I Will Be Moving Away From DAN.com (39.Viewing)

DomainRecap said:

If not just take it to Dan for 5%

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All dan does is facilitate a transfer, if you can do it yourself you can save the commission.

MapleDots said:

All dan does is facilitate a transfer, if you can do it yourself you can save the commission.

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Obviously, but the point was referring to was that lots of people seem to think that Escrow.com is too complicated and intrusive.

Sure, if you can get them to eTransfer the money, then bingo, but what about if they still want some level of security?

DomainRecap said:

Sure, if you can get them to eTransfer the money, then bingo, but what about if they still want some level of security?

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That's why you need a homepage with contact info etc, I never seem to have an issue with trust. I issue a bill of sale, accept certified cheque, bank transfer, wise and e-transfer. Since I have a fairly large internet presence people seem to have no issues paying for the domain first.

Now if you're dealing with an anonymous entity then yes, most people will be abundantly cautious.

MapleDots said:

That's why you need a homepage with contact info etc, I never seem to have an issue with trust. I issue a bill of sale, accept certified cheque, bank transfer, wise and e-transfer. Since I have a fairly large internet presence people seem to have no issues paying for the domain first.

Now if you're dealing with an anonymous entity then yes, most people will be abundantly cautious.

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With Bodis, you can use any external marketplace, your own URL etc yes, I think this would be the way

Another thing that bugs me about Dan is that they use both European and US holidays to provide "limited service" and not process payments or domain transfers.

MapleDots said:

That's why you need a homepage with contact info etc, I never seem to have an issue with trust. I issue a bill of sale, accept certified cheque, bank transfer, wise and e-transfer. Since I have a fairly large internet presence people seem to have no issues paying for the domain first.

Now if you're dealing with an anonymous entity then yes, most people will be abundantly cautious.

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Here is what I mean



Twitter is one of the places people turn to when they want to find out more about your business. It is advisable to keep a strong twitter presence when you are running a domaining business. I have made invaluable contacts there.

DomainRecap said:

Another thing that bugs me about Dan is that they use both European and US holidays to provide "limited service" and not process payments or domain transfers.

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GoDaddy not happy with Europeans having too many holidays​

GoDaddy not happy with Europeans having too many holidays – DomainGang

The link above is satire but has a ring of truth to it.

DomainRecap said:

I've been fooling around with Afternic landers and I don't like those either. No minimum price, just a basic input screen that I could do myself.

And I am having a backflash to years ago when I tried to use Afternic, and got a PILE of $20 offers coming in that the brokers were hammering on me to "put a BIN on the listing!"

That's when I told them to FU and that I wouldn't be responding to anything less than a 4-figure offer. I've sold a few there over the years, but man that "no min price" lander is like catnip to the lowballers and idiots.

So I guess it's Bodis or my own lander, and I'm leaning towards the latter.

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Just on the request price landing page you mentioned... there has been a huge amount of work to reduce friction on these to capture as many qualified leads as possible through a multi stage process. If you're at NamesCon, Alan Shiflett will be discussing this in his presentation.

Do you have an afternic account manager? I'm also happy to chat about strategies with you.

Another thing I dislike about Dan is the total lack of GD integration, even though GD has streamlined the commission structure to match between entities. At 9% I'd put up with the largely-manual process, but 15% is highway robbery.

I like when I sell at GD or Afternic and the domain is insta-transferred and the transaction is complete the minute I enter in the Transfer Code. It's smooth like butter and if every GD-affiliated transaction worked like this I'd be much happier.

Unfortunately, at Dan, you often have to wait forever for the buyer to manually transfer the domain - many buyers don't know how, or they need IT to do it (scheduled for next week, etc.) or they somehow think that Dan will do it for them, just like GD. A lot of my Dan transactions are like this, having to wait several days or even a week+ to clear the transaction off the board and get my money.

This total lack of GD integration makes me think that Dan isn't long for this world and will soon be engulfed by Afternic.

DomainRecap said:

This total lack of GD integration makes me think that Dan isn't long for this world and will soon be engulfed by Afternic.

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Until Afternic gets a search feature it can never really replace dan.com

MapleDots said:

Until Afternic gets a search feature it can never really replace dan.com

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Front of site search?

On dan I can specify search for .ca in the left menu, then I can say 1-4 letters and if I type .ca with nothing else into search it will list all .ca's I specified.

You can do nothing like that at afternic but you can also do similar at godaddy auction.

The Afternic search is only useful if I know the domain I'm looking for. I still find domains where godaddy says contact for pricing and when I go to Afternic there is a buy now bin. I recently purchased a domain for one of my wife's business ventures and godaddy said contact for pricing and I purchased it directly from Afternic.

In the end I predict both Dan and Afternic will get folded into godaddy because the beta version of Afternic already looks like the godaddy skin. I just hope there is a better search coming where I can narrow down my searches to specifics within a particular extension.

PS. Nothing annoys me more than searching for a domain in afternic and seeing hundreds of new tld's coming up. Sometimes I will type in an exact domain name extension and it will list these domains first and the exact match way down on the list.

As a purchaser of domains, I find the Afternic search the least helpful. I default to Sedo, Dan, GoDaddy Auction, Efty for my .ca searches. Only when I am looking for an exact match do I go directly to Afternic.

Thanks. I appreciate your point of view -- search on-site is definitely something that can be improved & it's one of the things I'm pushing for this year.

jamesiles said:

Thanks. I appreciate your point of view -- search on-site is definitely something that can be improved & it's one of the things I'm pushing for this year.

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Improving the filtering and sorting options (without going overboard like Sedo) would be a great start.

jamesiles said:

Thanks. I appreciate your point of view -- search on-site is definitely something that can be improved & it's one of the things I'm pushing for this year.

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Search coming to afternic?

That can only improve sales