The next Dan...

[Mkt Sales Leads]

Now the dust has settled on the GoDaddy acquisition of Dan, some might be wondering who is the next possible contender to disrupt the industry. What what it's worth, I believe the likely competitor will come from either Namecheap or Dynadot (the latter since their UI/UX is similarly friendly like Dan's).

If you think either company has a chance, what would it take (e.g. in terms of finances and vision/strategic direction) for either to seriously rival GoDaddy?

Secondly, do you think the competitor will be a total newcomer?

 

[Dane]

@DaaZ
You urgently need a neat logo and hiring a UI/UX expert.

That website looks like it was built in Frontpage.

I loved FrontPage!

 

[Bertrell]

We truly wish DAN + Godaddy a great success story... We also wish DAN 3.0 going to be bigger than DAN 2.0 .

More marketplaces lead to more competition , in turn offering better services to sellers and buyers.

We have started our idea about building DaaZ in 2017, throughout the last 5 years we have been building the DaaZ platform. DaaZ is a 4 year old company and circa a 3 year old domain marketplace.

Just to keep it simple, we are not competing with any one, but we want to make you aware of our presence. We are a pure domain marketplace and we charge just 5% for "Buy It Now" (BIN), 7% for "auctions" and "make an offer" sales.

Kindly note, we do not ask the buyer to pay 2% to 3% card fees required by other marketplaces.

So far 99% of our payouts are processed with in 48 hours.

We want to remain a pure marketplace for years to come. In Summary, we are just one more option for the domainers.

I've enjoyed your service so far, but have been wondering if there any plans to incorporate domain lease/rental or installment payments at DaaZ, like what's offered via DAN and Epik?

Thanks in advance!

 

[tonyk2000]

I checked DaaZ, and, on a spot view, liked it. All except the VAT thing and VAT invoices (my) to DaaZ buyers. I am not in EU or UK and have nothing to do with the EU/UK VAT. Can DaaZ simplify the things by 1) "purchasing" the domain from me - no VAT involved and 2) selling the domain to enduser with or without VAT, depending on buyers location, adding VAT if required, and issuing any and all invoices from DaaZ / with your VAT id which is what the buyers need, at least EU-based buyers/ so my non-EU company would not be included at all into the docs the buyers may require? It is how afternic works for example, so should be possible imo

 

[DaaZ]

I checked DaaZ, and, on a spot view, liked it. All except the VAT thing and VAT invoices (my) to DaaZ buyers. I am not in EU or UK and have nothing to do with the EU/UK VAT. Can DaaZ simplify the things by 1) "purchasing" the domain from me - no VAT involved and 2) selling the domain to enduser with or without VAT, depending on buyers location, adding VAT if required, and issuing any and all invoices from DaaZ / with your VAT id which is what the buyers need, at least EU-based buyers/ so my non-EU company would not be included at all into the docs the buyers may require? It is how afternic works for example, so should be possible imo

Thank you Tony, your suggestion is noted. We will review internally and confirm back to you on this one.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

One only needs to look at what happened to Uniregistry after that acquisition. GD hasn't maintained the app well, Customer Support is slow to respond and uninformed about the app when they do. Also, GD didn't make a smooth glide path for transferring Uniregistry Ds to GoDaddy. There's market uncertainty around domains left at Uniregistry.

I'm not aware of any gestures made to the domaining community, to show that GD will still care about domainers. Due to this acquisition, a lot of time and money was lost by domainers, IMO. Personally, I think they acquired Uni to raid the members and products, then to kill it. Anyone else see it this way?

Why should we expect anything different from the Dan acquisition? Dan could innovate in ways that GD is not likely to emulate, e.g., their lease-purchase option. They may keep some Dan features, but I see this as another raid.

Well the GD branding (i.e. 'a GoDaddy brand') is already up on the landing pages. Let's see if sales improve for some...

 

[DaaZ]

So, that's quite the opposite of what is happening here.

I was referring about domainers to benefit from having more market places.

encourage other marketplaces exists too, at least load your inventory in all marketplaces to motivate them to work harder. Without having inventory how they can prove , they can sell your inventory.. encouraging more marketplaces cetainly helps domainers in the longrun

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

Oh, that's just the tip of the iceberg! Go ahead in throw in Uniregistry and more than two dozen others.

Not. Happy.

It'll be BB and SH next.

 

[J.R.]

Namecheap, Dynadot, Epik, Efty, Squadhelp and others all have a shot to fill the void.
I'd bet on Namecheap because they have access to Fast Transfer, SEDO MLS and they are working on their in-house auction platform.

Once Namecheap adds customizable landers, single digit commissions, Escrow.com feature and registrant controlled negotiations - they'll receive a flood of inbound transfers. Many were waiting for Dan to become a registrar, including me - plans tossed.

If my URL is registered at Namecheap, I should be able to set up a for sale lander at Namecheap, simple.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

They need to remove the Trust Pilot crap and replace it with the Afternic / GoDaddy phone numbers, if they don't they will not see too much of an increase.

Yep. The one good thing GoDaddy can add (other than reach) is a number onto the Dan Landers.

 

[Bipul]

Because they're shady. Not transparent about ownership, backing and their backend had countless of bugs.

Founder & CEO Anthos C. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthoschrysanthou/ maybe he holds most of the ownership.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

Thank you , certainly having extra cash certainly helps at this stage.

Just listed my first domain on your platform. Good so far.

 

[Dane]

Just listed my first domain on your platform. Good so far.

I'll take a peek.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

I'll take a peek.

Yep. I like what I see so far.

I believe (with more investment) we might have found the next Dan ...

 

[DaaZ]

Yep. I like what I see so far.

I believe (with more investment) we might have found the next Dan ...

Thank you , we are trying our best.. Our intention is to serve the community. A Faster, Better and Cost Effective marketplace is our vision. e.g; At present most of our payouts are with in 48 hours, we would love to get 95% of our payouts done in 12 hours. That's the kind of vision we are working for, it takes time but eventually we will achieve it.

 

[.X.]

Dynadot could make some noise if they wanted to IMO , they have stayed within their comfort zone , there is nothing wrong that . But they could expand and bring some great assets to domainers IMO .

 

[Recons.Com]

The Dawn of New Dan

 

[branding]

It all depends... If GoDaddy messes this up, it would be fairly easy to launch a competitor.

Dan is/was great. If they keep it as a separate brand under the GD umbrella they'll do great and I'd have no issues to continue using them.

I have been using Dan and watched what they're doing since they launched. A competitor bold enough to offer the same experience + offering at cost in house registration could easily disrupt the market, again.

 

[DaaZ]

Hopefully you get a major cash injection and can expand.

Thank you , certainly having extra cash certainly helps at this stage.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

It'll be BB and SH next

 

[branding]

Founder & CEO Anthos C. https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthoschrysanthou/ maybe he holds most of the ownership.

Thanks. I know. Point is, they're not transparent. If you dig (deeper) there's info to be found.

 

[secretagentdad]

Namecheaps going to be the thing that grows so big nobody can acquire them.

 

[LoveCatchyDomains]

Looking at Sedo, over 10 years on Dan in the industry, and they still need to constantly work and improve their services to satisfy new trends and demand, while maintaining trust. This stuff takes perseverance, risk and patience, not the qualities we always see in new startups.

Perhaps Sedo will give them a run for their money. Adding the 2-factor authentication might be a good start. They do have a really nice search engine for categories of domains in their listings. And they are in Cambridge, Massachusetts, right near MIT. So they should have some really great talent to tap to help make them even more successful.

 

[DaaZ]

I checked DaaZ, and, on a spot view, liked it. All except the VAT thing and VAT invoices (my) to DaaZ buyers. I am not in EU or UK and have nothing to do with the EU/UK VAT.

As you are outside of UK, you no need to worry about the VAT part. We only charge success fee to you , no VAT applicable for you.

Can DaaZ simplify the things by 1) "purchasing" the domain from me - no VAT involved and 2) selling the domain to enduser with or without VAT, depending on buyers location, adding VAT if required, and issuing any and all invoices from DaaZ / with your VAT id which is what the buyers need, at least EU-based buyers/ so my non-EU company would not be included at all into the docs the buyers may require? It is how afternic works for example, so should be possible imo

DaaZ is not going to purchase from sellers and then sell to the buyers , our team has decided not to support that model. This is not going to change anytime in the future too. We are very clear on that.

We want a transparent marketplace, where sellers directly sell to the buyers.. DaaZ charges a small success fee to the sellers , this small success fee helps DaaZ to meet its operational costs. Seller issues invoice to the buyer, DaaZ issue the invoice to the seller for success fee.

In terms of allowing sellers to list domain names including VAT and excluding VAT , at the moment all list prices includes VAT by default, this is to offer a unique checkout experience to the buyers.
It's an inspiration we took from Amazon / other popular ecommerce marketplaces.
e.g: Retail buyers love to know the price they are paying for it , potential buyer has noticed the price of a domain name is 1000 usd from landing page or search page .. and at the time of checkout another 20% for VAT collection may frustrate the retail buyers who are not VAT registered.

Very likely will come-up with an innovative solution for a seller to express the net take home amount for their domain name , DaaZ handles the display part effectively on landing pages without compromising the buying experience. It may take some time, but certainly we will address this concern. We will keep you posted.

 

[tonyk2000]

It's an inspiration we took from Amazon

In Amazon case, buyers from EU _will_ see different price on checkout depending on their shipping address, as it is the EU requirement. If you buy something on amazon.FR from FRance - you have to pay french VAT rate. If you buy the same thing on amazon.FR but you are from Ireland - then you have to pay irish VAT rate (different). So the invoices would be different. In both cases, the seller, being VAT-registered company "Amazon", will collect the VAT and issue appropriate VAT invoice to full satisfaction of their buyers.

So, actually, there is no inspiration (the final amount to pay may be different).

The problem in DaaZ case is that my company, not being EU-based, is simply unable to issue VAT invoices to full satisfaction of the EU-based buyers. I may also guess that if DaaZ seller is a natural person, he may well prefer to have his personal details being private in all times (which includes the buyers billing). The last but not the least, it is unclear what EU taxmen will say if their residents (DaaZ buyers) will not pay VAT at all (I cannot charge VAT being non-EU company, DaaZ wouldn't charge VAT because it is your selection to pass the VAT thing to the seller).

In any case, your selection is your selection and I respect it in full.

 

[Denismth]

How about cloudname.com ?