Afternic.com in a press release, today announced an enhanced strategic partnership with GoDaddy.com that brings Afternic’s ‘Request Price’ domain names to Go Daddy customers.
Go Daddy, already offers Afternic’s premium domains with set ‘Buy Now’ prices (BIN) but now will display domain names that are not priced.
MostWantedDomains.com has been a beta tester of this service for about a week.
“The inclusion of Afternic’s ‘Request Price’ inventory expands the footprint of the premium domain aftermarket for both buyers and sellers.
“The premium domain names being added to the Go Daddy network as a result of this enhanced partnership are high-quality aftermarket domains that require a price inquiry to the domain owner.
“Go Daddy is always looking for more ways to provide the best possible experience for our customers and the addition of Afternic’s ‘Request Price’ domains will do just that,” said Paul Nicks, Director of Product Development for the Domain Aftermarket at Go Daddy.
“By putting more quality domain names in customer search results, it gives them the option to pay a little more for the domain name they want and gives a domain name seller a quick and fair transaction … it’s a win-win for everyone.”
The extended relationship with Go Daddy further enhances Afternic’s position as the world’s largest premium domain marketplace.
“Expanding our already successful relationship with Go Daddy by adding Afternic’s ‘Request Price’ domains to their inventory will allow domain owners the benefit of the tremendous exposure that Go Daddy’s market reach provides, effectively expanding the global reach of our network,” said Jason Miner, Chief Operating Officer at Afternic.”
“Afternic offers domain owners the opportunity to list their names for sale on its Domain Listing Service (DLS).
“The DLS aggregates all available domains for sale in the aftermarket, and displays them through a network of more than 90 resellers, including Go Daddy.”
Of course they’re teaming up. The little secret that domain sales, in the aggregate, have absolutely fallen throught the floor since the gTLD announcement might have something to do with this new union.
Domain investing is all but over for 90% of you. Your portfolios have fallen in value by 90% in less than two months, and you don’t even realize it yet.
Be well.
So how did the beta test go? Did you see many inquiries sourced from Godaddy via Afternic?
JP
We got several inquiries no sales yet but way too early to make any judgement on it
@Jakker – Where are you getting your data? Doesn’t match anything that we have or the published industry sales figures. June was an excellent month for the aftermarket overall, the fact that sales growth is overcoming seasonality and what should have been a slow summer month shows that the industry is still in growth mode.
I don’t agree with Jakker but most people I’ve spoke to have said it is slower this summer then last.
Of course, the publicly reported domain sales figures is a better gauge.
Premium domains are still selling (at lower prices), but mid-tier sales values are down substantially in a very short period of time. The trend line has been decimated – domaining is now a dead industry.
Don’t believe me? Ask MHB how his non-premium sales have been the past eight weeks – I’ll bet it’s down BIG TIME.
Sounds like a great idea.
How many domains are they offering this functionality with? Do you have to opt in or something?
Seems like that would be an awful lot of domains to have integrated at GoDaddy?
@MHB
I was only asking about inquiries anyway and it’s good to hear that this integration increased your inquiries. Thanks for the reply.
@Jakker – Again, would be interested in your data rather than referring to Mike’s sales but we run the largest premium domain reseller network in the world (Afternic) and our average sales price for Q2 was pretty much spot on for the previous year and premium domain sales were up double-digit percentages over previous quarter.
@Web Wise Forum – Yes we’re talking significant volume of domains which is why we’ve tested it very thoroughly with Go Daddy. Afternic partners will be opted in automatically as they do with all our distribution partners. They have the option to opt-out at their discretion.
The race to the bottom in domain pricing is being perpetuated by almost all of the Domain Marketplaces as they try to become “the McDonald’s of the industry” by going for sheer volume.
It is their business and they can do what they want. But, I despise getting these notices from Afternic that Demand that you log in and Set A Hard BIN price on your domian, just because someone “is not ready to make an offer” …but demands that you put a Buy It Now price on your domain.
All of this usually comes with a threat of removing your domain from their system if you do not set their demanded hard prices.
IF you decide to play their game and set a price that is somewhere in the 20K-25K range, they will then usually send an email Demanding that you LOWER your price.
So, after they demand that you set your buy it now price …then, demand that you lower your price …what happens.
Usually Nothing. This entire ordeal was likely caused by someone who was simply looking for extreme bargains. That someone was probably another domainer, rather than an end user.
At least Sedo allows sellers to use Make Offer and Minimum Offer as an option.
Most businesses include both Wholesale and Retail models.
The domain aftermarket has room for both wholesale-flipping-churning AND retail-end-user models. Hopefully, the future will bring in player(s) that concentrates on cultivating at least the entry level end user market, rather than continuing down the road of high volume – low prices.
I hope domaining isn’t a dead industry, it would make my Twitter handle meaningless – lol.
The DNJournal sales reports have been steady, last week was a little lean because of the July 4 holiday and Afternic didn’t get their names in. This week should be a longer report because Afternic will submit two weeks worth of data.
I think the fairly consistent DNJournal sales reports are a good indicator that the new gtlds aren’t going to wipe out the existing tlds. Why would people/companies still be spending thousands on domains every week, if they thought there was a threat from the gtlds, which are sill about a year away from reality?
The money people are still spending on domains speaks louder than anything else. I bet the average person isn’t even aware of the coming gtlds like we are.
As to the original post topic, it’s nice to see that not just Afternic domains with BIN prices can make it onto Godaddy. But there will probably be a lot of tire kickers and low balling going on, but sales should still increase.
A lot more deals are being concluded outside of the auction houses, and not being reported, up until last year a good 75% of my sales came via sedo/afternic, now that number has reversed as 75% of my sales are closed via direct contact link on landing page.
Bob
The data I’m seeing from both Afternic.com and Sedo.com, the overall numbers reported by DnJournal.com the total sales are holding steady but there are not as many six figure and certainly seven figure sales and we have seen in the past years.
Hey Mike how many have you sold through this beta ?
Adam
As I said above I haven’t sold any we have had a few inquiries but not long enough to even begin to make a call on it
Ask me in three months
Best
Michael
I dont think you can judge the domain market by 6 and 7 figure sales.
Domain sales in that range tend to trend with the overall economic climate.
@jakkar- the average end user domain buyer is likely not even aware of the new gTLD’s and have been programmed for years to buy .coms. It will take a huge marketing campaign to reprogram buyers to look into Gtlds. And when they do the confusion will drive them back to .com
Brian
Well I disagree, if the market has more sales at a lower dollar average or medium then it certainly says something.
I note SF comment above and it is in a way a race to the bottom where there maybe more sales and good dollar volume but for lower prices.
I know Sedo publishes quarterly and annual reports on its sales so when you see 47% of all transactions at $500 or less its troubling.
Not sure you guys publish such reports but if you do we are happy to publish them
Sedo sells in a WEEK (by sales value) about the sales price of a SINGLE 2 bed apartment in the swankier parts of Manhattan or London…sold by an average real estate broker/estate agent
And these properties are selling like hotcakes, never mind a week’s worth
Says it all about domaining:
..cottage industry…
..where for MOST domainers, domaining will only ever be a slightly lucrative hobby
Godaddy is pointless as a venue unless you like to sell domains for < $1000
No different to their Domain Buyer Agent service…full of pikers
Chances are anyone inquiring thru GD is a piker or tire-kicker
After all sending an anonymous inquiry to see your hand is free
There is a reason why Tiffany & luxury goods sellers don't sell their wares thru Wal-Mart
Tough to get around the PERCEPTION problem of the Godaddy venue (as well as Sedo, Afternic who also list shitty domains or $500 sales right on the homepage for all to see
Think about if Sothebys started as a venue listing Tier 1 domains..
The PERCEPTION would be totally different, with Sothebys lending a veneer of prestige & credibility to the product (domain)
Another weakness of these venues (Afternic/Sedo/GD etc) for the seller is that you don't know where the seller (as in email address) is coming from…totally blind sided
Good for venue & piker domainers, bad for domainers
@MHB
Hey I just got an offer via the GoDaddy/Afternic unpriced domains thing this article is written about.
Aggro,
I don’t think anything you are saying is true, last year I sold a fresh hand reg name for $10K via godaddy prem listing, and since it’s inception I have sold about 30 names or so, into 6 figures, most names you probably wouldn’t pay more than $50 for, selling in 4 figures.
Also the DomainBuy Service has worked well, I have sold many nice mid 4 figure domains, including a good offer I countered last week, which hopefully closes this week. Given this is a secondary business, they handle it really well, then again, they receive the most traffic volume from people looking to register domains.
It is the sales that are not reported that would boggle your mind, I am sure of that, sorry you got in to late, and seem to have had a bad experience, but if you used the credit crunch of 2008/2009 to purchase, you would have made off like a bandit now.
JP
Congrats hope you sell the domain
Let us know
Aggro – been reading your real estate analogy in the last two three posts here, there is a fallacy in your statements there, at least in my mind.
If you own a lot of apartments, you’re already rich, just like the top 1% of domainers and if you sell one apartment a year, that’s just icing on the rentals you’re already making on the rest of them.
If you sell apartments for other people, you only make 1% or thereabouts per sale, so it would take you 100 x million $$ sales to clear a million dollars in revenue, you’d require a lot less as a domain broker to reach the same figure since percentage commisions are much higher in domain sales.
While the prices seem to have gone down the market appears to be gaining liquidity. I think that more liquidity in the domain market is a good thing.
Im troubled by the people that spam me offering me names similar to names I own, while at the same time I get an enquiry for the similar name I own listed at Afternic, and they REQUIRE I post a BIN. It’s obviously the spammer who is trying to sell me a similar name trying to find out how I value my name. Pretty lame.
@ John
They are from India, and they register via dynadot, next time you get one forward it to dynadot spam, and get them to seize their account, and domains.
They think just because they are in india, nobody can touch them.
@Tom,
No, it’s not just those guys from India. Here’s an email I received today:
Hello,
Our company is putting the domain name signatureprivate.com back on the market. We noticed that you own a similar domain and that
this offer might be of interest to your company. You can express interest for this domain by filling out this short form:
http://htnames.net/acquire/hgag/ABRztOqWDR
Or you can simply reply to this e-mail and our staff will enter your offer in to our system.
Here are a few quick notes about the offer:
-We are offering the domain for sale not rent. You get full ownership and control over it.
-No up-sells or re-bills or nasty surprises, you pay only what you bid.
-You do not have to buy a new website or hosting with this. Hosting has nothing to do with buying a domain.
-We will not give away your personal information to anybody under any circumstance.
-You can easily redirect traffic from this new domain to your existing website.
-Our technical team stands at your disposal for any transfer/redirect issue you may have.
Thank you for considering our domain services!
Please feel free to call us any time we would be really happy to hear from you!
Kind regards,
Domain Team
———————————————————————————————
The email address was sales@htnames.net and whois says this domain they’re spamming me with is held at Hugedomains.com. Is this Huge Domains sending these emails or another party? Either way, it’s a pitiful way to market and it is spam, IMO.
Beware:
First lied then bullied.
I received an email stating BD/Afternic had a buyer for one of my domains ( it turned to be a LIE) and they needed BIN price ASAP to which I responded: “I am entertaining offers above x”… the Broker responded by saying: “if you don’t provide us with BIN price We will delete the domain from our system and if you repeat this practice (not offering BIN) we will remove all your domains from our system”
What the “BD broker” doesn’t know is that Afternic MLS premium (the sister company) where I originally listed the domain doesn’t allow to price domains over 20k (the domain in question IMO is worth at least 50k) … terrible reflection on management and the fact that they were never able to truly merge their systems after the purchase of Old Afternic, “Culture clash” was obvious to me since day one …
I asked them to close my account.
You can smell BD /Afternic desperation a mile away, with their sales in obvious decline having to resort to “car salesman” tactics, I feel they are hiring just about anybody aggressive enough to make some sales and get listings at whatever cost.
While adding more offers to GoDaddy’s homepage may be an indication that GoDaddy is trying to offer more opportunities to both sellers and buyers, GoDaddy first _should_ fix current technical issues they often have. For example, earlier today, during at least a few hours, NONE of domains I have listed through GoDaddys own “premium listings” were available for purchase, even though the listings were and are active as per my GoDaddy account. I made some checks and found that likely all “premium listings” enabled by all GoDaddy’s direct customers were affected. Only external listings like those of BuyDomains own non-GoDaddy portfolio were offered. And, this happens frequently. Also, if and when I enable a _new_ premium listing – it may appear as available for purchase after the direct domain search at GoDaddy homepage and later disappear and later appear again, etc, etc.