Is Sedo DONE?

[DanBingham]

Ok, so let's face it - Sedo has been around for a while, it's platform could do with a complete overhaul, and they've made it much more difficult in listing names.

Is now about time Sedo closed it's doors?
What do YOU think?

 

[Sedo]

Hi DefinitelyDomains

Thank you for your engaging post.

The answer to your question is no, Sedo is most certainly not done. In fact since new management took control over Sedo, not only has our domain sales increased but the percentage of successful transfers has increased and with it customer satisfaction has also improved. This can be reflected in our trust pilot scoring, which has increased to ‘Excellent’.

We have a domain ownership verification process to increase the integrity of our marketplace and as a process to fight against ‘seller not owner’ sales. If you are finding this process difficult then please explain in more detail where exactly you are having difficulty and I will do my best to assist you.

As you mentioned, Sedo has been around for a while and we intend to be around for a lot longer, we want to remain the number 1 marketplace for you to buy and sell your domains. You mention our platform could do with an overhaul, I can assure you that our Tech Team are innovating and working on improving our marketplace as I write this email. With the intention of creating a better user experience when managing your domains.

We are constantly listening to feedback from our customers, some of the best feedback of which has come from this very forum. Our customers have asked and we have delivered:

· Price cap was lifted for sellers listing domains for more than 50000.

· We implemented 13 new sales landers to increase the chances of selling for those of you who looking to prioritise the sale of domains over earning money with our parking program.

· We dropped the minimum commission fee of 60 USD/ Euro, meaning on lower sales a seller can earn twice as much profit.

· We lowered the minimum offer to 20 Euro from 90 Euro for our sellers who wanted to sell lower valued domains quickly attracting more buyers.

· We have provided engaging auctions for our customers including the latest IGaming and Gambling auctions which are free to apply for.

· We updated our Search Algorithm, to display more direct matches to the keyword.

· We reduced the Payout time for transfers sales if buyer doesn’t confirm ownership.

· We have improved our MLS service to increase the chances of a domain selling.

· Sedos marketplace and our Sales brokers are STILL achieving some of the highest sales in the industry.

These are just some of the improvements we made in the last few months which were suggestions from domainers like yourself. Plus we have made many other changes, we have been taking all our customers feedback to our business development team and are trying to implement customers wishes to improve the overall experience at Sedo.

Just watch out, we still aim to improve and be the best we can for you and 2020 is a new year coming soon!

We wish you every success in your domain affairs!

All the best Chris

 

[carob]

Sedo is currently doing a survey about the domain management interface which you see when you log into Sedo and go to manage domains. It also has a box for suggestions, for example, asking for them to offer payment plans / paying in installments.

 

[biggie]

In all due respect 90% of "end users" have never heard of Sedo unless they're like me and own a SeaDo jet ski Same goes for Uniregistry, Flippa and Afternic and Undeveloped.

Hi

unless you know the 90% of potential end-users personally, then how can you validate that?

if you only look at sedo sales since inception and viewed every single name they sold, to see if it was end-used, then you'd have a clearer picture of what end-users know about sedo.
you also have to consider all the domain names that are parked there, which means millions of visitors from all over the world will either see a sedo lander or a sedo ppc page.

in the end though, it's not about who bought and what they did with it, it's how many sales and how much per sale, that matters to sellers.

been a sedo user since 2004 and have $$$,$$$.00 in total domain sales there.

still, i'd like to see better parking pages, with keyword related images something similar to templates at voodoo.


imo...

 

[Bob Hawkes]

More options in marketplaces better for domainers, so I hope all stay active and improve.

 

[branding]

No. Lots of endusers feel confortable with them and in the end that's all that matters to me.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I use their marketplace only for BIN domains...
And their escrow for almost all my negotiated sales.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Seller's country (including Order page) is unnecessary at all, just his VAT status is enough (YES/NO).

 

[branding]

So much hostility... I think we need more actual cannabis instead of cannabis domains.

 

[branding]

In all due respect 90% of "end users" have never heard of Sedo unless they're like me and own a SeaDo jet ski Same goes for Uniregistry, Flippa and Afternic and Undeveloped.

Not true. Even people who aren't even remotely interested have probably come across a domain parked at Sedo at some point in time.

Especially older people. They recognize the brand therefore they may feel more comfortable spending some money on the platform.

It's like the way you want to use GoDaddy in your domain pictches. People would recognize that brand and feel comfortable with it.

For the highest quality of domains obviously it doesn't matter where they're listed as buyers do the research and will be fine with whatever venue.

For average sales the venue where it's listed can definitely make the difference.

I agree Sedo has it's downsides and I agree there is a lot of room for improvement but the sales are there. I'm not a fan but it works.

In my own experience geographical location plays a parts are well. Most of my EU clients prefer Sedo or Dan over the rest.

I wanted to try to finalize a lead on Epik the other week. Obviously they're ahead of most other venues but my buyer was like, who the f*ck are they? And I get that.

Sometimes the best solution just isn't the preferred solution.

 

[Haroon Basha]

One of my favorite marketplace is SEDO.com. I really enjoy their start to finish interactions, how they close a transaction. Their payment is very prompt, once the domain name is in buyer's account, I get payment within 24 hours. They charge 10% commission (I do most of my sales as BIN only). Further, there is no deduction by PayPal, I get full amount credited, like Afternic, DAN etc.

 

[NickB]

You said, "Truth is, the US makes only for a small % of sales compared to the total market. Why limit yourself to the US?" Herein lies a HUGE disconnect? Do you know this to be a fact...or are you just guessing? Please sir...point me to statistics that bare this out?

Interesting, I happen to notice this thread was started by a member from the UK, and the majority of responders seem to be European. No wonder when I build a portfolio of couple hundred real estate and homes domains, and I'm mostly targeting US "end users", the rest of the domainers in the world don't understand? It's like I'm saying tomatoes and you're hearing potatoes

Maybe we should have a USNamePros, a EUNamePros, and an AsianNamePros. We're all educated differently, our economic systems are different and lord knows, our political systems are miles apart.....any suggestions?

No longer restricted? Namepros beware

Half the fun of this forum is reading different views from different people in different parts of the world - helps with the learning curve

 

[capybara]

They dominate the sales charts every week

Could it be because they are the only entity submitting their sales to these charts?

 

[carob]

Sedo add 20% VAT to their fees for me, so 10% sales commission does end up being 12% in the UK.

I don't think most people have heard of any domain sales platform, but if a first time buyer wanted to check track record, Sedo goes back years making it easier to trust them. But more platforms keep emerging, with way better features, so it is about time for Sedo to put money into development. Such as adding 2FA - their platform does have a 2FA plugin, they just don't use it - and I have pointed that out before.

And Sedo's visitor stats are still loony - any domain that gets a lot of traffic on Sedo now, I move it to Dan.com to see what Google Analytics shows. Usually it shows a lot less.

 

[ET76]

I think seller's original country is not important to be shown just like DAN, Afternic an Uniregistry. Some buyers are happy to push when they know where the seller come from.
Final sale related to Final fees ..... IMO

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

If seller's country is so mandatory - then it should be displayed only for VAT countries.
All countries outside VAT - don't need this leak of privacy at all.

 

[Sedo]

Is there a way to change layout to selling template in bulk? Individually would be quite time consuming.
As for sedo being done, i dont think so
My last sale on sedo went smooth and i have no complaints

Why when i login, sometimes it says my domains, next time it says domain management when i click on my name-my sedo

Hi there,

Thanks for the comment, to change to the sales your sales lander in bulk please do as so:

1. Login to your account
2. Go to My Sedo > My Domains (Domain Management)
3. Change your view from 'standard overview' to 'Parking optimisation'
4. Select the edit pen in the blue bar next to 'Layouts' select 'edit layouts options' from the dropdown.
5. Select Sales Lander from the drop down box and select the check box next to that which will select every domain.
6. Click the green tick to make the changes.

All the best
Chris

 

[Larion]

- the new "Landing Pages" are ugly
- there is no option to "rent / rent to own" a domain
- the commissions are too high.
- there is no commission-cap on higher-priced domains. You have to be crazy to sell high-value domains on SEDO.

 

[Kingslayer]

Based on what?

They dominate the sales charts every week, so quite opposite really.

 

[frank-germany]

We are constantly listening to feedback from our customers, some of the best feedback of which has come from this very forum.

You are constantly asking for feedback
but I can't say that you listening

the main problem for me with sedo is:

the non handling of the VAT issue

DAN had asked and acted accordingly

( thanks DAN )

the VAT has to be added to the sales price
in case the customer is coming from the same country as I am.

not such a big deal
but no one cares for 10 years


the next issue is:
why do you not just simply ignore
domains that are already in my account
when I add them

why do I need to manually
delete all existing domains
when adding them

why can't I just add an unlimited number of domains
as I can with DAN
w/o that hassle


why can't you use a full screen
when it comes to domain management

why do I need to struggle with the same interface for nearly 20 years?

thank you, DAN for creating competition
- and not merging with Epik-

 

[vravis9]

The post sounds very silly....

the title sounds ridiculous after reading the content...

I definitely think there is lot more need to be improved at Sedo but saying it is done and should close doors is far from truth.

giving a feedback / opinion what needs to be done or what we want in features is more realistic and helping for all parties.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I think, Categorization should be removed completely from Sedo panel...
It has no any effect/gain when this directory contains millions of domains.

 

[branding]

You said, "Truth is, the US makes only for a small % of sales compared to the total market. Why limit yourself to the US?" Herein lies a HUGE disconnect? Do you know this to be a fact...or are you just guessing? Please sir...point me to statistics that bare this out?

Interesting, I happen to notice this thread was started by a member from the UK, and the majority of responders seem to be European. No wonder when I build a portfolio of couple hundred real estate and homes domains, and I'm mostly targeting US "end users", the rest of the domainers in the world don't understand? It's like I'm saying tomatoes and you're hearing potatoes

Maybe we should have a USNamePros, a EUNamePros, and an AsianNamePros. We're all educated differently, our economic systems are different and lord knows, our political systems are miles apart.....any suggestions?

I must admit I don't know for a fact nor do I have any data at hand to support my claim. @Bob Hawkes ? You're the data guy

Seriously though. I'm sure I could collect the data if I put my mind to it. It's a fine example of how a lot of people from the USA think that the world ends beyond the US. Best example is the underrepresented Chinese market. It's huge.

But sure, there is a global market for a lot of names but targeting specific regions can be a smart play. And no, we don't need a Geo specific namepros. We have subcategories for that

To get back to your real estate example, no. A lot of the world (read most) will not understand those names, better even, have no use for them.

It's like you're trying to sell your stuff over here through Amazon. Not gonna pan out. I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong, just that there's a vast market beyond what a lot of domainers are focusing on.

 

[Sedo]

- the new "Landing Pages" are ugly
- there is no option to "rent / rent to own" a domain
- the commissions are too high.
- there is no commission-cap on higher-priced domains. You have to be crazy to sell high-value domains on SEDO.

Dear Larion,

We have received a lot of positive feedback about our sales landers, after releasing version 1 we listened to what you guys had to say about it and with your feedback and requests we produced 12 alternative versions, so there was one for everyone. What exactly do you mean by ‘ugly’, could you please explain what you think we got wrong with the design?

With regards to your comment about renting domains, just to let you know, I forwarded this suggestions to our business development team to consider implementing after it was brought up on the ‘Sedos new sales lander post’ so I can assure you it will be seriously considered.

Thanks for your post.

Best Wishes

Chris

 

[Sedo]

Sedo needs to address some issues:

The unrealistic large amount of traffic metrics, the new sale landers even made it worst with more bot traffic and bogus offer views witch IMO is/was the most significant feature of their marketplace.
What is it with nonsense %15 commission on make offer listing and %10 buy it now, price negotiation is key factor to complete most domain sales.

Also very important why seller is paying %20 of their commission on top of their commission? the total fees is %18 for make offer listing and %12 for BIN based on $1000 sale (go figure).


Agree, domain itself attracts buyer nothing more.

Sedo is far from done, it's well-done.

Hi Moe,

With regards to high views associated with the new sales lander, the new sales lander that we implemented is essentially a parking template that we offer. If you are using our new Sales Lander then you may experience an increase in views, this is because the traffic via the new sales lander is not filtered as strictly as parking views. Therefore, the number of views can be significantly higher than views received by our traditional parking templates that are filtered. Please be assured that our parking team are working on a solution for this.

As a benefit to sellers who park and list a domain as Buy Now with either ads or the sales lander, we offer a reduced commission fee of 10%. Instead of 15%. Standard marketplace sales as Make Offer or Buy Now which are not parked remain at 15% commission. Please note that VAT is not commission, but if it is applicable, it only applies to the commission fee.

All the best

Chris

 

[Sedo]

Hi

unless you know the 90% of potential end-users personally, then how can you validate that?

if you only look at sedo sales since inception and viewed every single name they sold, to see if it was end-used, then you'd have a clearer picture of what end-users know about sedo.
you also have to consider all the domain names that are parked there, which means millions of visitors from all over the world will either see a sedo lander or a sedo ppc page.

in the end though, it's not about who bought and what they did with it, it's how many sales and how much per sale, that matters to sellers.

been a sedo user since 2004 and have $$$,$$$.00 in total domain sales there.

still, i'd like to see better parking pages, with keyword related images something similar to templates at voodoo.


imo...

Hi Biggie,

Thanks for your comment and its great to read about your positive experience with Sedo since 2004. I will put your suggestions about the parking page and keyword related images to our development team for consideration.

I wish you continued success with selling your domains with us!

Chris