Hello everyone,
Finally Afternic launched one of the most requested features: Self-Brokerage. I wasn’t expecting any gamechanger because I’ve already used a better version at Uniregistry in the past and know how it works.
With the Afternic Self-Brokerage available now, I think it’s not going to benefit the domain owners but only Afternic. There are a several reasons why:
1) Currently without the Self-Brokerage enabled, the buyers are shown a form where they need to enter their name, email address and phone number. With SB enabled, the potential buyer has to sign-in to a GoDaddy account to submit the form or create an account before proceeding any further. This extra layer will push many serious buyers out of the way because not many are willing to create an account just to submit a simple form. I can understand that Afternic will say that this will bring in quality leads but why miss the others who are genuine but are not willing to create an account with GoDaddy upfront but possibly create one after the successful domain purchase.
2) It was surprising to see that the commission structure for Self-Brokerage successful sale is the same 15%. This is seriously crazy. If the Afternic brokers are handling my leads and I have to pay 15% then why would I bother handling my leads and go through all the hassle and still end up paying the same commission!
3) Last but not the least, Afternic has allowed Self-Brokerage to only those GoDaddy customers who have DDC (Discount Domain Club) membership. This will definitely push back many domain owners as they wouldn’t risk paying for DDC membership just to try out the Self-Brokerage system.
Personally I do have DDC (Discount Domain Club) membership so this isn’t an issue. And even if the commission would be 10% and form submission remained the same as it’s for someone not using SB, I still have no interest because paying 10% commission for all the hassle isn’t worth my time.
My suggestion for Afternic is to keep the same submission form which requires no GoDaddy account creation and login to submit the form. Also, the DDC membership requirement should not be made compulsory. Lastly, the maximum commission to attract the domain owners is to keep it at 10%. The ideal would be 5%.
Feel free to give your feedback and let your voice be heard by Afternic.
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Nailed it 💯. Such a disappointment IMO
Thanks Matt for your feedback which is much appreciated 🙂
Hopefully Afternic takes the suggestions from their customers and adjust a few things accordingly.
Absolutely ! No positives from Self-brokerage for Domainers point of view as of now
Thanks for your feedback. I totally agree with you.
we have been giving feedbacks to GD for so many years and yet they just ignored them..so WTF do they care??? freaking waste of time…
GD has destroyed so many good platforms like Dan and etc and yet GD still continues the shitty afternic platform
It wasn’t good to see Uniregistry and Dan closing down after they acquired them.
Yeah, if there was one way to screw up something as simple as self brokerage, it’s this way.
The product managers at Afternic seem to have no clue about the users!
Haha that’s true 😀
Totally agree that the mandatory account creation at Godaddy just for submitting an offer is not ideal. But it will inflate user numbers, so Godaddy will likely keep it.
I’m currently testing the self-brokerage just to get to the bottom of the broker performance. So many enquiries ending stalled/confused, I have a feeling that the brokers just dont have enough time to follow-up, or to follow-up in a timely manner. But it’s just a feeling. Testing with 4000 domains will reveal it soon. This is the only reason I’m giving it a try.
Thanks for your feedback and sharing about your testing with self-brokerage.
It would be nice to know the results of yours in the coming months.