What's up with all the lack of aftermarket UPDATES/INNOVATION in our Industry?

[tomcarl]

I give credit where is due: Undeveloped and Efty.

These are the only two sales platforms that are actually Trying! When I say trying, I mean they actually listen to feedback and bring something to the table that isn't dull and dated.

Everyone else? Sedo, Afternic, GoDaddy? Update something! It's been years.

At the end of the day, for a domain buyer, it's all about Trust. The big names have the Trust but lack everything else.

Afternic hasn't been updated in maybe a decade or more, you can't even view more than 50 domains at a time...Sedo's landing pages look like you stepped back into the year 1995, and aren't even optimized for mobile in the year 2019!

And GoDaddy? of all places, when are you going to actually offer investors real landing/sales pages to sell their domains with? And I don't mean the generic, tiny text link when using their default nameservers, I'm talking...a *real* landing/sales page? take a look at DomainMarket or HugeDomains and take note.

"If a buyer wants your domain and it's worth a lot, then hey, we're more trusted than anyone else to facilitate the sale, everything else? it is what it is."

 

[Sedo]

I give credit where is due: Undeveloped and Efty.

These are the only two sales platforms that are actually Trying! When I say trying, I mean they actually listen to feedback and bring something to the table that isn't dull and dated.

Everyone else? Sedo, Afternic, GoDaddy? Update something! It's been years.

At the end of the day, for a domain buyer, it's all about Trust. The big names have the Trust but lack everything else.

Afternic hasn't been updated in maybe a decade or more, you can't even view more than 50 domains at a time...Sedo's landing pages look like you stepped back into the year 1995, and aren't even optimized for mobile in the year 2019!

And GoDaddy? of all places, when are you going to actually offer investors real landing/sales pages to sell their domains with? And I don't mean the generic, tiny text link when using their default nameservers, I'm talking...a *real* landing/sales page? take a look at DomainMarket or HugeDomains and take note.

"If a buyer wants your domain and it's worth a lot, then hey, we're more trusted than anyone else to facilitate the sale, everything else? it is what it is."

Hey there, and thanks for the frank feedback everyone. It is true that especially in 2018 we lacked in innovations. The main reason for this was our data center move that we performed. It took a lot of time and effort and blocked other features. It was an important project though, since now we're able to move forward much quicker than before, and create features for our clients on a flexible and up-to-date technology basis.

I understand you're more talking about new features, and not about pricing or inventory, but allow us to recap what has been done in 2019 so far.

• We have waived the minimum commissions, so sellers can earn more revenue than before.
• We are constantly a/b testing our search and overall website. Just recently we tried out a new homepage with a different search bar placement, to find out if this results in more search queries for your domains.
• In our search, we removed the link to the offer details page and show a layer with the domain specifics instead. This is good for sellers, because the buyers won't be moving away from the search page like they did when clicking through to the the domain details page. That means users a more likely to see more of your domains that they could be interested in. In the end, your domains get longer and more exposure.
• We expanded our SedoMLS network and have new partners like Alibaba, or Xinnet, which is the second largest registrar in China, so your domains get more exposure.
• New users are now automatically standard certified, so they don't have another hurdle before they can start bidding on your domains.
• We launched expiringdomains.sedo.com. That might not sound too enticing for you as a seller right now, but on that site you can see that we display metrics that we don't show on our regular search page. We will evaluate what works best there and adapt more metrics to the Sedo search eventually.

We are working on a lot of more projects currently, but all I can say right now is that "Sedo doesn't offer a sales lander" shouldn't be an issue anymore by the end of the year, latest I know we promised to have this feature available before, but we weren't able to keep it. And for that we are sorry. But we're very confident that this time around we're on track with this feature.

Question from our side: Which landing page is not optimized for mobile devices? Can you tell us which one you're referring to? The parking pages are optimized for parking revenue. They might not look fancy, but they are optimized for ad clicks, not for sales, which works well (Also a/b tested continuously).
The domain detail pages are responsive, and the Sedo home page is responsive, too (before the log in).

Let us know what else you'd like to see at Sedo, and where do you think we should improve. Thanks again for the feedback, and talk to you soon.

 

[Hypersot]

When the only word that matters is 'money' then 'creativity' and 'innovation' is out of the door.

Thanks for bringing up that topic.

 

[Bernard Wright]

I've given a bit more thought to this thread. Undeveloped and Efty are relatively new-comers to the industry. Are we not witnessing and experiencing the common displacement of industry mainstays by more-innovative competitors, as has been seen in most industries? Twenty years ago, if I wanted to purchase a cell phone, my go-to brands would have been Nokia and Ericsson. Economy car: Maybe a Saturn! Maybe a Pointiac! What about that new Korean brand, Daewoo (remember them?). And look at how far Kia has come in the past two decades.

It is up to the consumers and participants in the market to recognize the added value of newcomers who do innovate. And it seems that many on NP are doing just that.

 

[Silentptnr]

I can and do deal with all of these companies although each one seems to have strengths and weaknesses.

What comes to mind for me is, why there isn't more budget used for advertising outside the domain investor community. GD has done some and I believe it is why the average consumer mainly knows GD.

Also, I dont know why we can't have more uniform pricing. Makes no sense to have to transfer names because renewals go so high. Or having to shop around for the best reg price.

What I would love is a complete domain investor management solution. I would love to have a single account where I can search and register domains, see traffic on my names, one click submission to marketplaces, one click transfers between registrars, one click landing page setup, one click auction submission, all linked to my PayPal or whatever. Add industry news, sales data, whois, etc. and it would be a winner for me.

Currently, unless I'm missing something, it's a lot of work for a domain investor.

I'll just add that some of the most trafficked sites like craigslist dont bother with aesthetics. It's because it's simple and basic. Average people like some and basic.

 

[xynames]

What's your opinion on uniregistry's marketplace? without the use of landers...

Since September 2017, I have listed my domains, all of them, approximately 1500, at UNDeveloped. During this same period of time I have listed all of my same domains at Afternic DomainAgents Sedo DynaDot Flippa Uniregistry marketplaces.

Coming up on the two year mark, I have sold a LOT of domains via Afternic DomainAgents Sedo, and received MANY price inquiries and MANY offers. I have also received MANY inquiries, MANY offers and some sales at DynaDot. I haven't sold much at Flippa and Uniregistry, but I do occasionally receive offers.

At UNDeveloped, the exact same domains have received during this nearly two year period only one joke of a hundred Euro offer, about a year ago, for a domain worth 150 times more than that.

The data, given that I have listed the EXACT same domains, during the EXACT same time period, in all of these different marketplaces, mean that Afternic DomainAgents Sedo DynaDot have the highest amount of buyers searching looking to buy in their marketplaces.

Below these would be Flippa and Uniregistry where I have received some sales and some offers.

At the very bottom is UNDeveloped marketplace, with zero sales and only one offer.

Based on my data their effectiveness as marketplaces would be more or less in this order, with Afternic at top and UNDeveloped at bottom:

Afternic
DomainAgents / Sedo (Lately Sedo is doing better, before DomainAgents was doing better)
DynaDot (available only if your domains are registered there, as all of mine are)
Flippa
Uniregistry
UNDeveloped


As long as they are all free marketplaces, and non-exclusive, I don't see the downside in listing in all of them. (Keep in mind though that you must have your domains registered at DynaDot to be in their marketplace, and all of my domains are registered at DynaDot.) But the results speak for themselves as far as which have more buyer traffic.


I use my own landing pages with my own FormMail.php submission form on them. I receive almost daily inquiries (at a minimum a few weekly) and steady sales via my own landing pages too.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I think arguably the biggest innovation in the past decade has been the emergence and success of the brandable marketplaces.They have provided an effective interface between domainers and startup owners. SquadHelp innovated with idea of group contributions to requests (as well as now traditional marketplace). I see more room for specialized brandable marketplaces.

As others have mentioned Efty is unique in what it offers for domain portfolio management and direct selling by the domainer. Efty continues to improve and innovate and will emerge.

Undeveloped, with arguably faster and more personal response to transactions and payout, acceptance of all TLDs (or almost all), no minimum commission, and fantastic landers different from what Sedo and Afternic offered was an innovation. They have probably been the push for recent improvements at both Sedo and Afternic. Apparently they are making a big announcement today (they posted on Twitter yesterday).

While its value is hotly debated, one can argue that the integration of automated valuation with Afternic/GD is an innovation. Stats show that for them it does result in more sales closing.

I think Park.io has shown there is a place for auction/sales platforms that cater to a narrow part of the market. I would like to see more of them.

I think Dofo is an important innovation, in that it is now easy to find domains across many different marketplaces in one search.

NameBio remains a vital tool, and the subscription plans have offered new abilities such as export, search for sales below $100, etc.

The UDRP rulings database is an important tool (note I have not used it personally).

I like a lot the direction NameWorth is going in with a strong link between different price levels and the probability and type of sale. They have overcome one of the problems with the older automated tools.

So while always room for lots more innovation, I think that a rather surprising amount of positive change has emerged over the years.

Bob

 

[lennco]

@Sedo

My one and only complaint with Sedo is it's outdated Landers.

They do not in anyway really push the fact that this domain is For Sale.
The Buy This Domain link is so small and off to the side that it can really be easy for a potential buyer to only see the all the ads and not see the offer link and just move on and we could lose a potential sale.

Their emphasis with these landers are still on Ads, how much do they actually make with these ads?
Is it really enough to sacrifice domain sales?

They should get rid of the ads and Only focus on Domain Sales.
The lander should be the Offer Page.
Its almost the year 2020 and Sedo's landers are still stuck in the early 2000s

Other then that, Sedo's service and Escrow are top notch...imho.

Most of my domains I have recently switched to my own landers using Domain Market Pro.
Anyone else using Domain Market Pro with any luck?

 

[tomcarl]

escrow.com is around 3%. Plus at least with escrow.com you have the option to make buyer pay these. No such option at UNDeveloped, correct? With my own sales, of which there have been many, one time buyer and I split the escrow.com fees, rest of time buyer has paid the fees, always, always.

UNDeveloped is basically for newbies who don't know better. I mean think about it, why would I pay 9% to a co. that provides nothing but a landing page and an escrow service, when I may pay ZERO percent to escrow.com and have my buyer pay the 3% escrow. That is a 12% swing against me for choosing UNDeveloped.

I did discuss the Epik free escrow here at length, there are a series of buyer unfriendly hurdles to overcome, but if you may get past these, yes, it is free:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/if...-wasting-time-and-money.1119508/#post-7076570

Undeveloped 9% buy now commission covers payment collection, domain transfer, customer support, and post-customer support, so it makes no sense to single them out for that when everyone else has higher fees even if the sale came through direct type-in.

Undeveloped support has consistently proven themselves to go the extra mile within reason whenever there has been the slightest issue, their escrow is faster than anyone else and I've used them all, and their domain/payment turnover speed is same/following business day. And my feedback is based on several transactions/experiences.

 

[FlipperC]

I say uniregistry too. They add new features and funtionality often.

I agree Bodis, Efty, Undeveloped.

 

[xynames]

I sell well and gets lots of inquiries via my own landing pages and via Afternic Sedo DomainAgents. Uniregistry few inquiries no sales in some time. UNDeveloped definitely at the bottom of the totem pole with one ridiculous rock bottom offer only and no other inquiries less than zero closed sales at UNDeveloped. UNDeveloped should change its name to UNSold.

Innovation doesn’t seem to translate to traffic. UNDeveloped marketplace remains deader than dead.

You guys who are sticking to UNDeveloped if you’re selling are selling only because of your own domains. Stop using UNDeveloped’s landing pages, instead upload your domains to their marketplace, and your UNDeveloped sales will drop to zero. You could use your own landing pages and you’d get exactly the same results as far visibility / exposure to buyers without paying 9% to UNDeveloped.

Bottom line is that whether innovating or not - Afternic Sedo and DomainAgents have actual potential buyers - lots of them - scouring their marketplaces. UNDeveloped - not so much.

 

[BrandableDomain]

“…we are launching the greatest piece of sales infrastructure ever launched to sell a domain name. Nobody innovates like Uni.”

Frank Schilling. Uniregistry. 8 Nov 2018

https://twitter.com/Frank_Schilling

ETA July/August 2019

- - - - - - - -

“In Mid-June we’ll announce it [a new domain name] directly here together with the launch of the best domain sales and monetization infrastructure ever built.”

Reza. Undeveloped. 28 May 2019

https://www.namepros.com/threads/undeveloped-com-experience.893201/page-87
(Comment # 2170)

ETA June 2019

 

[biggie]

a pig with lipstick, is still a pig

perfume on is still

quality sells, regardless of page design.

imo...

 

[capybara]

We absolutely need for-sale lander with no PPC links being displayed.

Sedo actually has pretty good for-sale page, which can be reached at URL like

https://sedo.com/search/details/?domain=mydomain.com

When I try domains I am interested in, I often see other other sellers using URL forwarding to such page. The issue here is that it is quite unjust to the sellers, as Sedo commission for these page is on the level of marketplace sales (15%), while it should be 10% as people essentially "bring their own buyers". Sedo's parking pages, which "should" be used to have 10% rate are so ugly and horrible that people opt out of using them, as more and more sellers understand they nothing but hurt sales.

@Sedo , could we have the ability to use these pages when parking, with 10% rate?

 

[capybara]

I mean think about it, why would I pay 9% to a co. that provides nothing but a landing page and an escrow service, when I may pay ZERO percent to escrow.com and have my buyer pay the 3% escrow. That is a 12% swing against me for choosing UNDeveloped.

Thats some weird math

I personally believe that it is not buyer-friendly to have commissions appear after the transaction begins. Buyer should see the price that will have to be paid from the start. Its the same with incoming requests (email/contact form) – I quote the price with escrow service included (and state so). Some people may even be going into debt when purchasing your domains, so even $100 of sudden extra could be a pain, not mentioning that it simply sucks.

So no matter which platform is being used, fees are included in the price. If I want to get 1K from a domain, I'll have it listed at 1.1K on Undeveloped. Its not me who'll have to pay fees, its the buyer.

You, the seller are Paying for all this innovation with no option to shift even a little bit of the burden to the buyer!

No, why? I totally fail to understand your reasons of seeing things this way. Why can't you adjust the listing price to your desired payout value like I do?

 

[Bernard Wright]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but there’s something about Afternic’s design that seems trustworthy to me. Perhaps it’s the green color, but what I attribute it most to is the “dated” feel of the design, ironically enough.

I actually just recently deleted my portfolio at Afternic because I don’t really care for their service. I’ve had my account for only a short period of time but even in that short period, I’ve been unimpresssed. So I’m going to use my own landers and Epik, where I’ve been more impressed by the service.

But again, to Afternic’s credit, something about the layout says “we’re established” and therefore “we’re trustworthy”.

 

[BRANDERX]

When the only word that matters is 'money' then 'creativity' and 'innovation' is out of the door.

Thanks for bringing up that topic.

My thought exactly, well said!!

 

[VaultTec]

I agree with you, especially with regards to sedo.

"guys we have big market share so let's not make any improvements and just collect commissions"
lol

Godaddy seems to be like this too. I tried their domain auctions app on my phone and you can't even search for domain names on it lol.

 

[Hypersot]

Thanks for the willingness to listen. Is there any registrar partner of SedoMLS which allows you to list domains for sale on SedoMLS right from within the registrar's website instead of the current approach of creating a TXT record and waiting for verification of ownership?

I think hexonet offer something similar. It's worth checking it out since they offer said feature for both Sedo's MLS and Afternic's Fast Transfer

edit:
just checked, here is an example:

 

[BRANDERX]

We are working on a lot of more projects currently, but all I can say right now is that "Sedo doesn't offer a sales lander" shouldn't be an issue anymore by the end of the year, latest I know we promised to have this feature available before, but we weren't able to keep it. And for that we are sorry. But we're very confident that this time around we're on track with this feature.
.

When is done, many lost sellers will return to you, & many others will stick around.

End of the year is 6 months away, but still, its good news. imo

 

[ResoluteDomains]

Hope you don't mind an off topic question, may I know which site allows detailed analytics? I tried UD's but I thought each ID from Google Analytics is only for 1 domain, and UD only allows input for 1 ID?

Bodis, Efty, Undeveloped have allowed Google Analytics. If you park at those places you will see that you can add a Google Analytics code and it will give you a wealth of information at who is looking at your names.

Example Bodis (others are very similarly implemented):

Others may also permit a GA code for tracking traffic but I am not aware of them. I am aware that Sedo doesnt. Also, Voodoo doesnt yet - hopefully soon..

 

[eternaldomains]

• We have waived the minimum commissions, so sellers can earn more revenue than before.

Just saw this when I logged into Sedo today:

So we are eliminating the minimum fee until the end of 2019.

Only this year? A little disappointing to know that.....

 

[Sedo]

Thanks for the willingness to listen. Is there any registrar partner of SedoMLS which allows you to list domains for sale on SedoMLS right from within the registrar's website instead of the current approach of creating a TXT record and waiting for verification of ownership?

These SedoMLS partner registrars offer what you're asking for:

• Fabulous.com
• Check Domain
• Hexonet
• RRPproxy
• World4you

You just need a registrar ID. Here's how to generate it in your account: https://sedo.com/faq/faq.php?language=us&faqid=4188 It's pretty straight forward.

 

[kriss05]

Hey there, and thanks for the frank feedback everyone. It is true that especially in 2018 we lacked in innovations. The main reason for this was our data center move that we performed. I took a lot of time and effort and blocked other features. It was an important project though, since now we're able to move forward much quicker than before, and create features for our clients on a flexible and up-to-date technology basis.

I understand you're more talking about new features, and not about pricing or inventory, but allow us to recap what has been done in 2019 so far.

• We have waived the minimum commissions, so sellers can earn more revenue than before.
• We are constantly a/b testing our search and overall website. Just recently we tried out a new homepage with a different search bar placement, to find out if this results in more search queries for your domains.
• In our search, we removed the link to the offer details page and show a layer with the domain specifics instead. This is good for sellers, because the buyers won't be moving away from the search page like they did when clicking through to the the domain details page. That means users a more likely to see more of your domains that they could be interested in. In the end, your domains get longer and more exposure.
• We expanded our SedoMLS network and have new partners like Alibaba, or Xinnet, which is the second largest registrar in China, so your domains get more exposure.
• New users are now automatically standard certified, so they don't have another hurdle before they can start bidding on your domains.
• We launched expiringdomains.sedo.com. That might not sound too enticing for you as a seller right now, but on that site you can see that we display metrics that we don't show on our regular search page. We will evaluate what works best there and adapt more metrics to the Sedo search eventually.

We are working on a lot of more projects currently, but all I can say right now is that "Sedo doesn't offer a sales lander" shouldn't be an issue anymore by the end of the year, latest I know we promised to have this feature available before, but we weren't able to keep it. And for that we are sorry. But we're very confident that this time around we're on track with this feature.

Question from our side: Which landing page is not optimized for mobile devices? Can you tell us which one you're referring to? The parking pages are optimized for parking revenue. They might not look fancy, but they are optimized for ad clicks, not for sales, which works well (Also a/b tested continuously).
The domain detail pages are responsive, and the Sedo home page is responsive, too (before the log in).

Let us know what else you'd like to see at Sedo, and where do you think we should improve. Thanks again for the feedback, and talk to you soon.

We absolutely need for-sale lander with no PPC links being displayed.

 

[tomcarl]

Sometimes frank feedback is the only thing that gets attention and brings change these days, unfortunately.

Only thing I want (for myself, for everyone) is for the big boys in our industry to continue move forward/get better with time, not standing stagnant while collecting commissions off of domains that can sell themselves anywhere they're posted.

And as I mentioned, I will give credit where it's due and I forgot to acknowledge that GoDaddy seems to be doing something lately with the new dashboard/afternic integration. So thank you @ GoDaddy for that. And Thanks @ Sedo for trying to get more activity going with taking away the $60 minimum, even for a short period of time.

a pig with lipstick, is still a pig

perfume on is still

quality sells, regardless of page design.

imo...

The Brandable-niche marketplaces have proven through the years that presentation counts (a lot) when not selling super premium domains, and when landers/dashboards haven't been updated in years yet commissions/sales keep rolling in from the premium stuff, the stuff that's selling itself and could've been sold anywhere, yet neglecting to evolve and put in better efforts to showcase and display the OK/brandable names in a better light, it can be upsetting.