strategy Crazy commission rates! Enough is enough!

[levinsondomains]

Hi friends,
After one year of domaining I can't stop thinking about the crazy commissions that all of us pay to the major companies.
We work so hard, inbound, outbound, auctions, financial risks and everything else and after all we pay something like 15-20% to these companies.
I realized that there is no reason to this unusual rate. And why it's happened? Cause we are like prisoners in their platform,the big ones in this industry works in these companies and everyone go after them "on blind". After each sale we get maybe 65% of the purchased price, this is crazy!(commission+taxes+ other costs). And we are stupid, so stupid. If you stop and think about it for a minute you will understand how absolutely crazy are these rates.
Enough is enough, stop paying for this rates. If we work together we can reduce these rates, or even opening a social company for all of us. 20%!20%!WTF?

 

[Silentptnr]

Absolutely, I do agree, and for big names a must,

I am just asking how much work can a broker do for a name he may only make $50 to $100 on.

I don't think many people in the domain industry focus on $50 to $100 deals. They do those to survive.

Most people in the domain industry think of $XXX,XXX,XXX size deals.

There's a saying in boxing... If you want the knockout, you gotta jab, jab, jab and look for the knockout. If you just look for the knockout, it might never come.

 

[SpareDomains]

I do my own sales landers so most deals come direct with zero commissions. Don't mind Afternic at 20% as it gets your domains in the registrar path https://www.afternic.com/domain-reseller-network which I believe will continue to account for more and more sales in the future. So I'm fine with paying a commission if it gets my domains distributed as the key is quality domains+distribution. The others where your domains just sit with hundreds of thousands or millions buried at a marketplace where offers come in anonymous I don't see much action from them at all.

 

[SpareDomains]

On another note, I too wanted to find a more economical way to sell domain names. I spent a year and a half constructing a marketplace website that is totally free. It will be years, if ever, that my site and the hundreds of others popping up, will reach the level that the larger companies have reached.

These companies are there for a reason. They have achieved success and I applaud that. I consider the ability to use their platforms a privilege, not a right.

If you were able to present a logical, sound, realistic and equally effective alternative to the big companies, you would probably have no choice but to charge fees.

Years ago parking paid very well so it made sense to redirect all your domains to Sedo etc... and make the parking income. So basically not only did they make a percentage of your domain parking income the more valuable thing they gained for free was your leads as now they have a lifetime lead they can continue to market to so a lifetime of profits. So basically domainers domains built these companies or filled their end user databases for free. Give em some parking money and we get the leads for free.

Not saying parking is dead but compared to 2002-2003 when I started it's a big difference from those days so easier today to say I'm not giving away all my traffic/leads for parking peanuts I'll do my own sales pages and toss a few affiliate links out of the way on them as well to see if those replace some of the income I'll lose by skipping parking but usually an increase in domain sales replaces that parking income loss as your average internet user (non domainer) is easily confused so a simple sales page really makes it 99.999% sure that they understand the domain is for sale where a parking page loaded with PPC links confusion can happen so I usually suggest if ya have to do parking pick a company with a sales link located at the top of the page and not buried in a sea of PPC links that an end user has to hunt for as quite a few won't find them. Domainers or tech savvy people sometimes forget that end users aren't as sharp on tech stuff, whois, etc... Simpler it is for them to understand and make an offer the better.

Doing your own market isn't really about I gotta top Sedo someday it's more about everything on this site is mine or brokered by me so every single sale that happens I make $ and I build my own end user database that I can remarket to instead of continuing to build the rich guys database for free. Build your future with recurring revenue streams. I personally don't make a ton from any 1 source of income but I have a good handful of small streams that equal a river at the end of each month.

So I'm a fan of doing my own sales pages but I do like and will pay 20% for distribution networks like Afternic as getting your domains in the natural path for end users makes sense and ya don't have to point them there for sales to happen. Pointing all your domains to a market with horrible category/search features and reduced parking payouts not so much rather keep my leads in house and not anonymous as most come from the lander and not the market anyway.

There's a saying in boxing... If you want the knockout, you gotta jab, jab, jab and look for the knockout. If you just look for the knockout, it might never come.

The only thing you will get it free is VIRUS.

 

[AIS01]

Super Welcome To nP...

 

[iHaveThisIdea]

IMO, it's the cost of doing business, unless you do absolutely everything yourself.

You can argue the merits of each business -- and whether they deserve their cut. But if you don't like them, or agree with the commission structure, then why not do it yourself?

I do agree that some companies have "monopolized" things, at least in terms of traffic/eyeballs/awareness and whatnot. Others are "too big to fail."

You can vote with your wallet, though.

 

[Silentptnr]

I understand your point but the way I look at the subject of paying commissions is a little different.

In every business there are expenses, including commissions, taxes, and other overhead. These expenses should be calculated into the amount you pay for a domain and where you set the price when selling. With careful management of these expenses, you can achieve the same margins of profit hopefully.

On another note, I too wanted to find a more economical way to sell domain names. I spent a year and a half constructing a marketplace website that is totally free. It will be years, if ever, that my site and the hundreds of others popping up, will reach the level that the larger companies have reached.

These companies are there for a reason. They have achieved success and I applaud that. I consider the ability to use their platforms a privilege, not a right.

If you were able to present a logical, sound, realistic and equally effective alternative to the big companies, you would probably have no choice but to charge fees.

 

[johnn]

Everyone want everything for free.
The only thing you will get it free is VIRUS.

You have the option to hire the broker or not. If you don't like to pay the commission then sell the name yourself.

Would you work for free?

 

[DOMAIN ILLUMINATI]

ʬʬʬELCOME @ nP

If you decide to use a sales platform, you decide also to accept their commision.

 

[maksimfa]

I think as the industry matures more and there is more transparency, prices would come down.

Unfortunately... the majority of big deals are under NDAs, and not worth a brokers time to devote to pushing a name they may make $100 on.... hence why need higher fee.

On the low end, you have sites like Flippa which "own" the market and just increase rates.... to get you 10 views or less.... and you end up having to market it more and more yourself. that is where the opportunity is and a few companies are looking at it, I promise you. =)

 

[Silentptnr]

John, no one is saying working for free but... a few examples.

Is it okay to pay more than $1 per view to list a Flippa auction? And to pay $250 to get it emailed out? On top of the 15% final commission.

With brokers, unless you have a six figure name, can you honestly expect them to put in a good amount of time marketing a name they would make $200 on? When it takes the same effort to market a name they can make $20,000 on.

Brokers, actual domain brokers I feel are a must for top names and you can expect them to do a great job proactively pushing them....

But if you do not have one of those top names.... offering more than 20% and exclusive rights.... what are you getting in return?

That is why I feel most folks who are able to, should try to market their own names first, then go to brokers to reach those they cannot.

But paying 20% to have a broker do almost nothing.... lol

For some reason, individuals have priorities. Some things, we spend without caring about markups and profit margins. Other things, we feel like victims of robbery over small amounts! We feel we should determine the value and cost for another persons business.

To split 80/20 with a partner that is doing the hard part (selling the name), it doesn't seem a bad deal.

 

[SpareDomains]

What best landing page theme or script Can you recommend?

I've got a folder of like 14 years worth of scripts so I'm generally always A/B testing a few of them

Simple & Clean has always worked the best for me so I'd probably say...

https://themeforest.net/item/domain-broker-2-landing-page-to-sell-domains/12578919

Modifications I've made to this one...

My own background image optimized so a smaller file to load
May Be For Sale! instead of Is For Sale!
small sales/confidence pitch above offer form
reworded the text on each offer form field
added a phone number field (this will probably be added in the next version as I told dude he should add it for those that can't hack one in like I did)
changed text on submit button and made it green as feel green is good
sales color, but maybe I think too much
few affiliate links in footer
htaccess to default all www to non www
htaccess all 404's to index so no lost traffic
recpatcha 2
reformated offer form it sends to make it in the order I like to save time

think that's all I've modified on this one but may find another tweak. I generally email the authors of all of the scripts I buy/modify and try to get them to add features I've added so those that don't know how to modify them get the same features I've added eventually. This also saves me time if the default version contains as much as possible so when they update them I don't have to go back and make tons of my custom modifications again. Quite a few popular scripts have additions to them from my suggestions as some coders don't really know the domain business as well and they are usually receptive to adding stuff I suggest once I show them my version.

Basically if ya can code or hack some code you generally go stand alone php script and hack it to add features/tweaks ya need as generally nothing is 100% the way ya want it especially if your a perfectionist/anal like me. For those without skills they generally default to wordpress as easier for anyone to run but kinda feel wordpress is bloated and a bad bot magnet looking for holes. Been running my own servers since 2003 and seems all of the stand alone php scripts barely put any load and only see a small fraction of the bad bot attempts wordpress does as definitely a target since popular so updates/security tweaks need to happen to lock it down.

One wordpress plugin in my folder of scripts....

https://codecanyon.net/item/this-domain-is-for-sale-wordpress-plugin/8469865

Search...

https://codecanyon.net
https://themeforest.net
https://www.codester.com

etc...

and find what ya like. I own a ton of stuff so few others I like/own as well but what I like might not be what you like. Only thing I know I definitely like is simple and clean as it's worked for me and end users never ask me for traffic stats etc... so I try not to use anything that overloads them with data as the goal is to get the lead not confuse the hell outta them and I've got 14 years of end users that have never asked for those statistics so I don't want them on the page.

Can you provide one of domain names to see how the landing page look like?

I really enjoy 99% of all the offers I receive being from end users who don't hesitate to drop...

real name, real phone number, real email address (many from existing companies), ip address as I don't really see any domainer offers or whois offers so I'd kinda like to keep it that way as my lead to sales ratio is high due to almost all the offers being from end users.

 

[baseballworld]

Welcome to namepros.

 

[Kuffy]

I'd support a Name Pros sales site aimed at end users.

 

[SpareDomains]

Waste of time and money. It would make sence if you own 100 000 domains, but still You can`t compete with aftrernic/sedo ditribution system. They show your names directly to end-users, thats where the money is.
Comission it's the cost of doing business.

Time to time some cheapskate pop-s up in forum and says the same things. They usually don´t last long.

You can do your own sales pages and still have all of your domains show up in their distribution system as you don't have to point your names to them for that to happen. Most sales happen from the landing page reason I've done my own for 14 years. Go ask frank schilling where most of the leads come from and sure he'll tell ya the landing page. Why is Mike from domainmarket pointing hundreds of thousands straight to sales pages same reason. Majority of my sales happen direct from the sales lander which gives me name, email, phone, ip address etc... so I continue to build an end user database with commission free sales. All of my domains show up in the distribution networks as well but ya don't have to point to them for that to happen so makes sense to build your own end user database on your own pages and avoid commissions instead of receiving anonymous offers while I'm still making distribution sales on other networks as well.

 

[Lox]

If we work together we can reduce these rates, or even opening a social company for all of us

Can you elaborate on this.

 

[ksusha64]

I had a guy buy my name on namejet for $999. I was offering it to him on namepros for $400. Same guys from namepros buy on all platforms. Why not buy directly on namepros? You will get much better deals.
We all know people overpay by %60 percent for expired domains. Thats insane. They would pay always half less buying directly from domain owner. Major platforms created this scheme with EXPIRED Auctions like Gold is being sold. In reality people overpay for JUNK. If u want to stop this madness buy more on namepros and less on other platforms.

 

[xn--v4h.com]

If a company can sell your domains at good prices, doesn't 20% sound reasonable? Should their time, efforts, and connections they've built up over the years be worth something less?

 

[maksimfa]

Everyone want everything for free.
The only thing you will get it free is VIRUS.

You have the option to hire the broker or not. If you don't like to pay the commission then sell the name yourself.

Would you work for free?

John, no one is saying working for free but... a few examples.

Is it okay to pay more than $1 per view to list a Flippa auction? And to pay $250 to get it emailed out? On top of the 15% final commission.

With brokers, unless you have a six figure name, can you honestly expect them to put in a good amount of time marketing a name they would make $200 on? When it takes the same effort to market a name they can make $20,000 on.

Brokers, actual domain brokers I feel are a must for top names and you can expect them to do a great job proactively pushing them....

But if you do not have one of those top names.... offering more than 20% and exclusive rights.... what are you getting in return?

That is why I feel most folks who are able to, should try to market their own names first, then go to brokers to reach those they cannot.

But paying 20% to have a broker do almost nothing.... lol

 

[domeen]

I actually build my one marketplace these days.

Waste of time and money. It would make sence if you own 100 000 domains, but still You can`t compete with aftrernic/sedo ditribution system. They show your names directly to end-users, thats where the money is.
Comission it's the cost of doing business.

Time to time some cheapskate pop-s up in forum and says the same things. They usually don´t last long.

 

[Josytal]

Business is not charity. Commissions/rewards are necessary "evils" in business, otherwise you can not survive. Running an efficient marketplace is not an easy task. In fact, marketing alone will consume the lion share of your income, not to talk of other sundry overheads.

Of course, competition should be encouraged, so long its laissez-faire, which, of course, is a pipe dream.

Unless you can do it better, run it cheaper and offer better value while you still maintain your reasonable margin that can support growth, don't touch it!

It's not waste of time to try nor have 10000000x domain names in order to get started. I will not support this type of mind frame. After all the biggest names in the industry today started low yesterday, from some point.

Go ahead if you think you can handle it, it's not going to be a cake walk, so make provisions for possible failure.

 

[Josytal]

it is waste of time.

Time used in acquiring knowledge can never be described as waste.

I look at your for sale site. Why do you have it? Why?

I've setup a for-sale site because I believe my website should be the first POS (point of sale) for my domains. I will update the scripts soon, so come back to check.

I have all my domains parked on the site, so they resolved to just one landing page with contact/inquiry form, with domain description, category, keywords etc. I know I'm on the right track 'cos I've been receiving offers from the pages.

By the way, ask yourself, why is it that every domain marketplace wants you to update your domain DNS to point to their name servers?
If you are a domainer, you should know the answer.

Mind you, my domains are also listed in other marketplaces: afternic/sedo/godaddy/flippa, but they act as supplementary.
If they want 25% it's OK with me. But they should earn it. I'm not obliged to send free type-in traffic to them.

 

[NameShiba]

Anyone could make something that is more optimized and streamline sales with "XYZ".
They don't have the exact "perfect" set up.

 

[Silentptnr]

Good chance for someone to build a marketplace like SEDO in USA, but with less commissions like 5% BIN, 10% brokered.

Hopefully over time, prycr[dot]com will get there. It will always be 100% free.

 

[wakguano]

20% for dealing with all kinds of crazy out there. Its not easy ( i think ), especially with a buyer who knows nothing + bad anger management issue

im not here to get rich, im here to make friends