Reasons why Afternic delays in releasing payment?

Hello everyone,

Some might think I always show the positive sides of Afternic which is not the case because I try to share whatever I experience, no matter good or bad.

And today is something I wanted to share. I experienced this month which wasn’t good until I was clarified by my Afternic manager.

So what happened was that I sold a domain for which the transfer was completed to Afternic from my end. The release of the payment took 16 days. During this period, I sent a couple of reminders to the transfer agent as well.

Another sale this month for which I’m still waiting for the funds to be received and it’s already been 13 days since the domain transfer is completed from my end.

I wanted to share what my manager informed me in detail and I believe this will clear the doubts of everyone who thinks why there has been delays and inconsistencies in the disbursement of funds from Afternic. Below is the response:

With non Fast Transfer sales, it is our policy to not release payments to sellers until the domain has been delivered to the buyer. This is why some payments are released the same day as the transaction and others are delayed.

In both referenced cases, the payouts were delayed because the buyer was unresponsive after purchasing the domain. After a domain is purchased directly through Afternic, the buyer is prompted to provide us with their registrar account information so that we can provide them with instructions on how to take ownership of the domain. In both these cases, the buyers did not provide us with their registrar account information and were unresponsive to our broker and Transaction Assurance agent reach out attempts. Without know what registrar/account to move the domain to, we were unable to deliver the domain. As a worst case scenario, if the buyer does not take ownership of the domain within 10 business days (two weeks), the transaction will get escalated and we will create an account at the registrar to move the domain to. We then release the funds to the seller. This scenario is rare, as most buyers do not hesitate in gaining access to the asset they just purchased, but it does happen. Our brokers educate the buyer on the post purchase process when selling the name, so I am always surprised when buyers drag their feet/go unresponsive after purchasing a name. It is unfortunate that this happened with two of your buyers in such a short period of time, but this is not a new trend that is happening uniformly on our platform.

I checked on xxxxxxxx.com and we will begin the process of creating an account for the buyer if they do not respond today, so we can release your funds.

And for Fast Transfers:

“Fast Transfer payout timeline, a Fast Transfer payout is paid out between the 7th and 10th day from the sale. A manual transfer sale can be paid out as soon as the owner takes possession of the name.

Although I pointed out that I’m not impressed with such a long time for disbursing the funds both for manual as well as fast transfers. Especially when the sale has happened via Fast Transfer, it doesn’t make much sense to hold funds for a week or more. The reason is the domain gets transferred out of the seller’s account in minutes the sold email is received and the buyer gets the domain in their account pretty quickly unlike with the manual transfers.

One thing which can be improved is to reduce the number of days from 10 business days (2 weeks) to some 3 business days if the buyer goes unresponsive and Afternic creates an account and transfers to their own account.

I hope this clarifies for many Afternic users and I would love to hear your feedback and let your voice be heard.

My first and last experience with Dan.com as seller

Hi everyone!

I’ve had some 3K domains listed with Dan a long time back but never bothered to add the remaining one’s because I’ve never had a sale through them until yesterday.

I’ve bought several domains through Dan by private sellers and always had a smooth and overall great experience.

But last week I concluded my first domain sale via Dan and I wanted to share my experience with you all.

Unfortunately I cannot share the domain name because the buyer requested not to do so which is not an important thing in sharing all this. The domain had a BIN of $2,988 at Afternic/Sedo and the buyer tried negotiating but I remained firm and sold it for the BIN price.

Buyer paid via bank transfer and Dan offered him a 1% discount for making the payment with this method which is good. However, I was charged the same 9% which is still not bad since I had to pay 20% to Afternic and 15%-20% to Sedo commission. Payment was well received and processed in no time which I admire their quick service and even the payout was done in hours. The entire process took just several hours which was great to see.

The problem I found was that when Dan informed me that “Unfortunately, we can’t process transactions above $2k through PayPal without charging an extra fee of 4% (Which PayPal is charging us). Can you please update your banking details so we can proceed with the payout?”

And my response was “That’s not done. This is my first transaction as a seller with your company and you’re asking to charge me 4% just for sending payout via PayPal!

I’m receiving much larger payouts from Sedo and Afternic and they charge me nothing. I would like you to send in full or in batches but I don’t want to pay any fee.

Then Dan responded this “We understand this was unexpected and have made an exception this time. This payment has been sent to your PayPal account without the extra fee.

Could you please update your banking details for future payments over $2k.

Payment was received in a flash without any deduction for which I thanked them and wanted to share it with you as well.

I’ve always had the reservations for not trying Dan landers which I’ve already discussed several times over NamePros and privately but I wasn’t aware of this problem where they charge 4% for sending payouts of over $2,000. And anyone following my blog is well aware that most of my payouts are over $2,000. Sedo and Afternic don’t charge anything for any amount of payouts sent to PayPal.

So in short, anyone selling a domain via Dan and willing to receive payouts by PayPal will end up paying 13% of your sales amount. 9% commission on the sale price plus 4% PayPal fee charged by Dan.

I wonder why the domain sellers at Dan say of paying only 9% commission whereas you pay 13% commission in total who’re receiving the payouts of over $2,000 via PayPal.

And here comes the gimmick from Dan which was the most frustrating part dealing with Dan and I’ll NEVER use them as a seller in the future. I’ve gone ahead and deleted my entire portfolio from Dan.

So what happened is I came to know that Dan with their new model is offering 1% discount to the sellers IF the buyer is going to pay Dan via bank transfer.

Here is the exact quote copied from NamePros under clause 3:

“In the new model, the seller even gets a 1% discount when the buyer pays with Bank Transfer.”

As per 8% commission, I should’ve received $2,748.96.
As per 9% commission, I should’ve received $2,719.08

I received $2,721.47 which is close to after the deduction of 9% commission.

Now calculate this. The sale happened for $2,988 – 8% commission = $239.04
$2,988 – $239.04 = $2,748.96

But in actual, I received $2,721.47 which is short of $27.49

For this, Dan gave me silly explanation copied below:

We offer buyers a 1% discount on their purchase when they submit the payment via Bank Transfer. Only when the buyer opts for this discount payment method do we discount our commission by 1% as to the seller. 

This applies to the final price the buyer pays and not the price before the buyer’s discount. 

Our standard commission is 9%. If the buyer does not opt to pay via Bank Transfer, we charge 9% commission. 

In this transaction, if the buyer paid via a different payment method, the buyer would not have received a discount and our fee would have been 9%. 

This would have been calculated as follows: 

Full price: $2988,00
Our fee: 9% (268,92)
Your Payment: 2988-9% = $2719,08

The buyer however paid via Bank Transfer. We therefore provided the buyer a 1% discount. 

This is calculated as follows:

Full price: $2988,00
Buyer’s discount: 1% (29,88)
Buyer’s final price: 2988-1% = $2958,12

Since the buyer received a 1% discount, we charged you a discounted commission of 8%. Please note that this is calculated from the final price the buyer paid after the buyer’s commission was applied. 

In this transaction, the total paid by the buyer was $2958,12 after the discount was applied. Your payment is therefore calculated from this value and not the initial price before the buyer’s discount. 

This is how your payment was calculated:

Buyer’s final price: $2958,12
Our discounted commission: 8% (236,65)
Your payout: $2958,12 – 8% = $2721,47

Important to note your payment is calculated from the final fee after the buyer’s discount was applied.”

If this was the case that Dan mentioned, then why the hell did they say at NamePros that in their new model, the seller even gets a 1% discount when the buyer pays with Bank Transfer? Because no matter how the buyer pays with, the seller was already getting their cut after 9% commission.

So Dan charged me 9% on the sale amount or 8% commission on the buyer’s final price. In short, I actually received the amount after 9% commission.

So they should either take back their 1% commission they’ve started offering without actually giving or give it in real.

Feel free to give your feedback no matter how good or good it is πŸ˜‰

My take on Afternic NS5/NS6 lander

Hi everyone,

I’ve been asked by several fellow friends about the new Afternic NS5/NS6 BIN lander. I thought to share it with everyone else as well if more people are interested to hear my thoughts.

One thing is common with both the BIN (ns5/ns6) and contact form landers (ns3/ns4) and that is having a contact number to call the Afternic brokers.

The main point why I’m reluctant in trying out the BIN lander is in some cases I’m willing to accept the lower price than the BIN depending on the domain, offer, need of cash flow, etc. Due to this reason, there are chances where the buyer won’t even bother contacting because of the BIN option only.

Another reason for which I’m not sure but I would still like to share it. When someone inquires about a domain via contact form, I’m fully aware that Afternic brokers do follow-ups with any serious buyer but for the BIN landers where the buyer only has the option to contact via phone number, I’m not too sure if the brokers do follow-up with them as well.

Another reason is that for U.S buyers, there is a toll free number which is easier for anyone in the U.S to contact but when it comes to some other part of the world from which the U.S calling charges are not cheap like from any Arab countries and many more. So only having the contact number and no other option to reach out to the broker/buyer may lead the potential buyer to walk away?

Feel free to give your feedback if someone has tried the BIN landers and how’s your experience compared to the contact form landers.

Also if anyone would like to add some more reasons of why the contact form lander or the BIN lander is better, you’re welcome to do so.

Secret behind my Afternic pricing

Hello everyone,

Today I wanted to share the secret or the reasoning behind my pricing especially at Afternic. Although I keep the same pricing at every platform whether the inquiry comes via Afternic, Sedo, direct or elsewhere.

There is a calculator for calculating Afternic commission and I know many of our sales are in the range of below $5,000. Actually it matters when your price is $5,001 and especially $25,000 and above that level.

So whenever you’ve a sale of $5,000 or below that level at Afternic, you tend up to pay a fixed commission of 20%. However, for instance a domain you sell for $24,888 then you’ll end up paying up a commission of $3,983 which is exactly 16% commission of the sale price.

Now the interesting part is when you sell a domain just for $1,000 more which means $25,888 then you’ll end up paying a commission of $4,088 which is almost 15.8% commission of the sale price. I know for some domain sellers, the 0.2% commission is not a big deal but you’ve to think that when a buyer is willing to pay $24,888 then of course they can pay $25,888 as well.

And you know what… as the sale amount increases, the commission drops significantly. For example, if you remember I sold AutoFun.com for $50,000 via Afternic BIN, so I ended up paying exactly 13% commission if you calculate through their calculator.

Yeah I know the big sales don’t come that often but I’ve seen many investors selling their domains for $24,888 or $24,000 so this post is especially for them to understand and revise their prices.

In short, if you see their sales commission structure and study it, you’ll know that as the amount increases, their overall commission decreases. So keep their commission structure in mind when pricing your domains.

Feel free to give your feedback no matter how good or good it is πŸ˜‰

Spike in inquiries/sales for newly purchased domains?

Hello everyone,

This year I’m clearly noticing a spike in inquiries and sales coming for the newly acquired domains whether through auctions or private purchases. To clarify one thing, with recent I mean within the 6 months period of acquisition. It shows that endusers are more watchful and waiting for those domains to have a proper sales lander to be contacted because many of them have no idea how to contact the domain owner especially after the GDPR implementation.

I’ve not only seen an increase in the number of inquiries but most importantly I’ve sold a very few domains as well this year after buying it this year itself.

Take one of my recent domain sales examples HempAndHeal.com which I acquired for $199 via DropCatch on 11th November 2020. I sold it for $19,888 on 16th April 2021.

If anyone wants to know how I evaluate my domains can check this out.

Have you experienced such a thing in recent times? I would love to hear your side of the stories πŸ™‚