discuss Afternic results in steady downtrend - now flatlining for months

[Dot Com Realty]

Hey all. Been domaining for 17 years, and Afternic has been a solid platform all this time. Well, except for the last year. I had 17 sales in 2017, and 22 in 2018, but only 12 last year. And nothing whatsoever in the last four months. This is far beyond the standard deviation from normal. I have been re-investing 150% of profits into higher quality and more names - happy to run negative cash flow to build a solid portfolio. I expected about 30 to 40 sales last year - this would have been normal based on my experience. Most of my names are priced right at the Godaddy appraised price - which has always been the sweet spot. My premiums are more and I have no interest in selling them, and I don't factor in my premiums into my bread and butter sales.

Brandbucket has died. In my experience with them in the last 4 years, they do about .05% sell-through rate at best.
Brandpa - only been with them for a year and have 60 names - priced up to $75k max. Zero percent sell through rate.
Squadhelp - Extremely happy with them. Three sales - mid to high four figures with a 10% sell through rate.
Efty - great guys running this, but just get lots of spam. Hard to get traffic stats with the goog anal system
Dan.com - Seems a clean platform - moved 150 names over recently. Like the traffic stats.

Would welcome any comments, suggestions, experiences and stats to share.

 

[Silentptnr]

My experience has been very similar with ongoing declining sales, only a few early last year and nothing recently.

I think it's also the end-user resale market getting worse as time goes by and not necessarily Afternic's fault.

However, Afternic platform is very outdated and far from good. Sometimes I get a notice of an inquiry and other times nothing received except it's shown on their page. Also, when I quote a price the inquiry often then disappears from their system.

When we talk about Afternic, we are talking the entire reseller network including its owner, GoDaddy.

What I am focused on is my results using ns4 and ns4 versus ns1 and ns2, using bin versus pur, and mostly, the sweet spot pricing.

I answer LOTS of price requests, but so far, it seems the names that sell most are $499-$1299.

Names that I quote $xx,xxx or even $xxx,xxx are a totally different thing.

As you may know, I hand register domains quite a bit. I have had good success with AN selling newly hand registered names even. I have one right now where the buyer had to wait 3 weeks because of 60 day transfer lock. It just finished.

Anyway, I have alot of thoughts. I would love to see more hard data on their buyer demographics, their sales including individual reseller sales data, their inventory breakdown, and their lander results.

It would help my build an appropriate portfolio. I dont mind when my "ultra premium priced" names dont sell because I usually have a specific end user in mind that I know would entertain my price, and could afford it.

 

[1Darko]

Afternic worked in the past the best for me. I have only about 250 domains. In 2020 still waiting for an enduser sales.

 

[werty]

I am still getting afternic sales but I had to drastically reduce pricing on all my domains as sales started to dry up around Mid 2019. I don't think it has anything to do with afternic rather more the cycle of the industry. In other words, I think sales are going down just like other industries seem to have topped out as well...

 

[Silentptnr]

I am still getting afternic sales but I had to drastically reduce pricing on all my domains as sales started to dry up around August 2019. I don't think it has anything to do with afternic rather more the cycle of the industry. In other words, I think sales are going down just like other industries seem to have topped out as well...

Agreed. I also think that there are other factors. GD is gaining control everything. They get so much traffic and have so much name recognition. Their automated appraisal tool is affecting prices and their serps offer all sorts of hand reg options alongside our premium names.

I believe that quality and specific demand dominate end user sales.

There is no shortage of cash in the expired market for sure.

 

[werty]

Agreed. I also think that there are other factors. GD is gaining control everything. They get so much traffic and have so much name recognition. Their automated appraisal tool is affecting prices and their serps offer all sorts of hand reg options alongside our premium names.

I believe that quality and specific demand dominate end user sales.

There is no shortage of cash in the expired market for sure.

Yeah and that's something I didn't like about this cycle. Reseller purchase prices kept increasing while end user sales prices didn't increase. In other words, profit margins for domainers have been shrinking year after year imo.

 

[Silentptnr]

Yeah and that's something I didn't like about this cycle. Reseller purchase prices kept increasing while end user sales prices didn't increase. In other words, profit margins for domainers have been shrinking year after year imo.

I rarely participate in gd expired auctions. Prices for names often go above my comfort level as an investor. I have to work In other, smaller expiring marketplaces and those have been getting more competitive recently.

 

[boker]

I rarely participate in gd expired auctions. Prices for names often go above my comfort level as an investor. I have to work In other, smaller expiring marketplaces and those have been getting more competitive recently.

Looks like you have found the perfect setup for afternic. Until the middle of 2019 afternic was good for me, but something has changed around that time. I usually test a lot, so even now I have around 25% of my names under $500 and even them are not getting attention, sometimes I'm getting more inquiries from resellers at the same prices listed at afternic, but nothing at afternic. I think that most of the 100 registrars from the DLS network are US based and connected to main registrar, godaddy so if you are using a registrar that is not part of their network, everything is dead there (just a supposition, not sure). I've used in the last year a lot of european registrars that are not part of the 100's registrars, so around half of my names are not in the fast transfer network, so that could be an explanation, but still even for the other half, the last 3-4 months were dead there. I will check a list of registrars from their premium network, I'm curious if they are mostly US based, or equally from around the world.

 

[cabotower]

anyone having trouble with afternic not reporting visits . my dashboard has not been updated for at least a week. mine are not parked, i am using afternic 3 and 4. they thought i was using 1 and 2 (with ads). i sent in a ticket and this was their answer.
-
Thank you for contacting Afternic Support. We have made sure that the even though the number of views have gone down that it has not impacted any of the clicks you may have received in the past. IT can take 3-5 days to get the viewing information from our 3rd party ad provider.

-
just received:
Thanks for reaching out. Visits only get counted on nameservers 1 and 2 with ads.
-
i really, really don't like ns 1 & 2. sometimes they list the ads without a for sale banner at the top.

 

[freety85]

-
just received:
Thanks for reaching out. Visits only get counted on nameservers 1 and 2 with ads.

Related to this: @AbdulBasit.com your account manager told you exactly the stats for the 3400+ names ( I believe you use ns3 and ns4 setup) or just if there was any price request?
From how many listed domains Afternic assign you an account manager? I assume this has to do something with quality as well. Thanks

 

[boker]

There could be some explanation for less inquiries. At least on main site, without checking yet the registrars part of the dls network, looks like they give preferential place for ngtlds and cctlds and just secondly everything else, I think that they were focusing on .com before. For example, I have a few keywords+group.com. So if you are looking for that keyword, the first pages will be ngtlds, cctlds and only at the end some .coms Even at the end, first will be listed the same keyword+tattoos, keyword+arab, keyword+animals, keyword+dolls, so nothing related to keyword+group, which usually it's a better fit. So how could somebody find my keyword+group.com if it's listed the 2000 on that list. Also, if he will look for exact match domain, what's the point to use afternic landings, when you could use whatever landings. If you go checking for non-keyword brandables, it's even hard, you will get tens of thousands of listings, so hard to be find. No wonder that I'm getting 10 times more inquiries from whois and landing page than from afternic, because it's easier to be find.

 

[Lox]

Since Q3 2019 prospects are more tempted to look at one of those hand reg. available “nearly” domain names as an alternative to buying or leasing @ aftermarket.

Preferences are #3 & #4 f.e.

#1 Perfect.ext
#2 Executive.ext
#3 Shareable.ext (* Influenceable, Social or Urban style, Word+ suffix / prefix or Made-up suffix / prefix)
#4 TwoSided.ext (* Voice search: 2 words [1st word is the key] + [2nd follow-up niche, industry] )
#5 ShortTerm.ext (* Associative names, Temp. alternative, planing to rebrand)

Also, you may try to give an extra negotiation $pace - f.e.

 

[garptrader]

Many domain buyers come to Godaddy with the expectation of buying a domain for lunder $50. When their first few choices are taken or priced much higher they often opt for one of the dozens of suggestions provided. Businesses will often spend five figures for business travel, an office holiday party, website development or other IT services, attorneys, etc. There will be an approval process but the amounts being spent are considered normal. Imagine someone presenting the argument of buying an aftermarket domain for $5k or more. Imagine the pushback from those who have to approve that expenditure. So they go for the scrappy reg fee option.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Registrar doesn't matter in terms of distribution...
Your domains will be visible on GoDaddy regardless of your registrar.
FastTransfer network means that the domain transfer will be processed automatically and nothing else.

If GoDaddy changed their search algorithm recently - this is another story...

 

[Hypersot]

FastTransfer network means that the domain transfer will be processed automatically and nothing else..

Not sure about that.
According to Afternic, it means that your domain will be exposed to 3x potential buyers

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Even if 1,000 partners...
Almost all sales are generated by GoDaddy.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

SedoMLS has also up to 100 partners but it is just for fun (no sales or very rare MLS sales)... because GoDaddy is absent.
In other words - without GoDaddy nothing works.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

At least if we are talking about English domains...

If your investments are very localized - then YES, other domestic registrars/partners can make some % of DLS/MLS sales...

 

[boker]

SedoMLS has also up to 100 partners but it is just for fun (no sales or very rare MLS sales)... because GoDaddy is absent.
In other words - without GoDaddy nothing works.

Usually it should be like this, but thinking that godaddy had last year 28 millions revenue from domain sales and sedo had 26 millions, it's not such a big difference, thinking that godaddy it'a a registrar as well..and sells a lot of closeouts and expired domains.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Sedo has similar revenue only due to .DE/.NL etc. sales.

 

[boker]

Sedo has similar revenue only due to .DE/.NL etc. sales.

Probably it helps them a lot, but in the same time godaddy has a lot of $5, $20 $69 and so one reseller sales, which makes the a lot of revenue, so it goes both ways.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

@Joe Styler
If not confidential, what share (%) of all AfternicDLS sales is generated by GoDaddy?

 

[cabotower]

SedoMLS has also up to 100 partners but it is just for fun (no sales or very rare MLS sales)... because GoDaddy is absent.
In other words - without GoDaddy nothing works.

-
had an mls sale. had a .co on a sedo lander and it sold through namecheap, 20% commission instead of 10%.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

had an mls sale. had a .co on a sedo lander and it sold through namecheap, 20% commission instead of 10%.

What price, $xxx?

And how many other non-MLS sales you did on Sedo?
It is 1 of 10, 1 of 20, 1 of 100???

 

[cabotower]

What price, $xxx?

And how many other non-MLS sales you did on Sedo?
It is 1 of 10, 1 of 20, 1 of 100???

-
it was $xxx. had 5 other sales through sedo. no .coms!

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

So in your case MLS share is within 15-20% of all sales.
With Afternic - almost all sales are generated by their DLS, that's why even parking there is not necessary.