news Dan.com to increase comission from 9% to 15% effective Feb 1st 2023

[MadAboutDomains]

Just received this email from Dan.com about commission increases (snippet of email):

Thoughts?

 

[bmugford]

I don't think you have Lease option enabled? I know you have to price them first. I have 4 right now making payments and you have 12x as many domains as I do. I think you could be killing it if you tried it out. You will get more sales. And sometimes they don't finish the payments, you keep the money paid and get the domain back. I had that happen and it took care of my renewals. Something to consider. It works.

You very well could be right on that.

I offer leases on a case by case basis when it makes sense.
I just don't like to offer it system wide.

I just finished a 12 month payment plan today and have some others still going.

I will DM you about it if you don't mind.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

Rather than complaining on here about it.
Just use Efty or other lower commission landers if most of your sales come through that way. This will counter any 5% increase you get from Afternic sales (if they not making up much of your sales)

Which is something I might do. Like I said earlier I am not going to make any impulsive decisions.

I sell quite a few sub $5K priced domains on Afternic. Those can stay.

But when it comes to landers and negotiation, I am open.

First I want to see if GoDaddy is going to revisit any of these changes.
If not, I will consider my options.

Brad

 

[JB Lions]

You very well could be right on that.

I offer leases on a case by case basis when it makes sense.
I just don't like to offer it system wide.

I just finished a 12 month payment plan today and have some others still going.

I will DM you about it if you don't mind.

Brad

Yeah, no problem.

With that, I had somebody that really wanted a name, a name I was going to drop. She said hold it while she comes up with the money. Never followed thru, she had financial issues. Then when I started with Dan, was going thru past offers, emailed her and said what about a payment plan, I asked would that be easier for you. She was excited and we finished the deal via payment plan. First time I used it. It was a game changer for me. In the past, I didn't mess with it because it was a hassle, didn't think it would work out smoothly etc. But Dan makes it easy. Goes back to the example I gave in another thread. People make payments on all kinds of things, cars, homes, furniture etc. Works with domains as well.

 

[DomainThrive]

Which is something I might do. Like I said earlier I am not going to make any impulsive decisions.

I sell quite a few sub $5K priced domains on Afternic. Those can stay.

But when it comes to landers and negotiation, I am open.

First I want to see if GoDaddy is going to revisit any of these changes.
If not, I will consider my options.

Brad

So on your sub $5k you are not losing anything. (Same with vast majority of people here)

On the higher priced ones you have option to move to lower commission landers/remove from Afternic entirely or increase Afternic price.

Whole thread is storm in a tea cup.

 

[J.D.]

It doesn't seem like GoDaddy is pushing a monopolist strategy to me.
Seems more like a defensive strategy to maintain marketshare more than gain.

Even now, Afternic still lacks the flexible payment options of the Dan variety.

Has GD grown since the Uniregistry & Dan acquisitions? If they have grown in the aggregate, that'd add weight to the monopolist argument.

GD has the highest renewals of any registrar I've used; which I refuse to pay.

If GoDaddy was using a monopoly strategy, they would have kept their renewals lower than everyone else. What registries benefitted more from GD's highest rate renewals than Namecheap and Dynadot?

Other registries should be looking to emulate Dan's flexible payment plans, sophisticated landers, less than 10% commissions and easy escrow process.

I'm curious to see what Namecheap is preparing with SpaceShip, as registering a domain with NC and sending to an external sales lander is annoying for me and bad business for them. NC lost a lot of money to Sedo, Dan & GD, so its good to see them innovating.

As far as new commissions with GD, Uni & Dan, nearly everyone on NP knew this was coming, but the solution is innovation or a push for more user friendly no-code templates for privately hosting a domain portfolio.

Do great domains/portfolios need platforms, or vice versa?

 

[Daniel Owens]

"
On February 1, 2023, the following commission structure will go into effect.

New Commission Model:

• 15% of sales price for domains sold pointed to nameservers at Afternic, Dan, or Uniregistry Market; regardless of where it sells on the network or through landers directly.
• 25% of sales price for domains sold that are not pointed to nameservers at Afternic, Dan or Uniregistry Market. "

 

[Josytal]

Anything out there that is similar to Efty but doesn't cost quite as much to use?

DNHat.
https://dnhat.com/features.php
https://dnhat.com/pricing.php

 

[GeorgeQuang]

I have more than 2,500 domains.
I list all of my domains on Afternic/Sedo and point them to my own Efty Landing Page.
Afternic/Sedo lead quick sales to me and i have to negotiate with the buyers if they contact me via Efty.
But now, i have to change...

1> The sales ratio of my portfolio with Afternic/Sedo/Efty Landing Page is 50%/10%/40%.
Afternic Networks is super power. Most of sales from Afternic are quick (buyers click Buying Now and pay money). I just need to list the domain on Afternic. That's it.
2> With the new commission fee , i have to point all my domains under Godaddy eco-systems.

And?

1> Godaddy gets all fee from my sales in the future - 15% for all sales. (if i use Efty, all transactions are done via Escrow.com and the buyers pay 5% fee) So i have to raise my Buying Now Price on Afternic Platform.
2> Godaddy gathers all information about my portfolio and sales.
3> Godaddy kills almost their competitors like SquadHelp, BrandBucket, Sedo, Efty. Why? The true is that if your domains are listed on Afternic Networks, the sales ratio is increase high (super high in my situation). 80% of big domainers have to listed their domain on Afternic.

Conclusions:
1> With domainer who has huge portfolio like me, you just need to point all domains to GoDaddy eco-systems. It saves time for you to do other businesses but you have to be happy to pay commission fee for all sales you get.
2> Time to say goodbye with other non-Godaddy platforms. I'm sorry to say that, i love Efty, Sedo, Brandbucket, SquadHelp so much, but 25% commission is a huge cost for me. I need Afternic Networks but don't want to lost 10% of my revenue if i use those non-Godaddy platforms. (If almost your domains are brandable names, you can continue to use SquadHelp or Brandbucket, the results preform better than Afternic with brandable names, not generic or numeric domains).
3> With the information GoDaddy gets from yours, they have more and more power to monopolize this industry. And all my traffics now lead automatically to Godaddy or Afternic with their logos and telephone numbers. Smart tactic to get free marketing for them.

 

[Recons.Com]

Another option is to raise prices by 7% on all domains? That way you would still end up getting roughly the same as before Godaddy and Dan's dick move?

So why hadn't you raised it by 7% before the commission hike, if you assume you'd sell the same names anyway?

Domain names do have price elasticity. The higher the price, the less you'd sell (probably not linear, but the overall slope is in that direction).

And, 7% hike might result in steeper than 7% drop in the number of sales. Especially, if you have priced near some psychological barriers like "just under $3k", "just under $5k" etc.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Can i use marketplace balance funds for new domain reg on Sav?
Thanks

Not currently, to my knowledge, but they said it was coming.

 

[markfromslo]

Maybe it's time to stop using Dan and only use Afternic? (which might be GoDaddy's plan for this commission change.)

There are many domainers (me included) who are listing domains at Brandable marketplaces like Squadhelp and BrandBucket and who have enabled the option to list at Afternic. They can't change landers to Dan/Afternic/Uni. That means a 25% commission + a commission to the marketplace (who by the way will very likely scrap the whole listing at Afternic thing, because due to the Feb 1st change, their commission will drop to 5% for all listed domains). And that's just one case of the impact. Things aren't as simple as you present them.

Exactly. This is a problem. I'm sure Godaddy thought of this, and figured it's good for their business because it puts pressure on the brandable marketplaces.

I am starting to use SquadHelp for brandables, names that would not be normally found by keyword searches or someone "thinking up a name". I already have to abide by Squadhelp's rule of making the Afternic price at least 10% higher than at SH. I'll have to see how Squadhelp responds to this and adjusts their commission differential when I sell a SH name at Afternic, but I would assume it will cause me to raise the price at Afternic even further. I'm not going to stop using SH for these types of names--a few hundred out of a few thousand for me.

I assume the brandables will respond to this very soon.

 

[aoxborrow]

IMO the hardest-to-replicate feature of Dan.com is their "domain transfer specialist" escrow process, which handles the tedious task of ensuring newbie buyers get their domains after a sale, whether it is EPP auth code or account push. This is human labor intensive, although @DAN.COM has smartly automated as much of the process as possible. Hopefully the low commission of imported leads (5%) will remain available to API Integrators like Domain.io, Efty, DNWE, without the nameserver restriction. If they drop the Integrator program or raise the fee dramatically it will be a truly sad day for the domain industry.

BUT this is an opportunity for Sedo, SquadHelp, Escrow.com, DomainAgents, Flippa, Brandbucket, DaaZ, et. al to grow their services outside of their walled gardens. We should work together to build out Dan.com's original idea of the Open Domain Distribution Network. If enough domains get syndicated, registrars will pick it up to add to their search results, and even choose to prioritize its results over Afternic if prices and registrar commissions are competitive. The problem is most other companies in the space prefer exclusive listings or fighting for the scraps that Afternic leaves behind rather than building a competitor.

 

[nick3]

@James Iles @LaszloSchenk

I am forwarding all my domains to their corresponding landing page: https://dan.com/buy-domain/EXAMPLE.com

I do this because I want to have control over my DNS and set up catch all email so I can see which companies are potentially interested in the domain based on the e-mails (e-mail leakage) I receive.

It's not possible to control DNS if the nameservers are pointing to Dan. But because I forward the domain to their corresponding landing page it's the same as changing nameservers. But I still have to pay 25% commission because of the new nameserver rules?

 

[aoxborrow]

DaaZ secure ( for offline agreed leads aka import leads ) – 5%

Do you offer an API and support for creating imported escrow transactions?

SquadHelp launched an API that allows managing their "standard listings" and I believe creating escrow transactions, but I can't even find standard listings on their site right now. They have a pretty good thing going with their brandables and advertising, but I bet they'd love to get those names into the search flows of registrars without paying 25% premium.

This should be huge for Escrow.com, their Concierge Service should be the most attractive way to sell domains outside of Afternic, and they also have a huge advantage in brand recognition. If they could make the process faster and less painful, offer more payment options, even increase their fees a little if necessary, they could be bigger player in domain space. Wasn't Dave Diamond working on this?

 

[alcy]

If domain is not pointing to any name servers (null NS). … what’s the % ?

lol I'm sure dan and gd benefit lots from null pointing names so expect a big discount on fee heh

 

[BigTree]

They actually helped me to save money.
From now on I will definitely focus on Escrow.

 

[HotKey]

Only choice we have in these situations that we don't like, is doing things for ourselves (eg, own portfolio with integrated payment options) or a 3rd-party marketplace that caters to investors with some sort of discount plan/club to help offset the high commissions. Similar to what Epik did, like the domainer discount.

Overall though, I would be really careful with just suddenly switching new marketplaces solely based on commissions- Dan's process has proved extremely reliable and easy for both buyer and seller, and we all have seen the headaches caused by cheaper alternatives.

Personally I think this rise is crazy though, why so much?? Business for these people has grown, domaining is not going away, it's not just a couple percentage points but by the tens. Unfortunately, shit only rolls downhill, someone at the top decides they need more to justify whatever, and the snowball grows.

 

[Future Sensors]

someone at the top

Probably one of our fellow NP members

 

[Lox]

GD Dan didn’t solve the problem of a half million + listings by frontrunners . wonder what is going to happen when the legit sellers point DNs to Dan NS… and then start sending 100s of thousands of request for removal-listing.

 

[DaaZ]

IMO the hardest-to-replicate feature of Dan.com is their "domain transfer specialist" escrow process, which handles the tedious task of ensuring newbie buyers get their domains after a sale, whether it is EPP auth code or account push. This is human labor intensive, although @DAN.COM has smartly automated as much of the process as possible. Hopefully the low commission of imported leads (5%) will remain available to API Integrators like Domain.io, Efty, DNWE, without the nameserver restriction. If they drop the Integrator program or raise the fee dramatically it will be a truly sad day for the domain industry.

BUT this is an opportunity for Sedo, SquadHelp, Escrow.com, DomainAgents, Flippa, Brandbucket, DaaZ, et. al to grow their services outside of their walled gardens. We should work together to build out Dan.com's original idea of the Open Domain Distribution Network. If enough domains get syndicated, registrars will pick it up to add to their search results, and even choose to prioritize its results over Afternic if prices and registrar commissions are competitive. The problem is most other companies in the space prefer exclusive listings or fighting for the scraps that Afternic leaves behind rather than building a competitor.

DaaZ is always open for colloboration , only thing we think before agreeing colloboration is - Is the collaboration is going to add any value to "the domainers" or "buyers"? If the answer is Yes - we are open for it.