How many domains have you sold with Afternic so far?

**Jamie Says**
I guess it depends on how you look at it. I haven’t been using them long, but I have sold 3 domains total on Afternic. One, I would consider they sold, as the other 2, I sent the interested party to the listing after they contacted me via email.

Good investigative work, Jamie. It’s hard to argue against the stats unless the 3rd party domains are not as high in quality or are listed for too much but your personal example disproves that.

yup.. I just found this out several months ago too. Thats why most people use Sedo instead of Afternic.

**Jamie Says**
The problem I see with Sedo is they do not advertise like Afternic does. This can really hurt your sale price. Plus Sedo customer service is for the birds! Yes You Erich!

Jamie,

You have failed to add a key ingredient to your research which is critical and answers most of your questions. Almost all domains listed by buydomains/name media have a buy it now. This is a powerful feature. In todays market, Buyers do not want to haggle with auctions, especially domain flippers. They want an upfront price that they can make an informed decision with after conducting research on a name for ROI and buydomains delivers this. Domain flippers love this option. I have bought several of names from buydomains just because of this and skipped out from many auction alternatives because it is just too much hassle. All sellers think their domains are valuable and most will not negotiate under 10% of their asking price. Buydomains has very realistic prices for great names.

The problem is most sellers have unrealistic prices, expectations, poor communication skills (BIG ONE) and fail to understand buyers when listing names for sale.

It is easy to point the finger at buydomain’s successful gameplan that also owns the auction platform. However, instead of doing this, I would recommend researching the strategies they are using to sell 85 names in one week and compare that with what you are doing as a seller. I think a great deal can be learned from this approach.

It also comes down to quality, no doubt about it. Have you really taken the time to see all the garbage listed on all the auction platforms? This is why many domains do not sell on auction platforms. Mike Mann put together a premium portfolio for Name Media when he sold. He had vision, and understood what names sell based on years of experience. It is not by mistake or luck they are finding buyers for their domains weekly. Many of their names deliver, and deliver with a buy it now strategy.

While they may upsell names in their portfolio during phone calls(I have no clue if they do this), this is only a very small amount. I would guess that 95% of their sales occur directly thru the websites buydomains.com and afternicdls.com.

Selling domains is a skill, which takes alot of work to master. Those big time domainers understand the market, know how to communicate, and know from experience what sells and what doesn’t. This is why we see many of the same people selling names all the time. Rick Latona is another good example of someone who knows how to sell domains and knows what sells. Again, all his names are the same strategy, buy it now price. Most domainers still have not mastered this skill, and will remain optimistic that all their domains are valuable and will not sell for a penny less than auction starting price.

**Jamie Says**
Thank you Steve for your posting. I do agree on several of your points. Quality is a huge factor and pricing/posting a price is also key! One of my points about my post, was the question… Are user submitted domains put second to BuyDomains.com domains? I know there would never be a clear answer to this, but it sure looks like it could be that way.

“I would recommend researching the strategies they are using to sell 85 names in one week and compare that with what you are doing as a seller.”

A couple easy answers to this.. Own 850K domains. Have a big sales force. Advertising!

The reason I list my domains with Afternic is because I researched the strategies they use. The facts are they advertise to small businesses, which are end users. The same people I want to buy my domains and the reason I offer Afternic 10-20% if they sell one of my domains. I just want my domains to have a fair shot against theirs.

In RE to: I’m Just Saying article, BINGO!

@ Steve: What I’m most disgusted about is how they report all these sales to DN Journal in an effort to mislead domainers into thinking Afternic has way better luck selling your domains than it actually does.

I have my own new marketplace — I don’t BS it by getting my private sales listed on DN Journal as if they occured on BQB.com.

That’s pathetic.

Adam from Afternic here. We’re very happy that our service are being discussed of course, but I just want to jump in to clarify some information.

First, our sales team is compensated the same whether it is one of our names or an AfternicDLS members’ Expanded Promotion name. They have as much incentive to sell one of your names as one of NameMedia’s.

And they talk with over 100,000 buyers each year. They have deep networks. Listing your name with Expanded Promotion gets your domain into their hands. Then make sure you leverage your sales executive once you’ve signed up.

The result is that we consistently see higher ASPs on Expanded Promotion domains . Recently, expanded promotion ASPs have been 43% higher than Basic. And this success is translating into more listings : we also recently exceeded 3,000,000 names on Afternic, but our copy has not caught up. It will be in an upcoming site edit.

Jeff and Steve both upon a key point in their comments – most of NameMedia’s domains have Asking Prices. We always advise members to price their domains – it only increases the chances of sale. Many buyers do prefer domains with Asking Prices. There’s no downside to setting an Asking Price, a buyer could submit a different offer to you on Afternic if they really don’t like your Asking Price. But it helps your negotiations by setting parameters, provides opportunities for immediate sales, and demonstrates a level of seriousness on the part of the seller. If you choose Expanded Promotion, your Asking Prices also show up on BuyDomains, further increasing you’re the odds of making a sale. I’ve put some links to Pricing and Expanded Promotion best practices we have posted at the bottom of this post.

Another issue that came up is our sales reporting to DNJournal, in which we do report all of our brands together. We have an obligation to our members to keep their sales private if they request. So, as a result, DNJournal does not include all member-listed sales. A disproportionate number of brokered sales are kept private as compared to sales of our NameMedia owned domain sales. When we sell one of NameMedia’s names, there’s only one party who can request the sale be kept private (since as the seller, we’re happy to disclose as many as possible). With member-listed domains, there’s two parties who can request the sale be made private.

As for our search, “Afternic Rank” is a setting on Afternic’s search that was there well before NameMedia acquired Afternic. Users can sort the search results through a variety of means.

http://afternicdlsblog.com/2008/06/11/pricing-your-names-increases-likelihood-of-sale/

http://afternicdlsblog.com/2007/12/03/best-practices-selling-domain-names-on-afternicdls/

http://afternicdlsblog.com/2007/11/21/how-afternic%e2%80%99s-reserve-prices-help-you-sell/

http://afternicdlsblog.com/2007/10/19/expanded-promotion-best-practice-increase-sales-by-responding-quickly-to-offers/

Is this really surprising? Of course Afternic is going to try and sell their own names before others. I’d do the same thing myself, I think most people would, they aren’t a charity.

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