GoDaddy trying arbitrage on fixed price domains

[topdom]

If a domain is priced at Afternic (fixed price, no room for negotiation), and parked at Afternic, then price should be shown to visitors. (and landing page should not point to enable javascript link, and pages should be indexable, warning to all marketplaces).
What Godaddy does instead:

-Not show the price
-Not show anything to search engines
-Contact form contents are sent to Godaddy only, not to actual domain owner
-If price is asked, GD agents won't give the price, instead they will say "call"..

Now, price is fixed, there is a buyer, why play games, and try to make more money than you deserve, plus potentially kill the sale. They have been warned many times.
Negotiation on the phone can be useful and powerful, but it shouldn't not happen when price is fixed, otherwise this is a lose-lose game for buyer and seller. Maybe we should not park at Afternic/Dan/Godaddy and pay 25 percent commission instead of 15 percent. At least we would avoid lots of nasty things which would make sellers look dishonest and greedy, and prevent sales.

(Will this messaage be ever be posted or become visible. I'm worried about it, it is posted in the right place)

 

[tonyk2000]

While afternic default may be "price request" lander, nothing prevents the seller from selecting "BIN" lander in domain config. Earlier, setting dns to ns5/ns6 dot afternic dot com was sufficient. Now, it is done via lander selection interface.

 

[topdom]

Yes, and clearly they don't want buyers to see the fixed price. Only explanation, they want more, while giving the seller same money. BIN is not floor (it is more than just the floor, it is the max price (reverse floor) also). ALSO, worse, even if you ask the price, they still don't give the price, and want to talk about it. They will keep controlling the lead, maybe they will give high price to the buyer, if it sells , great, instead of 15 percent they make 150 percent profit; if it doesn't, then let domain expire and dropcatch. All marketplacs suck. But others remain stable, afternic getting worse, and of course, intentionally.
This is the main problem in domain industry: Stupidity of endusers (and they think they become smarter when they deal with wellknown companies instead of actual buyers), and this can't be changed easily; and, abuse of this situation by agents by becoming midbuyers , selling domains they don't own, stealing leads etc.

Epik was great, it was killed from outside+inside.
Dan was great: it was killed from inside and probably also from outside (cloudflare).
Afternic has some good sides, sellers had some control, now they are giving all the control to themselves. Not publishing listings for no reason, and we wait and wait, and then complain, still no cure, or not worth the time. Or they publish the domain but hide the price. And even hide price if asked, And hide leads from sellers.
Some class-action may be needed in all marketplaces: if buying and selling prices don't match, then split the difference between buyers and sellers 50-50. Go back 10 years.. I think this can be done. Arbitrage is worse than shillbidding.

And once we fix this intentional problem by doing more, inside our Afternic account, and then they can make current system nonfunctional again, and require one more step (without notice).
This is like you pay for the product, but they don't give it to you, when you ask, they say, you have to pay 100 usd for the receipt also.

Also, what is the point of hiding landing page/price behind javascript , and preventing s.e. indexing, and potentially showing different prices to different people.
Show a basic page with price, when js is off, and give more detail if js is on. It won't consume much bandwidth.

 

[DigiNames]

Do you have any proof of them actually doing this, or is it all speculation based on the fact that the default lander doesn’t show the fixed price? It seems like a big leap to make.

I know other registrars in the Afternic network do inflate the BIN price and keep the difference, which I am not a big fan of.

In any case, is you don’t like how Afternic landing pages work, then by all means don’t use them.

 

[topdom]

All info above. there is no other explanation. they don't show price, although initially they were showing it, and those nameservers were designed for showing price, and they don't annouce that they changed rules in the middle of the game, and when you ask the price, they say, call us. More than enough evidence, why else do all these, because some buyers have big pocket, and they want to sell high in that case, but there is no reason to pay more than asking price minus commission to sellers.

 

[biggie]

Hi

what OP is talking about is,
if you have a BIN price on your domain and use afternic lander, then it doesn't show the price. it only has a form to make contact with seller.

i see that as a deterrent to those 'spur of the moment" buyers.

however, if you search the same name on godaddy, then price will be shown.

they could just use that godaddy page to save time and effort.

imo....

 

[Joe drake]

The whole godaddy system is broken ,I cant even call them and tell these morons that the domain listed 5 years ago is my domain now. Sometimes when I get some moron broker on the phone they still dont get it,even telling them that I just hand regged the domain yesterday. Sometimes I have to just go along with it and act like they are right and simply have a friend buy the domain that the buyer accepts and cant deliver. A broker if a decent one should do their homework to make sure the seller owns the domain,more so when someone says they own it . So I have to waste their time like they waste mine. AND AGAIN I MUST STRESS NEVER EVER NEVER EVER A MILLION TIMES INITIATE FAST TRANSFER ON AND OF YOUR DOMAINS,in a case like this they will transfer the domain and pay the old owner for sure. Godaddy systems also design their software so partner regitras sellers still think a dropped domain is regged by a godaddy customer,this system overrides the registras ability to buy the domain and will put the domain thet should be hand regged in the customers cart at the premium listed price. If the customer pays a godaddy broker or the customer will buy the domain at a non partner site and apply fast transfer to sell the domain at godaddy. This is a big scam. Thing is sometimes even after 3 weeks the godaddy or partner system still signal that the domain is still registered even when it is open for registration.

 

[James Iles]

All info above. there is no other explanation. they don't show price, although initially they were showing it, and those nameservers were designed for showing price, and they don't annouce that they changed rules in the middle of the game, and when you ask the price, they say, call us. More than enough evidence, why else do all these, because some buyers have big pocket, and they want to sell high in that case, but there is no reason to pay more than asking price minus commission to sellers.

If a domain isn't showing the BIN price on a BIN lander (or on the Afternic network) then it's likely to be In Review status - please feel free to DM me the domain (or an example) so I can confirm that for you.

In terms of the lander selection update, we made sure to email all sellers, along with that, I wrote a blog post, we published social media messages, and made sure the update got plenty of exposure! This new method of lander selection allows GoDaddy to add more landing page options (for example, lease to own) in the future without having to rely on adding more nameservers.

Again - feel free to DM me, or we can jump on a zoom call. Happy to chat about your domains.

 

[Acroplex]

It's funny (and sad) that the Dan.com / Afternic integration works better than listing domains solely on Afternic! As long as you set a BIN on Dan.com it will appear (or update) on Afternic very quickly. Unless Afternic determines that the domain requires to be reviewed.

The 25% fee thievery has not been addressed by GoDaddy, other than to claim their Afternic service is worth 25% in fees, which is discounted on GoDaddy-owned platforms. This is quite an unsubstantiated claim, given the number of issues with the beta system that Afternic is running on perpetually.

 

[J.R.]

N5 & N6 Afternic landers show BIN price only. Landers are working for me with no issues.

The 25% fee has been addressed.

GD makes it clear through their price increases that customers will pay for acquisitions, mergers and large portfolio buys.

GD increased (.com) renewals to $22.

Typically, customers pay the costs of M&A. In the case of 25% fee, its a business tactic to force domainers to choose GD network or a competitor. Or build your own sales landers.

Its the age old Walmart v. Boutique/Small biz.

Yet, the consumer has the ultimate power, if they will use it.

 

[Acroplex]

In my book, addressing an issue means resolving it to the customer's satisfaction. So yes, all that you said shows that GoDaddy doesn't really address these issues domain investors brought up.

 

[premkumar]

Godaddy is a monopoly in domain industry and we have no choice but to abide by their rules/shit service. I may leave them if their Dan service goes bad. As for your issue, just use Dan lander, it still count as Godaddy and you will be charged 15%.

 

[Joe drake]

If a domain is priced at Afternic (fixed price, no room for negotiation), and parked at Afternic, then price should be shown to visitors. (and landing page should not point to enable javascript link, and pages should be indexable, warning to all marketplaces).
What Godaddy does instead:

-Not show the price
-Not show anything to search engines
-Contact form contents are sent to Godaddy only, not to actual domain owner
-If price is asked, GD agents won't give the price, instead they will say "call"..

Now, price is fixed, there is a buyer, why play games, and try to make more money than you deserve, plus potentially kill the sale. They have been warned many times.
Negotiation on the phone can be useful and powerful, but it shouldn't not happen when price is fixed, otherwise this is a lose-lose game for buyer and seller. Maybe we should not park at Afternic/Dan/Godaddy and pay 25 percent commission instead of 15 percent. At least we would avoid lots of nasty things which would make sellers look dishonest and greedy, and prevent sales.

(Will this messaage be ever be posted or become visible. I'm worried about it, it is posted in the right place)

We are asked for our requirements by afternic

buy it now/ floor/ reserve/ min bid why the F are you calling me and killing the impulse buy and ''this customer wants a better price'' BS ,if this is going to be the case then set all the nameservers to anything you want make the min bid 250 ,put the buy it now at a billion dollars. After you get a bid you can always change the nameserves and get 15% till the domain is paid for ,so if there going to break their rules so are we.and its all legal