Afternic experiment of July 2020

Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on August 4th, 2020 33 Comment

Hello everyone,

It’s been a great year in terms of getting lot of surprises. Some in a good way and some not so good…

The last couple of months before July were absolutely great and full of surprises and July was no doubt was another unexpected month but in a different way which I never want to have it. LOL

This is the seventh post of the Afternic experiment series after I published January, February, March, April, May and June results which I’m hopeful that you’ll find it interesting.

It was the worst month in terms of number and amount of sales this year at Afternic by just having 3 domain sales. Also with the biggest gap between sales and I was a bit upset to see no sales for so many days continuously which was an eye opener for me. This confirmed my long term set goal where I want to increase my portfolio with a few more thousands of domain to get rid of this inconsistency and I believe this will happen with the addition of at least 2,000 more domains added with the current 4,050 domains.

The first sale happened on 17th July of SolutionStack.com for $2,988 via Afternic sales lander.

Second was a big relief in the shape of TheFg.com for $9,888. Both of these sales were via BIN. This one was sold via GoDaddy.com

The last sale of Home-Comfort.com for $2,500 via GoDaddy lander and actually happened on 1st August (Malaysia time) but according to Afternic report and their timing, this took place on 31st July. Home-Comfort.com was having $2,988 BIN but after negotiation, I eventually agreed to sell for $2,500 to keep things moving.

Total number of inquiries received were little under 550.

On the other hand, my friend Muhammad Aamir from DotCorner was happy to share once again his July sales which are shared below:

KingNetwork.com for $4,000 and HappyMusic.com for $6,500.

I’ve seen July was slowest month for many domain investors including myself and Muhammad Aamir. But there were some investors who shared with me of July as their best month of this year. It’s good to see overall things are in a good shape for domain investing.

I hope this August will be a better month than last one and wish everyone the very best 🙂

Feel free to give your feedback no matter how good or good it is 😉

Posted in Domain Sales Tags: , , , , , ,

Suggestions for Afternic

Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on July 28th, 2020 25 Comment

Hello everyone,

I was actually suppose to publish a different post but had to make this one last time. The reason is I almost finished this particular post but put on hold when I knew that what I was going to suggest is already implemented just in those days! Happy to see what Afternic brought in and that’s a must have feature.

I would like to say that I’m overall very happy with the decision of moving all my domains to Afternic landers which started in January but I’ll not shy away for not sharing what I think is worth to be implemented which will bring more fruitful results for both Afternic and their clients. I like the attitude of Shane Cultra who openly says what he likes and dislikes about anyone, whether it be a service, company or an individual.

So today I want to share what Afternic should implement for the betterment of both Afternic platform as well as their users.

1) 2FA is a must which no one can deny and should be implemented. If somehow your password is leaked or device got hacked, it’s easier for the hacker to login and change the sale price of your domain and buy it. Especially with Fast Transfers enabled, the domain will simply transfer out of your registrar swiftly.

2) Another thing which Afternic is missing and that’s to bring in Payment Plan option. I believe this will skyrocket the sales for all the domain owners holding good domains with the right prices.

3) One more thing which can be done is with NS3/NS4 landers like for example B4F.com, you’ll see sales lander. I think there should be a choice for the domain owners to either use this particular lander or have the same lander + BIN. In this case, the buyer who is not willing to negotiate and just wants to buy at the listed price can simply waste no time and hit the BIN and make the payment. And this should be made optional for domain owners to go with which option for their sales lander.

4) Another small change can be brought in is to release the funds in 2-3 business days after the domain transfer is complete instead of taking 7-10 days which is quite long time.

5) One small tweaking be made of allowing users to rename their payout methods as well as remove any which are unnecessary and no more required to be there which only creates confusion.

6) Last but not the least, since now I’m having 4,000+ domains in my portfolio, I receive domain reports every month from my Afternic Rep which is manually generated and sent to me. It would be really nice if this is made available in everyone’s account and whenever anyone is interested in to see the stats, can simply generate by it’s own. I’ve used several different parking platforms to date and if I remember correctly, one can download or check at the platform itself and see the stats. Also addition of traffic stats in the reports would be great and I believe it should be there so the domain owners can analyze the volume and other relevant data of incoming traffic.

Feel free to give your feedback as always and should you’ve any other suggestions to be mentioned, kindly do so.

Posted in Domaining Tags: , , ,

Why you should renew domains in advance

Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on July 21st, 2020 14 Comment

Hello everyone,

Today I wanted to share my point of view on why you should renew your domains in advance and the benefits of it.

So let’s check at how renewing your domains for a longer period than a year might prevent a big headache in the course of time.

1) If you’ve developed a website and worked hard for marketing your brand and receiving a great number of audience on your domain name, simply don’t let that site suddenly go dark because you forget to renew the domain on due time. So when your registration expires, any services associated with the domain (your website, email service, and so on) stops working. Sometimes the domain renewal alerts can easily get overlooked due to aggressive spam filters on your email account, an overflowing inbox, or any of life’s other distractions.

2) As it may happen with anyone and there are some situations happening around us which are not in our control like the current global situation regarding the virus and its impact to overall humanity. This may lead to weak financial condition, savings are needed to be used for some emergency and more important needs and last but not the least, the lack of domain sales can kill the cash flow in such tough times.

3) There are also some cases where investors tend to renew domains each and every month as the renewal comes for their large portfolio of domains but with any sudden death in family or the domain owner itself, hospitalization, any case of emergency, etc may put your domains at risk of expiring and ultimately to drop. So it’s better to renew a lot in advance.

4) Another positive side of renewing the domain is like when any endusers or domain brokers find the domain is near to expiration, they may try to wait for the domain to drop and either hand register it or backorder to secure the domain. But when your domain is renewed in advance let’s suppose for an addition of 3 or 5 years, chances are high that the interested party would try to contact and buy directly from you rather than waiting for years for the domain to expire.

So never give a slight hope to anyone that your good domains are going to drop anywhere in the near future. Give yourself peace of mind by renewing your domains far in advance so you don’t accidentally lose them.

As for my portfolio, when it was around 1,000 domains, it was quite easy for me to renew domains for at least a couple of years ahead of expiry. But with the portfolio growing and now little over 4,000 domains, it’s difficult to renew that much in advance. But still I have all my domain keepers renewed for an additional 1 year.

Feel free to give your feedback about my strategy and share your own to let others know.

Posted in Domaining Tags: , ,

Afternic experiment of June 2020

Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on July 3rd, 2020 74 Comment

Hi everyone,

As the first half of this year is completed, there were some major things happening all around the world. While reviewing my business, I can clearly say that I’d the one of the best 6 months of my domain investing career.

Today I’m very happy to share the results of June 2020 which I was eagerly waiting for the report to arrive so I can share with you all.

This is the sixth post of the Afternic experiment series after I published January, February, March, April and May results which I’m hopeful that you’ll find it interesting. Although I’d initially planned to give Afternic landers a try for 6 months period which has already ended but I’ve extended the time period of using them on long term basis with the results I’ve achieved so far using their services.

In May 2020, I mentioned that there was no sale for the first 9 days and it was more longer break in the month of June of 11 days. So on 12th day I’d my first sale of the month in the shape of MarketGrid.com for $5,000. I’d put up BIN of $5,888 but after going back and forth with the buyer, it was eventually sold for that price. This was sold via Afternic lander.

Next sale was mind blowing one and the biggest BIN sale of my life. That domain was AutoFun.com which sold for $50,000. This was purchased directly via GoDaddy.com search. One of the best sale I’ve ever had.

Third sale was ToothBar.com for $6,888. This too sold via GoDaddy search. Then there was another sale of TinaChen.com for $1,988. Sold via Afternic partner registrar.

One more sale happened which I really like it – ww.biz for $4,888 via GoDaddy search. In total I’ve 4 more .biz domains.

GmTransport.com was then sold for $4,888 via Afternic lander. And the month ended up with the sale of 40hz.com for $2,888. This too sold via GoDaddy search.

Overall the cost of those domains were under $5,000 and total sale amount was $76,540. Also in May there were some 650 inquiries whereas in June, it was a little less than 600. Bit surprising because I had added some 60+ domains in the last month.

On the other hand, I’m happy to share the sales of couple of my friends.

@JudgeMind, an experienced domain investor sold some domains via Afternic which are shared below:

Dexwise.com for $1,299
Bjx.io sold for $239
ApplePie.org for $299
ReactionCapital.com for $2,500

Another fellow domain investor, Muhammad Aamir from DotCorner was happy to share his Afternic sales of June.

KingMusic.com sold for $6,000
SharkGirl.com for $3,000
PDFKit.com for $5,500
StarFilms.com for $7,500
Bisma.com for $6,500
ThunderPay.com for $3,500

Only PDFKit.com was acquired in 2017. All others were acquired in 2002-2003 period at $8 reg fees.

I tell you, those were good old days when you could hand register plenty of great domains like Aamir did. But it doesn’t mean it was too simple. One have to have the vision, knowledge and patience which is now paying off well for this fellow investor.

I appreciate both JudgeMind and Aamir for sharing their sales and if anyone would like to add their Afternic sales in future, feel free to let me know.

I would like to give due credit to my Afternic rep and brokers, I very much appreciate their hard work and dedication they put in for making all these sales to happen.

Feel free to give your feedback no matter how good or good it is 😉

Posted in Domaining, Domain Sales Tags: , , , , , ,

Great new feature at Afternic

Posted by AbdulBasit Makrani on June 22nd, 2020 12 Comment

Hello everyone,

As I was going through a post of Elliot Silver which was actually talking about DAN on payout preference and I ran into similar issue at Afternic last month when there were total 9 sales and several of them happened simultaneously. The problem started when I wanted some of the sales proceed through different channels like wire and PayPal. And since 2-3 sales proceed was supposed to be released at once, I’d no choice but to let it come via one specific payout method.

This month I come across a new feature at Afternic which is great especially for frequent domain sellers who’ve multiple payouts happening on regular basis.

Usually we all setup our payout method here under “Domain Sale Payments from Afternic” and can add multiple payout methods but when you’ve several payments coming on your way, you usually had no option but to receive through one channel.

But I noticed last week when Afternic added an option in every SALE. Below is the screenshot I’ve attached for you to check out. Click each of them to enlarge it.

Just under Non-US, Payout Information, you’ll see “edit”. Click on that link and this will pop-up which is in the below screenshot:

In the above snapshot, you can see I’ve several payout methods already added at Afternic and I can change it to whichever payout method I want to select. Even though the default payout method is selected which will always be chosen when you don’t change to any other method. But if you opt to change for any specific sale, you can easily do that from now on wards.

I received couple of payments when I tried this new feature and I wanted to share after I’ve experienced it. I really like this new addition of Afternic and it was a must needed.

Feel free to give your feedback about this feature and share your experience whenever possible.

Posted in Domaining Tags: , , ,


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