Sedo slowly dying!

[News]

Sedo domain name sales have been on a steady decline for 3-4 years now but as this is going there will be no Sedo left within a year or two. At least not like it used to be.

The Sedo website and system hasn’t been updated for years, commissions have been raised (probably to keep the profit up while overall sales plummet), and frankly I wonder what domainers are still selling domain names at Sedo. Probably only some old clients that haven’t heard of new services or don’t bother changing platforms and maybe some domainers that want to have their domains listed at every platform available.

So is Sedo slowly dying? Some will say it is already dead. It is still riding on its past good reputation. But that reputation has been tarnished...

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[Uzbek]

Sedo as the platform for sale of domains becomes worse and worse every year, but unfortunately there is no Sedo's an alternative, in popularity.

 

[ramkumaritrvs]

I don't agree this....

I listed my domain at all marketplaces but got inquiry via sedo (higher success rate)

I love to use sedo

 

[martinrussell]

OP: We agree about the website "design" in particular as it is virtually unusable on a mobile device. This is unforgivable in a world where more users / buyers are abandoning desktops, or never had one to begin with.

 

[Jon B]

Archaic platform stuck in the 2000s for sure.

 

[NameClerk]

From my experience, the Sedo marketplace does not generate sales. I've sold a decent number of domains at Sedo over the past 10 years but every one of them was parked at Sedo at the time of the sale. About 3 months back I switched to Bodis landing pages and sales are up about 300% during that short period of time.

I'm starting to test with Efty.com too in hopes I can raise it even higher.

I also had good luck forwarding domains to their Godaddy premium listings but I prefer to have the buyer make an opening offer and I also like to avoid paying commissions.

 

[alcy]

removing that ridiculous $60 or so minimum fee that has nothing to do with market averages elsewhere... would be a good start.

 

[Domaingel]

I sold a domain on sedo this year via it's marketplace (it was parked at Domain Name Sales).

 

[deez007]

Sedo or Sedon't

 

[Haroon Basha]

I have more than 300 domain names listed there, including 4 letter dot com names for the last one year. So far ZERO SALES from there Marketplace. Now you can proudly say WHAT IS IN NAME?

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I use their escrow only (3% or min. $60).

 

[Silentptnr]

I get inquiries but have had sales there. My best results still come from GD auctions.

 

[domainbartender]

I agree that it might be time to abandon the $60 min. fee. Although Sedo and its affiliate partners will get paid less, it may mean that they get paid in lower amounts more often which evens things out. An active marketplace will always do well.

I personally don't think Sedo is dying, instead it is carving itself a niche as more and more registrars adopt MLS listings. It becomes a neat alternative for those who can't find the domain they are looking for at their registrar. The registrar marketplaces may seem like competition to Sedo but the registrars are actually helping Sedo get more sales from MLS listings, so no one has given up on Sedo - the conglomerate of domains for sale from all registrars. It's a win-win industry we're in. And that's a good thing!

 

[namezest]

Agreed @Silentptnr sedo market is just a good source of parked income for sedo you will make more sales if you pay to list as auctions there but it's risky if you don't have some nice names. I think 90 percent of my sales have been through Godaddy. The fastest hand reg sales I have made were all through Godaddy some even as soon as 2 days after hand reg and that is impressive isn't it really.

 

[HotKey]

I don't think it's dying at all. On the contrary, Sedo is growing and growing. I have many successful sales there, and it is also my preferable platform to purchase a name.

Their parking stats can be good indicators on how to move forward with your names ie drop, renew, auction off, or even move to another platform that may generate better revenue.

Their support has improved considerably over the years, to the point where a simple phone call rectifies any sort of issue.

Now, as far as the website itself is concerned, I agree it's very outdated. They need to do some serious revamping of the whole system. However, it's not in bad enough shape to turn me off of them. Yet.

 

[PremiumDomains8888]

I dont know about that....I believe that Sedo is still the best place to sell domains.

Proof? Just go to http://research.domaintools.com/buy/sales-history/?q=.com

Sedo is still the reigning champ in addition to Godaddy of course

Its just knowing what the investors want and which part to put the domain in on Sedo for sale.

 

[JayJay]

Made a few low x,xxx sales there over the years, most likely only because I forwarded all my domains there to the make offer/bin page after listing them. I assume they would have sold with any sales or contact us page at that point.

 

[ulasbbtr]

Sedo has strong points such as bringing customers from Europe, fast and problem-free transfers.
Weak points are buyer transparency for sellers, high commission rates especially that minimum 60$ thing.
Interface is so-so, on mobile (ios) I can manage to use.
Parking said to be bad especially for non-USA traffic.

 

[wormfood]

From my experience, the Sedo marketplace does not generate sales. I've sold a decent number of domains at Sedo over the past 10 years but every one of them was parked at Sedo at the time of the sale. About 3 months back I switched to Bodis landing pages and sales are up about 300% during that short period of time.

I'm starting to test with Efty.com too in hopes I can raise it even higher.

I also had good luck forwarding domains to their Godaddy premium listings but I prefer to have the buyer make an opening offer and I also like to avoid paying commissions.

Funny you should say that.. I had all my domains at bodis and never got inquiries. Moved them to uniregistry's landers and have been getting regular inquiries, it's kind of weird.
So I guess you just have to keep moving your domains around a bit to see what works best for each type you own.. I mostly have two-word .coms.

 

[NameClerk]

@jacoliobo
Were you using Bodis parking pages or the "make an offer" landing pages?
I saw the increase once I switched to the offer landers.
I don't miss the $15/month parking revenue.

 

[wormfood]

@jacoliobo
Were you using Bodis parking pages or the "make an offer" landing pages?
I saw the increase once I switched to the offer landers.
I don't miss the $15/month parking revenue.

Yes, I was using those.. :D Who knows, maybe I messed something up, but I thought they were all pointing at those and functioning.
Haha yea, I don't have domains that would make money in parking either, I think.

 

[bazabizo]

My experience
2000 names listed on sedo and Afternic , parked at DNS
Average a sale per month on Afternic and an enquiry for an expensive name that spdidnt sell but was very close
Zero sales on sedo and not a single offer!
That's for 6 months. An absolute waste of time proving ownership and pricing and listing and removing sold ones. Even if I sell a name per year it's a waste of time!
Sedo has no end users it's only domainers even a npbig piece of their sold mpnames are through auctions! No retail sales what a nightmare!

 

[Atta]

What about Flippa? That is already dead. 49$ upgrade for just 24 hours feature listing and at the end $1 selling price. That is a big joke.

 

[JayJay]

. 49$ upgrade for just 24 hours feature listing and at the end $1 selling price. That is a big joke.

This is also the fault of the seller to pay for a listing upgrade on a name that really is only worth reg fee...or less, regardless how much exposure it gets. Not that Im defending certain marketplaces practices whatsoever.

 

[Atta]

This is also the fault of the seller to pay for a listing upgrade on a name that really is only worth reg fee...or less, regardless how much exposure it gets. Not that Im defending certain marketplaces practices whatsoever.

They left no choice except to buy the upgrade. If you don't buy, there are only 40-50 visitors you get overall for auction.

Moreover, everyone is buying upgrades regardless of how worthless their domain names are! This makes it worst for those who want to sell good domain name.