news Thank You and Good Bye Afternic.com

[AbdulBasit.com]

Hello everyone,

I think this is the longest gap I’ve taken in between two posts but I’m sure this will come as a surprise to many of my fellow domain investors that I’m leaving Afternic.com

As many of my readers know that since January 2020, I’ve been using Afternic.com price request lander. It’s been almost 6 years using them and I had an overall great experience. With all the challenges and ups and downs including economic crisis and uncertainty in global market due to wars, I still had many extra ordinary months with the help of Afternic team. It was really nice working with so many Afternic brokers and especially my rep Adam Ramsdell who did all his best he could to get the maximum sales out of my portfolio. I sincerely appreciate Adam and the entire team whoever was involved in getting the sales happen smoothly.

There are two main reasons for leaving Afternic:

1. I’m no longer interested in paying any commission.
2. Like the way I opted Afternic from Uniregistry, now I would like to prefer handling and managing the portfolio and leads myself.

Overall, it’s been a rollercoaster ride with a lot of inconsistencies which I believe is part of the business especially domain investing. It took a lot of time to think and decide about this decision but I believe now is the right time to go and move onto the next level of my domaining journey.

Currently I’m in the process of trying something new and I’ll share more details in my next post, so stay tuned.

Thank you!

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Who knows the future, but there just has been nothing in anything he posted hinting that he wants to start a Dan like service. That takes money, tech, lawyers, employees, finding a good name, learning the different payment rules and regulations around the world etc. It's quite a big undertaking. And he posted sending domains to their own landing page in Wordpress is complicated, so imagine putting something like Dan together.

I think he's just tired of paying high commissions and experimenting trying to find a better way. Different company/landing page. I think he'll still get sales, probably even some big ones. 11,000 or so domains, looks like mostly good .coms, you're going to get sales. The question is more volume and if the move is worth it. I don't see possibly how they could increase, more likely decrease. We're going to find out.

I would be interested if he experimented using different payment options, I think that would be useful to many. Look at all these options - https://www.namepros.com/threads/me...-links-bring-your-own-lead-providers.1353825/

Which of those options is the smoothest for the buyer, which one will give you less headaches.

I never plan to start my own marketplace like Dan or anything similar.

 

[oskylabs]

@AbdulBasit.com

But this was you on a thread in May, barely five months ago (link below):

There are lots of ups and downs I've been facing since I started using Afternic in January 2020. Since that time I'm using their "price request" lander and I'm pretty much satisfied with the results. Of course, it mainly depends on the quality and quantity of domains, pricing and Afternic team skills to get the deals done. However, more than 50% of my sales happen via GoDaddy search path where there is no need of any brokers involvement.

So I'm tempted to ask: What really changed?

www.namepros.com/threads/dan-exit-is-afternic-godaddy-killing-sales-of-domainers.1353231/post-9393218

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Really? This was you on a thread in May, barely five months ago (link below):

So I'm tempted to ask: What really changed?

namepros .com /threads /dan-exit-is-afternic-godaddy-killing-sales-of-domainers.1353231 /post-9393218

Well, I already mentioned the 2 major reasons of leaving. The commission and to handle/manage the leads by myself.

I've had no major issues with Afternic and I left as an overall happy customer.

 

[Mister Funsky]

As always, thank you for taking the time to keep us informed of your actions and thoughts.

I look forward to learning what your next move is.

 

[MarkedMarket]

Thanks for sharing.
Since I've moved all my domains from Afternic to Efty lander, I keep adding new domains to Afternic, Sedo and Efty at the same time in order to avoid anyone else adding my domains to their Afternic/Sedo accounts.

I was on the assumption that you wouldn't use Afternic/Sedo at all. So what do you do when domains that you have added to Afternic/Sedo receive an offer? What do you tell the Afternic/Sedo representative?

(If you remove your domains from Afternic/Sedo immediately after adding them, wouldn't it be possible for scammers to add these domains again?)

 

[alcy]

I think op made it clear to all he removed all names from sedo and an

if not then this becomes just another Lander switch topic which we all do 9 trillion times a day

 

[Timkh]

I was on the assumption that you wouldn't use Afternic/Sedo at all. So what do you do when domains that you have added to Afternic/Sedo receive an offer? What do you tell the Afternic/Sedo representative?

(If you remove your domains from Afternic/Sedo immediately after adding them, wouldn't it be possible for scammers to add these domains again?)

He means that he adds domains to Afternic and Sedo and then selects "Unlist" (on Afternic) and "Not For Sale" (on Sedo)

 

[Domen]

OP has decided to use his favor lander at efty, although we know , honestly all marketplace can't sell your domain until you list the domain on their services, cause they get traffic from your domains

If one of you has technical coding ( really expert, not use code based AI ), you can build a website , integrate with payment processor like stripe, paypal integration, or crypto payment , handle everything and got all important data in your own server

But most of us has no time or probably won't to involve in complicated web programming, data security and promote your service massively.

One of the biggest challenge when you sell domain under your own brand is about trust, credibility, and how brave you to spend $$$$ to promote your services regularly before you got maximum profit later, cause promotion usually bring real effect after several month, sometime need long period ,

Just my own experiments when I help customers in my SEO journey. But the result is better than depend on third party services.

 

[MarkedMarket]

He means that he adds domains to Afternic and Sedo and then selects "Unlist" (on Afternic) and "Not For Sale" (on Sedo)

Thanks. Wasn't even aware of that option/button.

But I'm quite sure Afternic brokers might still message you when they have a buyer who is interested in that domain (irrespective of whether it's unlisted at Afternic). I have had Afternic brokers who emailed me via WHOIS.

I still wonder what @AbdulBasit.com would answer these brokers when they email him and tell them they have a client that is willing to offer $XXXXX for a domain. They even say that the client is willing to pay all commission, which likely means that they pay 30% on top of the offer price. Suppose the offer is more or less equivalent to the asking price - what would be your answer?

 

[phaethon]

One thing he will find out very fast is how many of those 1k inquires were bots. If he has good names, which the sample that he shared seemed to be really good, he will have more bots inquires. It's not that the bots are targeting good domains, it's just that those names usually were once websites or linked to a lot so bots are more likely to hit those sites and fill out forms, click buttons and create a lead.

My bet is he is in for a shock with the serious drop in leads but I think he will do the same amount of sales, his names seem to be ones that people think of and go type it in to check if it's available.

That's a big issue. Do you have any evidence? GD asks twice after the PR page if they have want to purchase the domain. If bots enquire, we should switch to buy now not to waste our time. It also affects pricing and renewals .In any case we must know if those are real leads.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I was on the assumption that you wouldn't use Afternic/Sedo at all. So what do you do when domains that you have added to Afternic/Sedo receive an offer? What do you tell the Afternic/Sedo representative?

(If you remove your domains from Afternic/Sedo immediately after adding them, wouldn't it be possible for scammers to add these domains again?)

The purpose of still adding domains to Afternic/Sedo is only that no one is able to add my domains in their accounts. Just to have safety measures in place. And all the domains are delisted at the same time.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Thanks. Wasn't even aware of that option/button.

But I'm quite sure Afternic brokers might still message you when they have a buyer who is interested in that domain (irrespective of whether it's unlisted at Afternic). I have had Afternic brokers who emailed me via WHOIS.

I still wonder what @AbdulBasit.com would answer these brokers when they email him and tell them they have a client that is willing to offer $XXXXX for a domain. They even say that the client is willing to pay all commission, which likely means that they pay 30% on top of the offer price. Suppose the offer is more or less equivalent to the asking price - what would be your answer?

I've made it clear to my Afternic rep that I won't be accepting any new offers if they come in. And if any GoDaddy buyer contacts me, usually it's the buyer who covers their commission.

 

[Future Sensors]

I've made it clear to my Afternic rep that I won't be accepting any new offers if they come in. And if any GoDaddy buyer contacts me, usually it's the buyer who covers their commission.

Will they also stop sending emails to your leads? There are known cases where Afternic continues sending emails even after sellers have removed their domains from the marketplace.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Will they also stop sending emails to your leads? There are known cases where Afternic continues sending emails even after sellers have removed their domains from the marketplace.

That's a good question. I didn't ask this and I'm not bothered about this anymore

 

[AEProgram]

That's a big issue. Do you have any evidence? GD asks twice after the PR page if they have want to purchase the domain. If bots enquire, we should switch to buy now not to waste our time. It also affects pricing and renewals .In any case we must know if those are real leads.

I have no evidence but here is what every domainer with a portfolio of 500+ on afternic will probably agree with

1. They see a lot of leads that seem to just be emails and calls to the buyer with no content, no communications. I am not talking about leads that the broker says the price was high or that engagement occurred (and you don't know what it even means)

2. We feel we are in the dark, very limited information about leads. I am guessing a lot of money every year is spent by domainers because they think a lead was legit and now you renew for another year.

I agree godaddy does go through multiple steps, but we need to know more.

 

[alcy]

how da fock do y add and list them while having them delisted

y fry alcy brain

 

[Gabriel360]

how da fock do y add and list them while having them delisted

y fry alcy brain

Afternic has a setup that allows you to add your domain name to the platform without actively listing it for sale.

It's called unlisting.
When you UNLIST a domain name, it's registered on Afternic's database but it's NOT actively listed for sale.

That way, scammers will not be able to frontrun your domain names on Afternic.

 

[Bravo Mod Team]

I'll pay 15% all day long for a sale, especially when the broker gives me access to the worlds largest registrar's searches, in addition to dozens of other registrars in the network. It's a no-brainer.

The part that is not a no-brainer is whether you would get that sale for 0% commission without Afternic.

In fact, the math works out to where you don't even need the same amount of sales to earn more money without Afternic:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1837165520262467955

 

[JB Lions]

The part that is not a no-brainer is whether you would get that sale for 0% commission without Afternic.

In fact, the math works out to where you don't even need the same amount of sales to earn more money without Afternic:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1837165520262467955

4 out of my last 5 sales were Lease To Own. I would lose all kinds of sales using landers that don't have that option.

I think you're working on that? Get that going and I still believe you guys should have a stand alone site for what you're doing.

 

[URL Stream]

@AbdulBasit.com

Are you subconsciously — or maybe consciously — factoring in that, even if this move means fewer sales, you’re in a strong enough position to hold your portfolio as a growing digital asset, viewing it more from an investor’s mindset than a seller’s?

If so, that probably answers a lot of the questions being tossed your way.