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Undeveloped.com Experience

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Has anyone used undeveloped.com to sell domains? They claim to be able to increase a domainers sales by 54%.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Agreed that they could add some defaults to their system for people to choose from, but I do also like being able to upload my own to make my pages look different than someone else.

I actually didn't even need to crop the image. It seems their system will auto-crop it for you to an extent. You can try a few different images until you find one that looks right. (or you can crop to your desire to have more control over what area of the image is shown)

But I do get your point and think it's a solid suggestion. :xf.grin:

Went ahead and purchased one at iStock. Actually, uploading your own wasn't difficult at all. Even I could do it... Thanks again for the tip.
 
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It sounds like our line was busy indeed. We already have planned to remove the phone numbers from the header of our for sales pages. Buyers still will be able to call us but having our number on the lander isn't accomplishing its goal unfortunately. Here's why:

*Throughout a normal day, we just get about 20 phone calls. If we compare that to the number of support emails we get it becomes insignificant. We get on average 150 support inquiries per day via email.

*60% of the calls are non-domain purchase related.

*20% are buyers asking if there's room for negotiation on domains that only have the buy-now option enabled and don't provide the make offer functionality. Which is counterproductive since the goal in that setup is to leave the buyer with just one option and the moment they can opt for another option - they might lose interest instead of directly engaging and completing a buy-now.

*10% are buyers asking for the price of a name (on make offer only domains) which we can't provide since the domains don't have a price. So we ask those buyers to just place an offer to get in direct contact with the seller and get a quote from the seller.

*10% are individuals asking for information about the seller, former owner of the domain and other generic questions like that.

The primary reason we added our phone number there was to make sure we can convert buyers that are still in doubt or have questions about the acquisition process. However, we hardly get those calls and we even observe losing transactions because buyers don't directly engage with the seller via a buy now or by placing an offer to start a negotiation. I think having the phone number on the landers only adds value for companies like buydomains. Since they only work with the make offer option and have an internal price list they can on the phone actually negotiate with their buyers. In that model it has a function. In ours not so much.

Kind regards,
Reza

That sounds good to me. I'd like to try you guys out, but I have a lot of domains and do want to talk to someone. I tried calling just now and it rang and rang.

Perhaps you can just remove the phone number from the lander at the top right, but still answer phone calls for people who happen to navigate to the Contact link, or remove the number all together and just use that number for seller support.
 
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That sounds good to me. I'd like to try you guys out, but I have a lot of domains and do want to talk to someone. I tried calling just now and it rang and rang.

Perhaps you can just remove the phone number from the lander at the top right, but still answer phone calls for people who happen to navigate to the Contact link, or remove the number all together and just use that number for seller support.

Honestly, that was really bad timing. We have a landline at the office and were in an all-hands-on meeting. One of my colleagues did try to call you back (we call back all missed calls throughout the usual working hours). I'll review if we can get a different setup where missed calls after the usual working hours are stored so we can call back everyone. We haven't done this so far as the impact of doing this wasn't big enough as most calls unfortunately, aren't critical or transaction related.
 
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Honestly, that was really bad timing. We have a landline at the office and were in an all-hands-on meeting. One of my colleagues did try to call you back (we call back all missed calls throughout the usual working hours). I'll review if we can get a different setup where missed calls after the usual working hours are stored so we can call back everyone. We haven't done this so far as the impact of doing this wasn't big enough as most calls unfortunately, aren't critical or transaction related.

It was nice chatting with you Reza. Looking forward to trying Undeveloped. Thanks for your responsiveness.
 
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The difference between the services Undeveloped & Efty, Sedo, Afternic & Uni provide are really significant. Undeveloped is a full-service marketplace with an internal escrow service.

Just to name some of the added value Undeveloped offers:

1: Fully customizable, professional, clutter-free and pro conversion A/B tested for sales pages. Our first sellers know how our for sales pages have evolved and how many experiments we've run to end up with the current version. There have been a plethora of iterations to get here.

Premium domains deserve a premium professional and well designed for sales page. This does influence your bottom line. When your buyer gets your domain presented on a silver platter it does increase the value perception.

2: Internal escrow service with all local payment sources enabled via our provider Adyen, which is used by Facebook, Google, AirBNB and all other major marketplaces. This increases your sales volume since we can provide a very local purchase experience.

We also started to accept Bitcoin & Ether as payment option. We're seeing more buyers opt for these options.

In terms of payouts to sellers, we always opt for the fastest route. If we can do a domain push we'll always go for that and pay out our sellers the moment we've secured the domain. We process payouts via bank wire, Paypal, Bitcoins etc. We're pretty flexible. Just ask your escrow agent how you'd like to get paid out and he or she will work with you.

3: Fully optimized buyer flow. From the first touch point of your buyer up until the checkout we guide your buyers through the process and at any point there's an issue our support team kicks in to make sure your buyers don't drop off. Undeveloped sellers know what I mean with this. Our team is extremely approachable and always ready to help.

Besides that, we also removed all conversion barriers in the entire purchase flow. We don't force buyers to sign-up and create an account for example but host a professional "Buyer control page" which they use to negotiate with the seller.

We often get messages from buyers that they really enjoyed working with us as our processes are modern and very optimized.

4: We add a strong trust layer. Our buyer protection program which we promote on all for sales pages, puts your buyers at ease. End-users often will drop off purchasing a domain on the secondary market when you don't take away all the concerns they might have. Think about all the buyers you might lose today simply because they skip even interacting with you or showing interest in your name.

5: Full automation for all processes required to sell a domain. We take care of the entire flow. We even create professional invoices for your administration but also your buyer's administration on your behalf. So you literally don't have to do anything. Except negotiating of course if you don't work with Buy-now prices.

6: 12-month installment plan to increase your liquidity and sales ratio. For a lot of starters, it's too expensive to purchase a domain for four, five or six figures. We provide installments directly on your for sales page so your buyer can opt for that option and checkout instantly to initiate the transaction. We take care of all hassle ranging from creating the legal document all the way to payment collection and payouts.

We've seen very aggressive growth in sales with a payment plan. And the beauty of this model is that it's risk-free for sellers. For example, when a buyer doesn't pay his 3rd installment we turn the contract in a rental agreement and you keep the received payments and the domain.

Besides that, we also see that hardly any installment acquisitions take 12-month. Most are fully paid off well before that. As buyers develop your domain they get very invested in the name and tend to want to pay off the remaining installments in one go.

7: Support team that's very responsive. We also keep track of all support inquiries in the weekend and make sure transaction related inquiries are always answered to make sure your buyers don't drop off during the weekend.

And there's plenty more than the above that we provide. We've never aimed to be a vitamin in this market but a real painkiller. That's what we do and always continue to do.

Kind regards,
Reza

That's awesome Reza. I'm very impressed with your response. I'm going to move some of my domains over at Undeveloped and will see how that goes. I have a feeling I might move my entire portfolio there.

I'm particularly impressed that you do invoices for each transaction and the Adyen service. I'm from the UK, can this make payouts to uk banks and is it straightforward?

Thanks
 
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That's awesome Reza. I'm very impressed with your response. I'm going to move some of my domains over at Undeveloped and will see how that goes. I have a feeling I might move my entire portfolio there.

I'm particularly impressed that you do invoices for each transaction and the Adyen service. I'm from the UK, can this make payouts to uk banks and is it straightforward?

Thanks

Thanks for the kind words Peace800! It gets even better for sellers like you. We even take care of charging the correct VAT amount if you're a business seller and forward the VAT with the purchase price to you. Charging the correct VAT and invoicing the right percentage is a hassle and nightmare for any e-commerce site. We've automated all that for our sellers, so you don't need to manually issue an invoice to your buyer post-transaction.

Have a great Sunday,
Reza
 
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That's awesome Reza, thanks.

Just a couple of quick questions:

1. Is there an option to remove the domain traffic stats on the landing page?

2. Does Adyen support payments to uk sellers in uk banks?

3. Are all sales reported? If we sell a domain do we get the option not to disclose the sale price publicly?

4. Are you guys brokers too and get involved in negotiations or is it just between seller and buyer? I don't mind you guys getting involved in negotiations if it helps sell a domain.

Thanks
 
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That's awesome Reza, thanks.

Just a couple of quick questions:

1. Is there an option to remove the domain traffic stats on the landing page?

2. Does Adyen support payments to uk sellers in uk banks?

3. Are all sales reported? If we sell a domain do we get the option not to disclose the sale price publicly?

4. Are you guys brokers too and get involved in negotiations or is it just between seller and buyer? I don't mind you guys getting involved in negotiations if it helps sell a domain.

Thanks

Here you go:

1: Yes head to your settings. You can add/remove all elements on your for sales page. You can also set that the traffic stats only show if your domain has +100 visitors.

2: For sure. We support payments/payouts to almost all countries in the world.

3: No, we usually don't report sales.

4: We'd prefer our sellers to handle all negotiations only when you feel a deal is not going to happen you can always request us to kick in to still get the deal done.

Kind regards,

Reza
 
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Thanks for the kind words Peace800! It gets even better for sellers like you. We even take care of charging the correct VAT amount if you're a business seller and forward the VAT with the purchase price to you. Charging the correct VAT and invoicing the right percentage is a hassle and nightmare for any e-commerce site. We've automated all that for our sellers, so you don't need to manually issue an invoice to your buyer post-transaction.

Have a great Sunday,
Reza

On this note, Any chance you can add support for GST for sellers from India? And do you provide FIRC (https://www.paypal.com/in/webapps/mpp/firc-certificate or https://www.icicibank.com/business-...ce/foreign-inward-remittance-certificate.page )?

Thanks
 
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What is the minimum charge for every sale & how much is wire transfer fees for disbursement of funds to sellers ?
 
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On this note, Any chance you can add support for GST for sellers from India? And do you provide FIRC (https://www.paypal.com/in/webapps/mpp/firc-certificate or https://www.icicibank.com/business-...ce/foreign-inward-remittance-certificate.page )?

Thanks

Hi Anant,

I'll review with our team the requirements to enable GST for Sellers from India. Hopefully we can use a library which should make it not a too big of a project.

Also if you can send me an example FIRC you've used in the past via our support channel I'll look into that as well.

Kind regards,
Reza
 
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What is the minimum charge for every sale & how much is wire transfer fees for disbursement of funds to sellers ?

We have no minimum charge and don't charge any additional fees other than the flat commission rate for disbursement of funds via a wire. However you could get charged a fee by your bank for receiving an international wire. That fee is determined by your bank.
 
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I have recently pointed 120+ names to undeveloped....
 
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@Undeveloped

your site buy now not working with mobile and sale activity message cant be sent from mobile, pls fix it.
 
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How can you convince me that there is any difference between my own landing page and being on undeveloped using your landing pages? Even Uniregistry has an option to use their landing pages and pay zero commission.

When I get a chance I’ll upload all my domains to undeveloped. I will not use your landing pages. If I get regular offers then I’ll be a believer that there are buyers actually searching for domains on undeveloped versus finding domains solely by landing on my URL.

At Afternic, Sedo and DomainAgents I get offers constantly and I do not use their landing pages.

I also get offers constantly via my own landing page (which is connected to all my domains).
 
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@Undeveloped

your site buy now not working with mobile and sale activity message cant be sent from mobile, pls fix it.

Hi John,

We had already received your message via support. Both bugs you mention we can't reproduce. We also see multiple buy-nows every hour. We need more information from you to be able to find the cause. We'll continue this chat via support.

Kind regards
 
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I don't think you can or even want to be convinced to be honest. If you compare what we offer with your own setup and don't see and observe the difference then that's that.

How can you convince me that there is any difference between my own landing page and being on undeveloped using your landing pages? Even Uniregistry has an option to use their landing pages and pay zero commission.

When I get a chance I’ll upload all my domains to undeveloped. I will not use your landing pages. If I get regular offers then I’ll be a believer that there are buyers actually searching for domains on undeveloped versus finding domains solely by landing on my URL.

At Afternic, Sedo and DomainAgents I get offers constantly and I do not use their landing pages.

I also get offers constantly via my own landing page (which is connected to all my domains).
 
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Either there is independent traffic at undeveloped or there is not. I have all my domains posted at Uniregistry (do not use their landing pages), and finally, very recently I got one inquiry there. That tells me that there are very few people searching for domains at UR. However as I mentioned, at Afternic, SEDO and DomainAgents, I get offers all the time, which means that many people are searching for domains at those sites and their partners.


I don't think you can or even want to be convinced to be honest.

I'm a salesman, you gotta be full of the joys of spring no matter what sort of customers come at you or what they say.:angelic:
 
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Either there is independent traffic at undeveloped or there is not. I have all my domains posted at Uniregistry (do not use their landing pages), and finally, very recently I got one inquiry there. That tells me that there are very few people searching for domains at UR. However as I mentioned, at Afternic, SEDO and DomainAgents, I get offers all the time, which means that many people are searching for domains at those sites and their partners.

I'm a salesman, you gotta be full of the joys of spring no matter what sort of customers come at you or what they say.:angelic:

Even after 3 times? :)

I'm afraid people will get bored if I keep repeating myself. Besides that, sometimes you have to be realistic. You're so invested in the current setup that you've built that it's impossible to convince you. Because you really want me to I give it a final try and pitch from a different angle than you've seen. I'll review your site right now and provide feedback (which you likely won't agree with).

Since 2012 you've been developing and maintaining your own site: http://www.xynames.com and created a form to submit offers: http://www.xynames.com/contact.html

My very first impression as a buyer is that your entire setup lacks a trust layer for buyers to directly do business with you. There won't be many buyers that will trust doing business with you directly. Unless your average sale price is very low. So I see you've therefore included information on your own site that buyers can also submit offers anonymously via Sedo and other marketplaces. So you're literally sending buyers from your own setup to the marketplaces that you've listed on your own buyer acquisition funnel. Which means you still end up paying a commission over those sales as you forward buyers to commission based marketplaces. If you compare your own sales with the sales you have on those marketplaces, I bet the average sale price is much higher on those marketplaces.

Now let's say you have a sale directly with a buyer that for some reason doesn't appreciate having an escrow party in between of the transaction.

How do you collect payments? How much time goes into convincing the buyer you are actually legit? Who makes the invoices? Who sends the payment reminders and who takes care of the domain transfer and so on?

It's you. In the end, you're paying more than 9% in commission to handle all this with your own time, effort and so on. Your own time is also worth money. You could have spent your time on other activities.

If we even break up how much margin is left for Undeveloped when we charge 9% you'll find out that the margin is very slim.

1: We host your for sales pages at AWS (Amazon) with instances all over the world to ensure fast loading for your buyers. This is pricey.

2: We pay on average a commission of 3% to Paypal, Mastercard, Visa etc to collect your payments. You likely accept payments only via Paypal. So that's already 3%/4% commission paid to Paypal.

3: We insure all your sales. If there's a chargeback Undeveloped takes the hit, not you. When you sell an expensive domain and you aren't insured to chargebacks that not a good position to be in. If you even have 1 of these every year you'll end up losing more money than paying Undeveloped a commission for this.

4: We take care of the entire escrow process. This requires at least one escrow agent to guide your transaction(s) and that person has to be paid as well. Your time is worth money. If you do this yourself, you're spending money instead of outsourcing this to an escrow service like Undeveloped.

5: We continuously improve our product and invest heavily in product development with an entire engineering team so you don't have to.

Honestly, I can continue writing a whole book about what we do for that little 9% commission and there's absolutely no way you can convince me that it makes any sense to build your own marketplace or for sales page and be better of revenue-wise if you do so. If you take everything into account our 9% is very little and an individual domainer can't cut away those costs. It may seem like that but you're really stealing from your own pocket by not using a marketplace.

Undeveloped literally gives you the opportunity to lease a state of the art domain marketplace and get full support for a little success fee that you only pay when you sell a name with us. If the 9% is really too much. Why not increase your buy now prices with 9% and still use a more advanced and professional marketplace than your own? How do you even manage your domain portfolio currently? Have you built an entire admin backend?

The only reason Undeveloped can offer all the services at a low commission rate of 9% is because we make volume. We have invested and keep investing a lot to create the marketplace that you can use today, which is completely not comparable to what you've built yourself.

Kind regards,
Reza
 
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Even after 3 times? :)

I'm afraid people will get bored if I keep repeating myself. Besides that, sometimes you have to be realistic. You're so invested in the current setup that you've built that it's impossible to convince you. Because you really want me to I give it a final try and pitch from a different angle than you've seen. I'll review your site right now and provide feedback (which you likely won't agree with).

Since 2012 you've been developing and maintaining your own site: http://www.xynames.com and created a form to submit offers: http://www.xynames.com/contact.html

My very first impression as a buyer is that your entire setup lacks a trust layer for buyers to directly do business with you. There won't be many buyers that will trust doing business with you directly. Unless your average sale price is very low. So I see you've therefore included information on your own site that buyers can also submit offers anonymously via Sedo and other marketplaces. So you're literally sending buyers from your own setup to the marketplaces that you've listed on your own buyer acquisition funnel. Which means you still end up paying a commission over those sales as you forward buyers to commission based marketplaces. If you compare your own sales with the sales you have on those marketplaces, I bet the average sale price is much higher on those marketplaces.

Now let's say you have a sale directly with a buyer that for some reason doesn't appreciate having an escrow party in between of the transaction.

How do you collect payments? How much time goes into convincing the buyer you are actually legit? Who makes the invoices? Who sends the payment reminders and who takes care of the domain transfer and so on?

It's you. In the end, you're paying more than 9% in commission to handle all this with your own time, effort and so on. Your own time is also worth money. You could have spent your time on other activities.

If we even break up how much margin is left for Undeveloped when we charge 9% you'll find out that the margin is very slim.

1: We host your for sales pages at AWS (Amazon) with instances all over the world to ensure fast loading for your buyers. This is pricey.

2: We pay on average a commission of 3% to Paypal, Mastercard, Visa etc to collect your payments. You likely accept payments only via Paypal. So that's already 4% commission paid to Paypal.

3: We insure all your sales. If there's a chargeback Undeveloped takes the hit, not you. When you sell an expensive domain and you aren't insured to chargebacks that not a good position to be in. If you even have 1 of these every year you'll end up losing more money than paying Undeveloped a commission for this.

4: We take care of the entire escrow process. This requires at least one escrow agent to guide your transaction(s) and that person has to be paid as well. Your time is worth money. If you do this yourself, you're spending money instead of outsourcing this to an escrow service like Undeveloped.

5: We continuously improve our product and invest heavily in product development with an entire engineering team so you don't have to.

Honestly, I can continue writing a whole book about what we do for that little 9% commission and there's absolutely no way you can convince me that it makes any sense to build your own marketplace or for sales page and be better of revenue-wise if you do so. If you take everything into account our 9% is very little and an individual domainer can't cut away those costs. It may seem like that but you're really stealing from your own pocket by not using a marketplace.

Undeveloped literally gives you the opportunity to lease a state of the art domain marketplace and get full support for a little success fee that you only pay when you sell a name with us. If the 9% is really too much. Why not increase your buy now prices with 9% and still use a more advanced and professional marketplace than your own? How do you even manage your domain portfolio currently? Have you built an entire admin backend?

The only reason Undeveloped can offer all the services at a low commission rate of 9% is because we make volume. We have invested and keep investing a lot to create the marketplace that you can use today, which is completely not comparable to what you've built yourself.

Kind regards,
Reza

Definitely worth the 9 percent commision, I think. Even at the old 15 percent I would still choose Undeveloped over Sedo or Afternic any day.

And with all due respect to Efty, Undeveloped is just much smoother and offers better payment options.

Then there is the insurance part. Never even thought about that before...
 
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Thoughtful points. The issue of "credibility" never occurred to me as being an issue, because no inquirer ever brought it up, I close sales regularly from landing page inquiries, and I am offered domains to broker weekly, so people must think I know what I am doing, which I do believe I do know what I am doing. :xf.smile: The current iteration of the XYNames website is not the only one, had a prior version at a different URL going back many years.

Anyway, I'll go back to undeveloped and see how I may upload all my domains, which are a couple thousand currently plus brokered ones. Let's see if there is any buyer traffic at undeveloped; I would be remiss in my diligence if I did not take it one step at a time.


Definitely worth the 9 percent commision, I think. Even at the old 15 percent I would still choose Undeveloped over Sedo or Afternic any day.

You must compare apples with apples. Compare Afternic/Sedo NOT using their landing pages with undeveloped, not using theirs. That is what I will test, soon.
 
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Thoughtful points. The issue of "credibility" never occurred to me as being an issue, because no inquirer ever brought it up, I close sales regularly from landing page inquiries, and I am offered domains to broker weekly, so people must think I know what I am doing, which I do believe I do know what I am doing. :xf.smile: The current iteration of the XYNames website is not the only one, had a prior version at a different URL going back many years.

Anyway, I'll go back to undeveloped and see how I may upload all my domains, which are a couple thousand currently plus brokered ones. Let's see if there is any buyer traffic at undeveloped; I would be remiss in my diligence if I did not take it one step at a time.




You must compare apples with apples. Compare Afternic/Sedo NOT using their landing pages with undeveloped, not using theirs. That is what I will test, soon.
No offense, but I think the main point you are missing is Undeveloped is a landing page solution. It is not trying to be a marketplace like Afternic/Sedo/etc.

Apples to apples would be you trying Undeveloped as your landing page solution for a reasonable amount of time - and then measuring if it makes sense for you to use them.

Just my unsolicited $0.02...

(edited for grammar)
 
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No offense, but I think the main point you are missing is Undeveloped is a landing page solution. It is not trying to be a marketplace like Afternic/Sedo/etc.

Apples to apples would be you trying Undeveloped as your landing page solution for a reasonable amount of time - and then measuring if it makes sense for you to use them.

Just my unsolicited $0.02...

(edited for grammar)
Agreed. I was going to say the same. Comparing Undeveloped to Afternic/Sedo is not apples to apples either
 
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There are two possible comparisons:

1. Compare undeveloped, using their landing pages, to a different marketing group, using their landing pages. (Or, I suppose you could compare undeveloped landing pages, to using your own landing pages.)

2. Compare undeveloped, not using their landing pages, to other marketing groups like Afternic, Sedo, DomainAgents, etc., not using their landing pages either. With this comparison you are able to compare undeveloped against multiple other sites, simultaneously.


If "Comparing Undeveloped to Afternic/Sedo is not apples to apples either," then that means...what? That Afternic and Sedo have a lot of buyer traffic and Undeveloped has none? What are you saying?

This discussion reminds me of:
Does Uniregistry marketplace get any exposure if you do not use their NS
https://www.namepros.com/threads/do...-exposure-if-you-do-not-use-their-ns.1025728/
 
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There are two possible comparisons:

1. Compare undeveloped, using their landing pages, to a different marketing group, using their landing pages. (Or, I suppose you could compare undeveloped landing pages, to using your own landing pages.)

2. Compare undeveloped, not using their landing pages, to other marketing groups like Afternic, Sedo, DomainAgents, etc., not using their landing pages either. With this comparison you are able to compare undeveloped against multiple other sites.


If "Comparing Undeveloped to Afternic/Sedo is not apples to apples either," then that means...what? That Afternic and Sedo have a lot of traffic and Undeveloped has none? What are you saying?

I don't know about you, but almost all my sales come from visitors to landing pages - not searches at Sedo, Afternic or Undeveloped.

Therefore, to me it is incredibly important to have a great-looking landing page without a lot of ads. And with Undeveloped offering installment plans, too, it is just difficult to beat them in my opinion.

Another thing is that I am VAT registered in the EU. To me it is a really big advantage that Undeveloped deals with the (potential) VAT that certain buyers need to pay. Sedo doesn't do that and it can be quite complicated.

But you are definitely right that you have to make the right comparisons.
 
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