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?

 

[SpareDomains]

How you give your client feel of safety when they purchase domain from your landers? You doing checkout via escrow?

Years ago...

https://www.escrow.com/

Now I've moved to...

https://escrow.payoneer.com/

Anything you can do to instill confidence helps...

1) Nice domain for sales site
2) Clean layout
3) Professional text
4) SSL Banner
5) Escrow Service Banner

etc...

Basically if your gonna do it do it right, clean/professional

In 14 years of direct sales I've only had 1 buyer question me which was actually this year and a simple link to https://escrow.payoneer.com/ with a brief description of the process and all good the lawyer paid the next day so I've never had anyone back out as everything is professional sales pages, sales text, email communications and execution.

 

[urlurl]

i have the buyers pay the commision

example:

if I want to net $1,000 for a particular name

i post to sell for $1,200

 

[internext]

If we work together we can reduce these rates,

How? What do you suggest? I don't see big providers lowering their rates

 

[iHaveThisIdea]

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.

Well said. Exactly.

 

[levinsondomains]

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.

I actually build my one marketplace these days. I think that the commission is not fair, like everyone here says broker going for you a lot of work and he deserves the commission, he doing some active work for your needs when these companies just offer their platforms and IMO using their platform isn't deserve 20%. How you give your client feel of safety when they purchase domain from your landers? You doing checkout via escrow?

 

[Emmy101]

I Don't mind the market places commissions as they are part of the deal! though not comfortable with escrow services high commissions!

 

[Josytal]

you really belive, that you can make better landing page yourself? better then the big market places?

Is this a question or an opinion?

 

[fatter]

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.

I think many times buyers get caught up in the thrill of the auction, like buying antiques sometimes the prices go higher than buying direct. What also is funny about these auctions like the car auctions that if the reserve is met it brings in more buyers for some reason, any psychiatrists care to chime in as to why this happrens

 

[Silentptnr]

I think many times buyers get caught up in the thrill of the auction, like buying antiques sometimes the prices go higher than buying direct. What also is funny about these auctions like the car auctions that if the reserve is met it brings in more buyers for some reason, any psychiatrists care to chime in as to why this happrens

People want what other people want. Not always what they alone want. Those who buy based on their own interest or vision, do very well.

 

[NameShiba]

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

Would be a legend.

 

[premkumar]

Paying 20% not bad if they bring in leads but never allow your domain landing point to their site. Just use wordpress or Efty or anyother own website as landing page to collect leads and can use escrow/others for payment. I did start doing this, in past 3 month moving away my domain from Afternic lander and using my own landing page. This way you pay fairly 20% for bring leads and 20% not for using your site leads. For me Brandbucket is the ultimate too high charge with little work on their part.

 

[maksimfa]

It is high... my point is at 0% you can only offer a landing page and you are operating at a loss. I don't think it's viable...

15% of a $2,000 domain is $300.

Say you hire a virtual assistant for $5/hour to compile a list of potential end users.... Say.... 20 hours? $100.

That leaves $200 to hire a PROFESSIONAL cold caller to solicit your domains.

What do you think is going to be more effective.... That....

Or.... listing it on Sedo and praying? In the end, it will cost more to wait and for your privilege to list it on the site.

Again, if the marketplace finds you a buyer... sure... I have no problems... but to point your domain and your natural traffic to their landing page.... and then you pay 20% or more for simply having them process the transaction for a buyer that YOU found.... is just stupid.

 

[Fancy.domains]

i have the buyers pay the commision

example:

if I want to net $1,000 for a particular name

i post to sell for $1,200

I have thought about this myself. I.e. offer the cheapest price on my own landing pages and increase the BIN on market places with 15-20%.

 

[toughdomains]

the fact that I think this discussion is missing is that every broker (100% of the brokers I spoke to
) only wanted my best one word names. so out of 300+ names they typically choose less than 10 names like heated.com or awaits.com.
A Broker will only consider easy to sell great names and these are the names typically getting most offers.

I have worked with a handful of brokers and no one has sold any of my names over a 1 year period. the broker will also want to set the sales price so in a few cases I lowered or halved the prices just to see if we could get something sold....In the end we sold nothing. however a broker will have a list of buyers and it does generate some interest in your names.

brokers also make money buying names and negotiating for big companies. I sat with a VC manager who said he got a 3 letter noun .com name for a couple hundred thousand vs the million+ price tag they thought it would be due to broker negotiations. lets say 250k vs 1.2 million

However we did get better replies with the method stewie is mentioning. Creating a list of buyers and emailing or calling them (reaching out to all dronemakers for smartdrones.com) so lets be clear....a broker will probably not even bother with a 2k name or most of your names unless you have what they can sell easy. They love 3 letter .coms and one word .coms

Now lets talk marketplace. We are approved seller for namejet. the way that works is we send them a list for sale and depeneding on your relationship with them and sales history they approve your names and prices. namejet has replied back and said this name only reached xxx in auction so we wont list unless you lower your ask. At the end of the day they want to sell the name. Whats crazy about namejet is they will take after auction bids from big buyers. which doesnt make any sense to me. If im a buyer and I know I can ask NJ to offer a price to the owner I would never offer my best bid in auction.

In the end we rarely sold a name on namejet for more than 1x. meaning if we do sell a name its around the price we paid for it.

At the end of the day the same golden rule applies. spend good money on great names and you will get a good return. the best names I have that get the most offers I purchased trolling auctions and paid more than $500 for some names I paid more than 5k or even 10k but was able to sell that name for 15k later. And yes of course there are situations where you hand reg or spend 200 and can sell it for 20k but that is far and few btw. this is kinda like winning a scratch off lotto ticket.

If you want the sure thing Invest in the best names. there are one word names being sold every week you just need to focus on them and have the money for it. If you want to rely on the lotto ticket as for brandable names yes you can sell those non one word .coms for 2k to 3k but you need to have a nice store and logo where the end user can see the value of the name.
Just like most things you need the right tools to sell and offer these names. you cant send a buyer a spread sheet with all your names when they just ask for your drone names. this is where the tools come in. having a nice store and for sale page and a logo with some info about you and trust language really helps the sale. tools will capture the lead tell you about the users location and allow you to present your name and adjust price quickly. Things you cant do with a spreadsheet.
you have to promote your store with these names. no one has to promote a name like bus.com or hotels.com

 

[maksimfa]

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.

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.

 

[domeen]

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.

I do not agree

it is waste of time, I mean look at your for sale site. Why do you have it? Why?

My god.

 

[domeen]

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.

you really belive, that you can make better landing page yourself? better then the big market places?

 

[Dream Big]

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

 

[biggie]

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.
WTF?

after one year, this is what you can't stop thinking about -

really?

if you don't sell no names, you don't have to worry about it

or,
if you add the commission into price of name, you don't have to worry about it

or
if you negotiate your own deals and transact via escrow, you can ask buyer to pay the fee

imo....

 

[maksimfa]

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.

One thing domainers here will typically skip altogether with expired auctions is that in the SEO world, expired domains are gold, if the site is expired for the first time and was not spammed out before.

If a domain has a good backlink profile and can be easily integrated into an existing private blog network... it is worth gold.... and the name of the domain is mostly irrelevant.

If you look at the webarchive or screenshots of most domains that are in the closeouts.... the vast majority with any backlinks were all spammed out before.

If you find an expired domain that was used by a business, it is easily a $40 domain to someone who will turn it into a simple site with a wordpress blog. They can sell 2 or 3 backlinks from the site and voila... the cost is covered.

 

[SpareDomains]

I do not agree with this.
this days Most sales come from aftermarket distribution networks. End-user dosen`t even visit the domain anymore. I have had sales via afternic, that the landing page price was actually $200 lower. Its not one time, its many times. So they do not even visit the landing page. If someone could show some %, then landing page sales would not be on top.

i think Schilling and Mike are losing a lot sales, if they don´t use this networks.

We agree to disagree. Mine go to my own sales pages and are in the distribution networks as well. So I make sales from both but majority of leads straight from the lander. That's the beauty of the distribution networks you don't need to point your domains to them to get sales you can do your own thing as well. So majority of my sales 0 commission, distribution ones 20%. Like distribution networks but today still majority of leads/sales direct from the sales lander, in a few years maybe that will change as feel they will continue to account for more sales as time goes on.

 

[zurc.net]

Get an efty site or the alike. I'm done paying commissions to sites that don't earn it and virtually do the same thing my efty site does. And at the cost.. it's a no brainer. Stop giving money away.

 

[EmotiveDomains]

This is why I'm hoping NameSilo's marketplace will grow and become more popular among domainers and end users, with their maximum of 7.5% commission.

 

[SpareDomains]

Get an efty site or the alike. I'm done paying commissions to sites that don't earn it and virtually do the same thing my efty site does. And at the cost.. it's a no brainer. Stop giving money away.

Agree completely. I'm 100% fine with paying 20% to Afternic since it gets your domains in the natural registration path at a large handful of known registrars that end users already use. Pointing your domains to a market that no end user has heard of or that don't have any distribution set up (though it would be hard to beat Afternics network) those days are over. Can make those same sales on your own landers while still having all your domains show in Afternic distribution.

Really like Efty especially the Kiffer landing page as not too far off from my own. Few tweaks from them and consistent quicker load times and I'd probably dump one of my servers and use them instead. Using my own as like lightning fast loading time, 404 redirects to sales page so no old links equal lost traffic, being able to add footer links to my other sites/affilate programs etc...

 

[jaydub]

Thanks for taking the time for this Jay

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.



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.