Afternic will – Sedo won’t

[equity78]

One site will allow you to opt out of registrar markups the other won't. Here is a follow up to the story I posted last week about some domain registrars marking up your names (for their profit) when you list at Sedo and Afternic. Joe Styler reaffirmed what Bob Mountain wrote two years ago. You can contact Afternic and have your names not show at the markup registrars. We also understand … [Read more...]

 

[Peak.Domains]

@Ryan217

You're creating a binary thing here where the choices are either "They jack up the price of my name, or they don't show it at all."

Plenty of places show the names without inflating the price and pocketing the difference. Why not expect that from everywhere? If your name could sell for an extra 20% above your asking price, why don't you want that money? I want you to have that money.

I understand your position, but you're selling yourself short. My position is don't sell yourself short.

As a bare minimum, I want us to have data on how much our names actually sell for. Maybe I've gotten sales that originated from places that mark up the prices, maybe I haven't. As far as I know, we're kept in the dark. Let's push for transparency and being able to make informed decisions.

 

[equity78]

Mark ups are done likely based on private agreements between marketplaces and their partners. Domain owners are not a party of possible private agreements between marketplaces and their partners. Are they? Do they have agreement with those registrars and are those registrars breaching that agreement? How can they complain about something when they are not a party of it? In which basis?

I believe some are looking at it on the basis of never being informed. That's the whole crux of this matter for most, of course people can markup or charge commissions and those who want to pay them can pay them.

When this started a couple years ago, the issue was people did not know it was going on, because they never agreed to it and it was not in any TOS.

Afternic has allowed people to opt out of the markup registrars, so you can be at Afternic and get Dynadot and NameSilo for example but opt out of places like Name.com and Enom.com, just to name a couple.

 

[7363824]

@Ryan217

You're creating a binary thing here where the choices are either "They jack up the price of my name, or they don't show it at all."

Plenty of places show the names without inflating the price and pocketing the difference. Why not expect that from everywhere? If your name could sell for an extra 20% above your asking price, why don't you want that money? I want you to have that money.

I understand your position, but you're selling yourself short. My position is don't sell yourself short.

As a bare minimum, I want us to have data on how much our names actually sell for. Maybe I've gotten sales that originated from places that mark up the prices, maybe I haven't. As far as I know, we're kept in the dark. Let's push for transparency and being able to make informed decisions.

I don't know about you but I don't have the ability to dictate to registrars if they can markup or not. All I have control over is if I let my domains get listed on those registrars, Even the premise of this thread is Afternic allows to to opt out of being shown on those registrars that markup and sedo is all or nothing. I go with what I can control, how I market my domains, by putting them in front of as many potential buyers as possible.

 

[myfavorite]

What if the buyer would have been willing to pay your price but not the marked up price? How many potential sales could it cost? Its just good old fashion front running.

Some of us seems to misunderstand the scenario here.

Using Sedo, my domain is listed at Sedo for $100m and Marketplace B marks it up to $135m on their own platform.

If you insist it should not be listed at Marketplace B, that is a guaranteed loss of an opportunity that will come from them.

However, if you allow it to be listed there at the marked up price, then you're creating room for more exposure.

An experienced IT person seeing it there at that price might try to check it out on other market places like Sedo and see it at my price of $100m.

I'm looking at the additional opportunity created, which is lost if you opt out. It's not about justifying their action but tapping into additional probability of sale.

Some people don't have any interest in all marketplaces, but uses only their sales lander pages and website. It's all about our different choices.

 

[poweredbyme]

An experienced IT person seeing it there at that price might try to check it out on other market places like Sedo and see it at my price of $100m.

It will be less likely for lower priced domains and for first time buyers.

While I agree most of your points, there is a risk for lower priced domains as those domains are not bought only by experts.

What is that risk on lower priced domains? Newbies will automatically think the price they see is the final price and will never think of there might a lower price somewhere else. Furthermore, if one day they find the lower price you want them to see, they may not feel comfortable buying from that "new" site. They might think something is fishy. They will probably compare other domains on 2 platforms and will finally learn it's a standard.

I learned it in a similar way when querying my domain expiration dates on who.is. I saw my domains with SedoMLS are shown with higher prices. I first thought who.is was showing cached old prices even though I never set those numbers as price. Could be currency exchange rates a factor? Maybe. Sedo is a German company may be converting USD to EUR then EUR to USD just to take more from me. I didn't know. I thought those will be updated if I check again tomorrow or next week. This "cache possibility" lasted for about several months and the prices did not get updated. Then I checked other domains I see at Sedo. I realized it was a standard. Then I noticed name.com suggestions, checked my names on name.com and saw the same higher prices.

It's a very long learning curve. Mine took 5+ years and I wasn't a newbie, sold couple of domains in Sedo, developed and sold some sites on other places before I learned it myself. A true newbie or a first time buyer would learn to check all marketplaces probably after 5-10 years. It takes very long time. Because it's an unexpected thing. You can't think of such a thing can happen until you stumble upon it by chance. Of course this can't be a case for higher or top priced domains as those domains are bought only by senior experts likely with 20+ years experience as of now.

 

[fatter]

I don't think there is a better selling opportunity then an enduser searching for a name they want at there registrar and having a sales price to buy now. Most endusers aren't even aware sedo exists, or other aftermarket venues. they are to busy trying to run a business. so for me even at marked up price I would still prefer it be shown, If given the choice I wouldn't opt out of this.
Joet

 

[Sheogorath]

To be honest, I do not care about how they split their commissions or if the domains have markups.
My domains receive a lot more promotion due to the many registrar partnerships and if they sell at markup prices it is fine by me.

$115K registrar markup buy now or $100K normal buy now does not mean anything since I will still get my share from the $100K minus commission.
The extra $15K is not part of the equation and the registrar earns it.
I don't justify their actions, but it doesn't bother me at all.

 

[Name Trader]

This is the reply I got from Afternic from opting out of sales where domains are marked up over our selling prices

As you have requested we have removed your domain listings from all Afternic resellers that are adding a markup to your BIN price. Your domains will no longer be provided to markup test resellers from Afternic.

We appreciate you sharing your concerns. We are using this test to determine our long-term policy to reseller markups. As a customer we’d like to share some background on this exercise with you:

• The markup test involves a small number of resellers, less than 5% of our reseller network by sales volume.
• Afternic does not receive any of the markup revenue, 100% of proceeds from the markup go to the resellers.
• The data shows that while markup resellers experienced a slight decrease in unit sales growth, sales increased in other channels. It appears customers are searching multipe sites for the same domain name, or are contacting domain sellers via the for-sale link on the domain landing page. This means overall sell through rate is largely unchanged but shifted away from markup resellers to other channels.
• The markup test was in response to long-standing demand from Afternic resellers. Many resellers themselves have sub-resellers selling Afternic domains. By the time they were to get their commissions, it wouldn’t be economical for them to carry the Afternic names unless there was additional margin made available via the markup. As a result of the markup we’ve seen an overall increase in sales by this sub-reseller category.

Long story short – our main goal is to help our customers sell domain names. To do that, we need to be in front of as many potential customers as possible. Sometimes, that’s means testing things like enabling third party markups. You still receive the contracted commission associated with your stated Buy Now price.

While this is standard practice with some other players in our industry, it’s something we have delayed implementing. We understand not everyone likes this practice, which is why we are enabling customers to opt out.

Please allow 24-48 hours for the changes to fully take place with our partners.


Feel free to reach out with any further questions.


With best regards,


Afternic Support

It provides some useful other information.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

The most important thing to note while opting out which Afternic forgot or purposely didn't inform is this:

"When you opt out, your domains will no longer display on their partners' websites that mark up their pricing."

The above message is confirmed by Afternic team member.

 

[Name Trader]

@AbdulBasit.com

What is the difference to that and what I quoted in their letter in their first paragraph they say...

As you have requested we have removed your domain listings from all Afternic resellers that are adding a markup to your BIN price. Your domains will no longer be provided to markup test resellers from Afternic.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

@AbdulBasit.com

What is the difference to that and what I quoted in their letter in their first paragraph they say...

Sorry, my mistake. I just misread of missed reading that paragraph. It's the same meaning.

 

[pokainc]

The counterpoint to those who are saying that they don't care if there's markups is the following:

Scenario 1 (when opted IN to markup)
Search randomdomain546.com , boss it says price is $4400.
- That's too much, let's check for another name (real price maybe was $3700).

Scenario 2 (when opted OUT if markup)
Search randomdomain546.com, boss it shows registered already (no price).
-Type it in see what shows up.
There would be your landing page and a potential offer or deal.


Yes it will have more exposure if you're opted in, but not all publicity is good publicity despite how the popular saying goes.