Undeveloped.com Experience

[JudgeMind]

Has anyone used undeveloped.com to sell domains? They claim to be able to increase a domainers sales by 54%.

 

[DAN.COM]

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

 

[DAN.COM]

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.

 

[Branded Domains]

I have recently pointed 120+ names to undeveloped....

 

[Domain Monk]

@Undeveloped

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

 

[xynames]

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).

 

[DAN.COM]

@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

 

[DAN.COM]

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).

 

[xynames]

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.

 

[DAN.COM]

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.

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

 

[Embrand]

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...

 

[xynames]

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. 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.

 

[Michael M]

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. 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)

 

[anantj]

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

 

[xynames]

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/

 

[Embrand]

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.

 

[Michael M]

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?

I can only tell you that from my point of view I could care less if the "Undeveloped marketplace" has any traffic coming to it.

I use Undeveloped for my landing pages and as a payment solution with low commission. I still list at Afternic and Sedo. I get the best of both worlds.

I could make my own landing pages but I would still have to have a payment processor and/or escrow service. Once you factor in my time - for me it makes since @ 9% to use Undeveloped to host my landers.

I just don't understand the crusade to corner Undeveloped into saying they aren't as good as a marketplace when their focus is the Landing Page. But to each their own...

 

[xynames]

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

I would say, lately, about 1/3 of closed sales come from my own landing page, about 2/3 from Afternic, DynaDot marketplace, Sedo, DomainAgents, etc.

There are also sales I make from outbound inquiries, and from existing clients that have hired me to find a domain for them, etc. - those are not included in the above figures.

As far as inquiries/offers, I would say it's about 50-50, my landing pages versus those marketplaces.

I could make my own landing pages but I would still have to have a payment processor and/or escrow service.

My buyers pay all escrow fees, so it is just time. Even when they pay me directly, they pay extra to compensate for transaction costs. My average sale is mid four figures, so 9% versus a little time to set up an escrow, is worth my time!

I can see how if you have many smaller sales, okay, then 9% versus the time spent on each escrow, would be something.

 

[Michael M]

My buyers pay all escrow fees, so it is just time. My average sale is mid four figures, so 9% for a little time to set up an escrow, is worth my time!

I can see how if you have many smaller sales, okay, then 9% versus the time spent on each escrow, would be something.

I am sure Undeveloped is not for everyone...

By time - I meant my time to create and maintain my own marketplace and landing pages. One day I may decide to do that, but for now I am happy with their landing pages and payment solution. Maintenance on a website to stay up to date, "in style", properly SEOed, etc - is very time consuming if given the right amount of attention.

In my case I leave the landing page up to Undeveloped, exposure up to other marketplaces, and my focus on my domain acquisition.

There are many big profile holders who mainly list and land their names on Sedo/Afternic/Uniregistry/etc and pay 15% or more in commission. Some people have hundreds to thousands of domains at brandable marketplaces and pay 30% - and those marketplaces have exclusivity.

So, different people have different thresholds and tolerances when it comes to who we choose to do business with and why - and different ideas of how we should structure our business model.

IMO - I think Undeveloped is a viable option for many... But wont be the right choice for all.

 

[DAN.COM]

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. 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.

I can safely say that our for sales pages convert better than any parking page that Afternic or Sedo offer. None of the volume players (domainers) that switched from Sedo to us have switched back because we simply deliver more value.

You don't need to park with Afternic or Sedo to get value from them. We even have more domains parked with us than Afternic has. The simple reason for that is that Afternic's inventory is pushed at Godaddy and we all know that Godaddy has a lot of search traffic. So definitely list your domains there for that purpose.

If Godaddy would publish our inventory in their search as well we would perform much better than Afternic. That's why Godaddy kicked Sedo's inventory out of their search when they acquired Afternic. It's their secondary market play and they'd like to keep it exclusive to their own brand.

Same goes for Sedo. They were the first real domain marketplace (search engine) and gained a lot of traction in a virgin market. They're still reaping the benefits of being that first mover in our space. They actually defined most of the secondary market and deserve credits for that. I used to use them before Undeveloped as well. However, they remained idle for too long and now have to cope with a lot of technical debt which prevents them from innovating.

Also when AdLINK Group acquired Sedo they wanted to tap into the domain traffic your domains bring in to serve their ads. PPC used to be great but today isn't anymore. So that's also keeping them behind in terms of moving away from the old model and introducing a new.

I would still use Sedo to monetize all my typo traffic but I wouldn't keep a single sellable domain parked there as that hurts your domain sales.

So to conclude, yes we definitely compete with Sedo directly and in a sense also with Afternic aka Godaddy. I suggest Undeveloped sellers to list their domains on both platforms. Every sale you can get be it via your for sales page or not is welcome. But our added value goes well beyond being able to leverage an already established brand. So list with every single marketplace you can find out there that's reliable but park with the company that can add even more value. If you're selling 10 domains a month while having your domains listed with Sedo/Afternic and parked with either of them you can only increase that number by listing and parking with us.

PS: sorry for the long post again.

 

[DAN.COM]

I just don't understand the crusade to corner Undeveloped into saying they aren't as good as a marketplace when their focus is the Landing Page. But to each their own...

I agree Michael. Our marketplace isn't any less than Afternic's for example. However, they have the exclusive advantage of being part of Godaddy and being able to publish their domain inventory in front of all searches conducted at Godaddy for domains.

Put Undeveloped's inventory there and you'd have the same effect. But we're not part of Godaddy and nor will Godaddy publish our inventory in their stream.