advice Custom Sales Platform vs Large Platform (i.e. Afternic)

[Cush]

I own hundreds of domain names, some great, some just ok, and from time to time I actually sell some. I don't actively go out of my way to sell them, and sometimes I just happen to get lucky.

Anyways, i've been building out my own tools the past 2 years, and decided to make my own domain parking/sales lander system. It took about 2 days, but I was very happy with my setup. Especially if a lead/sale came in, then it meant 100% of the sale goes to me. No hefty commission.

After about 2-3 week, and a handful of bogus/fake inquiries, I actually sold a name for a few hundred bucks. I was pretty excited. This name was from a bulk portfolio of odd names I had purchased around 2020, so this sale paid for that lot of names and their renewals these past years.

Since that sale a few months ago, nothing else has panned out. Tons of bots, spam, and sniffing for SQL injections. I decided to shut down my platform and move my domains back to Afternic.

I left my top premium names at very high prices, but the other names I actually priced very reasonably for a quick sale.

Before running some errands this afternoon, I saw an email pop up. Your domain (name here) has sold for $1,400 some. I was thrilled. This domain was part of the portfolio of names I had bought long ago (including the one i sold for a few hundred bucks), so even though it took 5+ years, For that small group of names, it's been a 10x return thus far.

Anyway, the point I am making with this post is that while it was nice having my own platform and the idea of paying 0% commission seemed great, it didn't really lead to any meaningful sales or conversations that can lead to sales.

Unless you have some incredible name that someone would intentionally type in and arrive on your lander, I think it's worthwhile paying the commission to Afternic, etc, because they are able to get your name in front of MANY more eyes than just a random people who happens across your domain.

Do any of you have a similar experience with custom sales pages vs the big guys?

 

[SpareDomains]

I've done fine with my own thing but I've been doing it for 23+ years. But all my domains are still listed at dynadot, spaceship, atom, sedo, afternic, etc... so not a one or the other more of do my own thing but still distribute across the board and wherever it's found it's found as more places/eyes a good thing.

 

[nicenic]

Hi, Cush

Owning the platform feels empowering, but distribution networks still define true liquidity.

 

[GoDaddy]

With every portfolio being unique, testing becomes essential, so thanks for sharing your experience. Congrats on the Afternic sale!

 

[AEProgram]

Since that sale a few months ago, nothing else has panned out. Tons of bots, spam, and sniffing for SQL injections. I decided to shut down my platform and move my domains back to Afternic.

Bots and spam everywhere. My guess is that those stalled leads that never reply to emails are mostly bots. The problem is, if we as domainers never saw any of those fake leads, we would stop renewing some of those domains so the fake leads will continue to flow.

Make sure to set all your names at afternic to bin landers or you will be flooded with the stalled junk. It's almost important people know this so they don't think afternic brokers are no good. In my opinion they are solid but nobody can sell anything to a bot.

By the way did you build things out on wordpress?

 

[VadimK]

Funny.

You've got a thread about a long-time domain investor leaving Afternic, with a detailed story and loads of positive feedback - and then, shortly after, another thread with the reverse story from someone with a 15-year badge, but a hidden bio. He was ''never actively selling names'', yet he's been ''building tools for two years'', then ''decided to build his own landing system'' and did it in two days (!!), ran it for two months (it was shit - obviously), then crawled back to Afternic and instantly got a sale. The moral of the story? He said it - ''Keep paying commissions''

Someone clearly thinks the public here on NP is plain stupid.

 

[Altetra]

Funny.

You've got a thread about a long-time domain investor leaving Afternic, with a detailed story and loads of positive feedback - and then, shortly after, another thread with the reverse story from someone with a 15-year badge, but a hidden bio. He was ''never actively selling names'', yet he's been ''building tools for two years'', then ''decided to build his own landing system'' and did it in two days (!!), ran it for two months (it was shit - obviously), then crawled back to Afternic and instantly got a sale. The moral of the story? He said it - ''Keep paying commissions''

Someone clearly thinks the public here on NP is plain stupid.

More than that, it's not excluded that Abdul's move, could be another divert tactic, to get rid of Afternic competitors.
Wanted to post this in his topic.

 

[VadimK]

More than that, it's not excluded that Abdul's move, could be another divert tactic, to get rid of Afternic competitors.
Wanted to post this in his topic.

This thread by the OP definitely looks like a weak counterpunch from GD - Afternic, but I am very confident Abdul isn't involved. You can look up some of his names plus he is always been honest and straightforward when he speaks. Besides, it'd be plain stupid for anyone to try to mimic him by leaving Afternic. He clearly has a plan, while others don't. I don't think any seriuos investor would blindly follow.

 

[Altetra]

This thread by the OP definitely looks like a weak counterpunch from GD - Afternic, but I am very confident Abdul isn't involved. You can look up some of his names plus he is always been honest and straightforward when he speaks. Besides, it'd be plain stupid for anyone to try to mimic him by leaving Afternic. He clearly has a plan, while others don't. I don't think any seriuos investor would blindly follow.

Did you think of such possibility of him to be paid by Efty to promote and make us move there? Let's not forget that Abdul is a domain influencer, his word is not taken lightly in the community.

 

[Cush]

Funny.

You've got a thread about a long-time domain investor leaving Afternic, with a detailed story and loads of positive feedback - and then, shortly after, another thread with the reverse story from someone with a 15-year badge, but a hidden bio. He was ''never actively selling names'', yet he's been ''building tools for two years'', then ''decided to build his own landing system'' and did it in two days (!!), ran it for two months (it was shit - obviously), then crawled back to Afternic and instantly got a sale. The moral of the story? He said it - ''Keep paying commissions''

Someone clearly thinks the public here on NP is plain stupid.

Yes, I build tools for all the various websites I run, and tools to automate tasks that I used to do by hand. Not domain name related tools. I am not an active domain investor, but a domain hoarder. I tend to buy names and just hold them without a real end game, unless my plan was to develop them.

And I did build out my domain parking system in 2 days. It was great and not overly complicated. I had really nice landers, an admin panel with stats to track the visits, inquiries, response rates, etc. Also adding the domains was easy, I had a script where I just pasted all my domains into a txt file, and it added them to CloudFlare, etc. I also had a simple Chrome extension to notify me when responses came in so that I could login and respond to the inquiries. It's not rocket science. A simple 5 or 6 files in the entire setup.

As I stated in my post, this was MY experience and why I asked for others opinions as well. Like I had stated, I don't market or try to actively sell my names. Just set and forget.

 

[fka1080405]

I built my own lander system, too. I've bounced between using it for all of my domains vs. just a subset of domains, and I've varied which platform it feeds into, too. As it stands today, I use it just for a small number of domains that I want greater control over and insight into.

The reason I feed into another platform (i.e: clicking "Buy Now" redirects to Afternic or Spaceship or DomainEasy) is payments. Accepting payments directly for domains is a very bad idea, the risk of a chargeback on a high-value digital asset is substantial. The commission paid to a third-party platform can be thought of as insurance against the payment being clawed back. I'm happy to pay Spaceship 5% to take on all of the payment risk!

I think creating your own lander is great, it's fun, it's insightful, but I don't think it is useful for cost minimisation. The most cost effective way to sell domains is to spend zero time on making cute landing pages and instead use a low cost platform for landing pages (e.g: DomainEasy at 0%, Spaceship at 5%) and get your domain syndicated across all major platforms (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Sedo) with price adjustments to offset commission (e.g: my domains are 25% more expensive when bought via Afternic).

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

Since that sale a few months ago, nothing else has panned out. Tons of bots, spam, and sniffing for SQL injections. I decided to shut down my platform

Our landers have two new qualification features that will allow you to continue paying 0% commission and not have to deal with any bots or confused visitors. You'd only need our simpler "Interest qualification" feature, but our "BANT qualification" feature is also incredible.

Give them a try: QualRequired.com