More eyeballs and more sales.
This morning Afternic announced an expanded deal with Go Daddy to distribute its non-fixed price domain sales listings through the registrar.
Here’s what this means for you…
The Afternic deal will help you get more of your domain names on to the most valuable end user shelf space in the world: Go Daddy’s registration path.
“Registration path” basically refers to the search results page when you search for a domain at GoDaddy.com.
Before today there were three ways your domain could be advertised for sale on the Go Daddy registration path:
1. List your domain for sale with a Go Daddy Premium Listing or a Go Daddy Auction. A Premium Listing lets a customer buy your domain in the GoDaddy.com shopping cart and have the domain instantly transferred into their account. If the domain is listed on Go Daddy Auctions instead then the customer has to click through to the auction system whee they can complete the purchase without instant transfer.
2. List your domain with a fixed price on Afternic at its DLS Premium level. The domain will show up in the registration path but the customer has to click over to Go Daddy Auctions to buy the domain. There’s no instant transfer.
3. List your domains with a fixed price on Sedo with its MLS Premium level. Purchases are handled similar to with Afternic; customers make the purchase through Go Daddy Auctions.
The new deal with Afternic means that domains you list on Afternic without a fixed price are now displayed in the Go Daddy registration path. Go Daddy customers who want to purchase your domain will click over to Go Daddy Auctions where they’ll be asked to make an offer on your domain.
The Go Daddy customer uses the standard offer/counter-offer system offered by Go Daddy. Afternic sellers use the Afternic dashboard to review offers, change their asking price, etc. There’s obviously no instant transfer capability since it’s a negotiated sale.
This is definitely a win for Afternic sellers that haven’t affixed a price to all of their domains.
One final note. It may seem obvious but I figured it was worth clarifying: if you list your domains on both Go Daddy and Afternic, Go Daddy will default to your Go Daddy listing.
Godaddy should really be at 20% commission on premium listings…
Indeed. I would like to see them go to 15% personally. It would allow me to lower my prices.
20% is more the market norm. But I don’t think most domainers would lower their asking prices if they commission was lower. And even if they did, end users aren’t that price elastic so it wouldn’t make up for the reduced commissions.
Always surprised to the domainers asking for k$ on one side and looking for pennies on the other side…
@Andrew
I’m one of whom will reduce my domain prices right away on GoDaddy Premium Listings once they reduce their commissions. I’m only after sales and lower prices will defiantly increase my chances of more sales.
@ Sameh – do you think a 10% drop in your prices would spur a lot more sales? I highly doubt it.
I didn’t say a lot of sales but adding even two more sales a month will make a difference. At least to me.
@ Sameh – I don’t know how many domains you sell a month with Go Daddy, but I wouldn’t expect more than maybe 1% additional sales with a 10% drop in prices. That may be different if your domains are priced really low though, like $100 or so. But I’m assuming your median is > $1,000.
andrew i think godaddy “says” their listing will previal but if you go to add a listing to godaddy auctions, and theres an afternic, you can list so i would disagree with that statement that the godaddy prevails, then theres the issue of what happens when each listing expires and autorenews, unclear to me and ive been trying to figure it our for years
@ Page Howe – I think you can add the same name to GD and Afternic, it’s just a matter of which one is displayed on the GD registration path. My understanding is it will be the GD listing.