email that funds are on the way this morning

 

[GoDaddy]

We’re making important changes to Afternic's backend infrastructure to enhance our services and prepare for future improvements.

Over the last few months, we’ve been methodically updating sections of our backend “pipes” to streamline our internal listings architecture. This architecture connects your domain name listings and pricing to our services, including landing pages and the distribution network.

We’ve already made significant progress, consolidating several backend systems into a new single inventory management system. In July, we took a major step forward by updating GoDaddy’s search path to use this system for displaying aftermarket listings. As the next step in our upgrade process, we're updating the "pipes" to the Afternic Seller UI.

Over the next 24 hours your portfolio is being transitioned from our legacy system to the new backend infrastructure.Two positive changes have already resulted from this upgrade:

1. Advanced Filtering: Now available to all users, enhancing your ability to manage and sort your domains efficiently.
2. Expanded Export Capabilities: Portfolio exports can now handle up to 100,000 domains, making it easier for large-scale domain investors to manage their listings. We’re working on increasing this limit even further in the near future.

Once we complete this consolidation across all of the systems it will create a foundation for faster development and rollout of new features.

For example, in the coming months this will unlock the ability for us to introduce self-service capabilities for domains in review, allowing you to address issues directly without contacting customer support.We're excited about the improvements and the foundation this provides.

You can read more about this update through our blog! https://blog.afternic.com/streamlining-our-backend/

 

[the_poet]

Hi @the_poet,
We announced in August that automated invoicing is coming soon, eliminating the need to contact Afternic support. It's due for release in the next week: https://blog.afternic.com/whats-new-august-24/

Thanks @GoDaddy but since my case is very urgent as I need the invoice by Sep 10th for my fiscal duties, otherwise I'll incur a penalty, can you please generate an invoice manually?

 

[silentg]

@GoDaddy - Any updates on when slow checkout issue will be fixed?