From $20,000 offer to a $75,000 domain sale

Hello everyone,

It’s been quite some time since I’ve shared any domain sale so I thought to share it with you all and start this year’s first post with a bang. It was in late December 2021 when I received an offer of $20,000 for one of my domains SMKT.com through Afternic. This domain had a BIN of $75,000. Before I give any further details about this sale, I want to give the due credit especially to the broker who handled this deal as well as my Afternic manager. It’s not at all easy to educate and convince the buyer to buy the domain at such a high level of BIN price.

So coming back to the sale, the buyer revised their offer to $35,000 but the broker somehow convinced them to buy at the full BIN price of $75,000. This was a remarkable sale and I sincerely appreciate the top notch work done by the Afternic team who was involved in making this great sale happen. It took 6 days from the time I was informed about the $20,000 offer to the sale email I received from Afternic!

By the way, this may look like a random 4 letter domain but SMKT combination can be used for Supermarket, Sales and Marketing, Smart Marketing, etc. Also this domain was acquired more than 7 years back so one can see how long sometimes we need to wait for the reward of this level.

Overall, I’ve had a fantastic last year which was another record breaking one than 2020. The last year ended with just a little over 6,300 domains in my portfolio and 120+ domain sales in total.

Feel free to share your last year ending sale(s) and your feedback on the 4L sale is welcome!

Best and worst emails you receive?

Hello everyone,

Today I wanted to share my experience in regards to receiving the best and the worst emails I receive. It’s a bit of fun to share mine and to know from you all as well.

So let me start with the best email which is always when a domain is sold through BIN via any platform like Afternic and Sedo. The inquiry or the offer emails do make me happy as well but the best moment is to receive an email when a domain is sold.

And the worst email is to receive from WIPO when someone files a UDRP on one of our domains. This not only wastes the money but puts the domain at risk of losing it as well.

To date, there have been 6 UDRPs filed on our domains and we’ve successfully defended 4 UDRPs and will definitely vigorously defend all our virtual assets in the future. Anyone interested in checking them can look out here.

So according to you, what’s the best and worst emails you receive?

My first experience with Lumis.com

Hello everyone,

I received an inquiry from Lumis.com co-founder Slade for one of my domains AaronWhite.com in April 2021 with an opening offer of $1,000. I quoted $15,888.

Before I go into more detail, let me share something interesting. I repriced this domain in March 2021 from $3,988 (according to my Afternic lead report) to $15,888. It was just a month of difference between this inquiry to be received and that too privately.

There was a possibility of selling through Afternic or Sedo and I had to pay 15-20% commission depending on the platform.

Anyhow, the next counter offer was $3,000 for which I showed slight flexibility of selling the domain if the offer of 5 figures is presented. The buyer then came up to $8,000 in April itself. I slowly lowered my asking price in our long negotiations process but things got standstill for several months. Eventually I had to accept their one last revised offer of $9,000. I acquired this domain in 2015 for $xxx.

In this case, we used Sedo external escrow service where the buyer paid the escrow fee and the transaction was completed very smoothly.

I wanted to thank Slade for being very nice, responded quickly and handled things very professionally. Also thanks to Sedo for concluding the deal swiftly and sending payment quickly. The only issue with Sedo is that while using external escrow service, we need to send them details manually whereas they should offer any buyer/seller to initiate the transaction without any manual interference which takes them days to start the transaction!

It was an interesting sale so I thought it was worth sharing it πŸ™‚

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

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˜‰