discuss Thoughts on Domain Sales Installment Plans (mine are at Dan)

[markfromslo]

Of all my sales I've made at Dan.com, 35 have been in installments. A minority of the sales. The prices ranged from under a thousand to just under ten thousand. The number of payments were from 12 to 60 months.

Of those 35 installment sales, 5 have stopped paying. I have a few outstanding unfinished installment sales that have buyers that are problematic payers, and I suspect one or more could end up canceling.

On the one hand, I made some money and got the name back. On the other hand, I suppose a buyer could do something unwelcome with a site they put on the name and even get a Google penalty. And due to the way I do my accounting, it's a bit of a pain in the butt when they cancel. I know most of this is psychological, but I just don't like it.

(Interestingly, of the 30 that have not discontinued payment, only six are using the domain names, three of which are sales landers at higher prices (that they'll never get). Just an aside I thought was interesting. But it is about the same for my non-installment sales.)

I've recently changed my max installment plan length to 12 months, thinking I'll try to get invested in the name sooner and therefore be less likely to cancel. Twelve months should be enough for someone who is serious to be able to afford the monthly payments; otherwise I'm afraid I am attracting buyers without the financial wherewithal to finish. And if a name has let's say 60 payments, someone could buy it with the intention of trying to sell higher it within the first few months, and if they fail then they simply cancel -- an option so to speak.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone else has issues with Installment plans, and their thoughts and experiences with them if they do them.

 

[.X.]

I have had two stop paying. That beyond the mid point of having the domains paid for , I currently have four names on installments , I like the residual income coming in every month from doing it, the risk is minimal if any selling on a payment plan , but I do have names I won’t allow to be sold on the payment plan platform , that due to me thinking the down payment is to low for those certain domain names if I am going to finance them out for over a 12 month term , I will go 24 months , but that is as long as I can go.

I like the payment plan platform for lessor value names , I guess that is how I think of it.

 

[markfromslo]

Thanks .X. I'd love to hear how others decide on which domains get what installment plan length of time.

 

[markfromslo]

Oh, I should mention how I have my installment plans set up.

Under $500: no plan
$500 - $999: 4 monthly payments
$1,000 - $1,499: 6 monthly payments
$1,500+: 12 monthly payments

 

[Future Sensors]

Oh, I should mention how I have my installment plans set up.

Under $500: no plan
$500 - $999: 4 monthly payments
$1,000 - $1,499: 6 monthly payments
$1,500+: 12 monthly payments

Thanks for sharing.
This is my LTO scheme for DAN.

BIN​	LTO months​
75,000​	15​
45,000​	12​
20,000​	11​
12,000​	14​
7,500​	9​
4,900​	6​
3,900​	6​
2,900​	5​
2,100​	4​
1,700​	3​

 

[davidc1]

Same problem here.

For a large portfolio it's time wasting to adjust the number of LTO month. It would be nice to adjust it within the CSV upload.
Another way it to have a min. payment per LTO. I see many failure after the 1st month when the buyer have to pay $100, but not many when he has to pay $200+

 

[markfromslo]

Same problem here.

For a large portfolio it's time wasting to adjust the number of LTO month. It would be nice to adjust it within the CSV upload.
Another way it to have a min. payment per LTO. I see many failure after the 1st month when the buyer have to pay $100, but not many when he has to pay $200+

In Dan, you can very easily do bulk Installment period modifications based upon price and other variables. I can filter the names by price (i.e., $1,000 - $1,499), then select all in view. Then I can go down to the Pricing link at the bottom of the page and set the number of installments. So if I want to change the number of periods for various price ranges it literally takes just a matter of minutes. And I have 4,000 names.

Regarding the first month failures, I would love to see a higher "down payment." Maybe an easy way would be to mandate that the first three months be paid upfront at the start of the transaction, and then the monthly payments would begin at month 4. For example, for a $1,200 name that has 12 installments, The initial payment would be $300, and the $100 monthly payments would begin on month 4.

 

[Future Sensors]

For a large portfolio it's time wasting to adjust the number of LTO month. It would be nice to adjust it within the CSV upload.
Another way it to have a min. payment per LTO. I see many failure after the 1st month when the buyer have to pay $100, but not many when he has to pay $200+

Agree, it's time consuming, even with the Bulk option, and could be made a lot easier.

The Alter.com marketplace (RIP) had a perfect feature, where you could define account-wide, user-definable threshold amounts with their corresponding LTO periods. When you adjusted pricing for domains (manually or per CSV upload), the LTO terms were automatically changed, based on the global settings.

It looked something like this (to be filled in by the seller):

Above {$pricepoint01} set {#LTO-months01}
Above {$pricepoint02} set {#LTO-months02}
Above {$pricepoint03} set {#LTO-months03}

etc.

@LaszloSchenk

Love to have such a feature at DAN, too.
And/or, an additional "LTO" column in the CSV upload would also be great.

Thanks.

 

[davidc1]

Agree, it's time consuming, even with the Bulk option, and could be made a lot easier.

The Alter.com marketplace (RIP) had a perfect feature, where you could define account-wide, user-definable threshold amounts with their corresponding LTO periods. When you adjusted pricing for domains (manually or per CSV upload), the LTO terms were automatically changed, based on the global settings.

It looked something like this (to be filled in by the seller):

Above {$pricepoint01} set {#LTO-months01}
Above {$pricepoint02} set {#LTO-months02}
Above {$pricepoint03} set {#LTO-months03}

etc.

@LaszloSchenk

Love to have such a feature at DAN, too.
And/or, an additional "LTO" column in the CSV upload would also be great.

Thanks.

Daaz has also a column in the csv