information New Afternic & GoDaddy Commission and Pricing Structure

[Nitindomains]

Received the following mail just minutes back:-

Hello Member,

Good news! We’ve made it easier for you to list your domain in one place and reach a broader audience of buyers to increase your sales velocity and income.

How are we making things simpler?
• Reduce time spent in pending review, domains are listed immediately after passing the required integrity checks
• Reducing commissions on higher-priced sales to increase your earnings
• Lowering minimum sales price and minimum offer amounts so you can list more domains and earn more money

We’re also taking the guesswork out of promoting your domains. Domains with fast-transfer enabled are promoted through the Afternic Premium Network automatically. Domains without fast-transfer are placed in the Afternic Standard Network.

Know that you can always list a domain without fast-transfer and then enable fast-transfer later. When you do, it jumps from the Standard Network to the Premium Network, which includes 8 of the top 10 registrars, gives you the broadest reach, and exposes your domain to over 75 million monthly search queries.

We also want our fees to be simple and straightforward, so they’re now based on your domain sale price. The three commission tiers look like this:
Sale price of domain >>> Commission fees
$0-$5,000 >>> 20% ($15 minimum)
$5,000-$25,000 >>> $1,000 +15% of amount over $5k
$25,000+ >>> $4,000 + 10% of amount over $25k

To help you list and sell more domains inventory, we lowered our minimum sales prices. The buy now minimum is only $50 (versus $250), and the minimum offer amount decreases to only $20 (from $250).

These changes take place Early April new listings. In the next [3-4] weeks, we’re converting existing listings over.


In a Separate mail notifying the change in Pricing Structure @ GD Aftermarket, the mail states the following:-

Please note we're setting a minimum of $50 for Buy-It-Now Auctions and $100 for Premium listings. We're also setting a $20 minimum listing price for 7-Day Auctions and Offer/Counter-Offer domain listings.

Along with the changes to new listings moving forward, we'll be converting existing listings over to the new system over the next 3 to 4 weeks for an early April launch.

• If your domain is below the new minimum offer price, we'll bump the minimum offer up to $20 for 7-Day Auctions and Offer/Counter-Offer listings.
• If you have a Buy-It-Now Auction listing priced below $50, we'll switch it to an Offer/Counter-Offer listing with a minimum price of $20.
• If you have a domain that's listed as both a Premium Domain and a Buy-It-Now Auction, we'll consolidate it and use the higher of your two price points.

If you don't want us to change your listing prices automatically, simply update your domain pricing manually before March 31st, and it will default to the new listing rules when we roll out the new structure.

 

[Shimmy]

One thing is for sure when companies go on the stock market the fees will keep rising. Like ebays fees did. They need to keep having large growth every quarter.

 

[Electric-Shadow]

Making things simpler? Clearly it's causing people some serious confusion, and eating even more into peoples profits. It's about as helpful for sellers as Rob Ford was for Canada.

 

[morf13]

No, fixed the math above, I was reading it wrong. It would be $1,000 now, double tho what it was.

That's still a big piece of your pie they are taking

 

[equity78]

I think and again just my opinion, I think they were looking at it from the Premium listings was 30% and now we have brought that down. But people who used Afternic got in the registry path for 20% anyway.

The auctions at 10% should have stayed, keep the registry path higher because I do believe that's valuable real estate. Keep the auctions at 10 % and tier the premium network from 20% down to say 12.5%

 

[johname]

Godaddy going for an IPO home run, so got to restructure everything to make the cash cow bigger

 

[joshny]

Couldn't have gotten worse than this

 

[Domainace]

From Afternic: "We also want our fees to be simple and straightforward, so they’re now based on your domain sale price."

I'm sure glad they made it simple and straightforward!:D

Is there an accountant in the house? One who can help us with this simple and straightforward, multi-tiered and controversial pricing structure? Did Afternic hire someone from the IRS to simplify things for them?

 

[JB Lions]

The most simplest way, and I wish any of these places would do it, again, flat rate. No matter the sale amount. 15%, somewhere close to that.

 

[NameOmnia]

Anyone has an alternative solution to Greedy Daddy / Afternic?
As I mentioned before Ebay could be a viable option...

 

[JB Lions]

Anyone has an alternative solution to Greedy Daddy / Afternic?
As I mentioned before Ebay could be a viable option...

Eh, not really good buyers there. I actually kind of agree with this:

At no point do the fees exceed 20%. They are still expensive, but most sales will pay a commission between 15% and 20%. That's basically for access to their promotional network. And the fees will probably change again in 6 months.

I liked the 10% flat rate because it was the best rate out there from the majors. Of course, you can always do it more yourself, cut them out. Use them for the people that use them to find domains but for direct, do it yourself, don't send them off to the other places, like I do now.

 

[mitok]

It is now cheaper to book a flight and do the deal in person. :D

This is not a bad idea at all Especially if you have geo+keyword or keyword+geo domain with possible end users at the same location.

Just kidding, but could be worth of try sometimes

20% minimum fee is way too much!

 

[RU]

I deleted all my domains from Afternic and didn't renew Godaddy Auctions membership.

 

[NameOmnia]

Eh, not really good buyers there. I actually kind of agree with this:

Don't you think there might be a shift to Ebay after this increase? It seems like all marketplaces are getting too expensive to be able to reasonably price our domains but to make a profit at the same time.

 

[JB Lions]

Don't you think there might be a shift to Ebay after this increase? It seems like all marketplaces are getting too expensive to be able to reasonably price our domains but to make a profit at the same time.

No, ebay really sucks for sellers. More buyers at other places will make up for what you think you would save at ebay. While I don't like the price increase, it is a max 20%, then less than 20% for sales over $5,000. Sedo is 10, 15, 20 depending on this and that. There's Flippa but I think more and more you're going to have to pay for an upgrade to get any decent views since they seem bent on flooding the platform with lower end domains.

Usually my normal setup was park, link the sale link to Sedo because it looked professional, it's what I did from the beginning. But then I was thinking link to GoDaddy since most people have heard of them and it's only 10%. But now will make my own site and do it direct, which is what I should have done from the start. But still list at the other places for the buyers that find domains thru them. But go direct whenever possible.

 

[Nitindomains]

Flippa Domains is and WILL REMAIN a flat 10%. Launch auctions with credits, or list in your Portfolio (no cost) -- commission is always 10% with FREE ESCROW.

Oh, and -- Free to relist a domain at auction, too.

Are we missing something here?

Free to RELIST, but not Free to LIST, whereas there is no listing fee @gd Aftermarket (Except an annual Membership Fee), or Sedo.

 

[FlippaDomains]

Sorry everyone, account FAIL.

Here's what I was saying:

Yeah, just received the GoDaddy email as well.

All the same. Now they are killing their marketplace as well. Sedo stands best now @15%

Flippa Domains is and WILL REMAIN a flat 10%. Launch auctions with credits, or list in your Portfolio (no cost) -- commission is always 10% with FREE ESCROW.

Oh, and -- Free to relist a domain at auction, too.

Did Flippa paid them to do that? What a move!

We didn't; what a move, indeed...

I'm surprised by the fee increase. You'd think the success of Flippa would make them more competitive..

We aren't even THINKING about raising our fees. Flat 10% commission, Escrow included.

Listing costs / upgrades too high? Reach out to us via [email protected] to discuss subsidies and deals.

How does this compare to a similar Flippa sale??

10%. That's it. If you paid for an upgrade, you factor that into the cost. Free to relist if an auction doesn't connect the first time around. Free Escrow if it does.

So if I'm reading this right, and I just had a $5000 sale a couple of weeks ago, I paid $500. Now that would be $1,750. haha, what idiot came up with this. And yes, that ends up being 35%, when it was 10%, using the $5,000 sale as an example.

It should be a flat rate across the board, that's the easiest to remember and competitive rate. 10% was nice, this is insane.

It should be 10% and that's where we'll stay.

I think and again just my opinion, I think they were looking at it from the Premium listings was 30% and now we have brought that down. But people who used Afternic got in the registry path for 20% anyway.

The auctions at 10% should have stayed, keep the registry path higher because I do believe that's valuable real estate. Keep the auctions at 10 % and tier the premium network from 20% down to say 12.5%

10% for auction and Portfolio sales and 15% for brokerage -- that's where we're at.

From Afternic: "We also want our fees to be simple and straightforward, so they’re now based on your domain sale price."

I'm sure glad they made it simple and straightforward!:D

Is there an accountant in the house? One who can help us with this simple and straightforward, multi-tiered and controversial pricing structure? Did Afternic hire someone from the IRS to simplify things for them?

I was thinking the same: they took the simplicity out of it. I remember when eBay did this tiered stuff....I hated it.

The most simplest way, and I wish any of these places would do it, again, flat rate. No matter the sale amount. 15%, somewhere close to that.

You know what I'm gonna say, so...

 

[FlippaDomains]

No, ebay really sucks for sellers. More buyers at other places will make up for what you think you would save at ebay. While I don't like the price increase, it is a max 20%, then less than 20% for sales over $5,000. Sedo is 10, 15, 20 depending on this and that. There's Flippa but I think more and more you're going to have to pay for an upgrade to get any decent views since they seem bent on flooding the platform with lower end domains.

I'd love to have a solid chat with you about that. We do have ~ 500,000 domains on platform now; but as for the auctions / domains homepage, do you believe that's flooded with low-end?

 

[JB Lions]

You know what I'm gonna say, so...

That's catalog. But for auction type stuff, small fee, then percentage, then if you want to get any views, upgrades. You need to factor that in.

I'd love to have a solid chat with you about that. We do have ~ 500,000 domains on platform now; but as for the auctions / domains homepage, do you believe that's flooded with low-end?

Yes, I think you're headed in that direction. Like I said in the other thread when I went thru them yesterday, it looks like ebay listings:

ColomboPortCityHotels.com
$500,000,000

And I'm sure they're probably all those free ones you're giving out for appraisals. When it's no risk, free, it's what you attract. We just have a difference of opinion on that, we'll see how it turns out.

And the homepage is more paid for/upgrades right? They look like more premium type placements, hence me saying, you need to factor that into the price as well. Going thru them, Premium.

So listing fee + premium paid placement + selling fee

When you have more of the lower end stuff, it's what you're going to need to do to get any eyeballs over there

 

[Nitindomains]

Flippa Domains is and WILL REMAIN a flat 10%. Launch auctions with credits, or list in your Portfolio (no cost) -- commission is always 10% with FREE ESCROW.

Oh, and -- Free to relist a domain at auction, too.

*To the right Account*

Are we missing something here?

Free to RELIST, but not Free to LIST, whereas there is no listing fee @gd Aftermarket (Except an annual Membership Fee), or Sedo.

 

[Name Trader]

For the sweet spot <$5k. Commission has gone from 10% to 20%. 100% increase. I guess my prices have to go higher to recover this loss.

Incidentally. I just got almost the same eMail from Afternic. So they are consolidating their policies, which makes sense for them. So my sales on Afternic have gone from 15% to 20% commissions, a 33% increase. I'm definitely going to have to be more firm with my negotiations.