Obviously the big hit in this is on those who use their own landers, use parking, list and point at another site but also list at Dan, etc. and now the commission for them goes from 9% to 25%. I don't think the service can justify that. Yes, the brandable places charge that, or more, but they do curation of acceptance, online advertising of individual names, pricing, direct promotion and representation of names. It is rather different for someone seeing my name on a lander somewhere else, checking if it is on Dan, clicking buy there, and them taking 25% commission.
Clearly this is going to be really hard on the parking companies, the services to list your names, and the brandable places, or some of them.
The loss of tiered pricing at Afternic means that names that may sell for a high value really take a commission hit at Afternic/Dan.
It is a big swipe at SquadHelp "white label", and in general an effort to monopolize the market even more than they did already. I had used that for my .ca names (and Canadian themed names in other TLDs) but also listed them at Dan, Afternic and Sedo at essentially the same price. Now if someone sees the name on my Rename site, go finds it on Dan, and clicks buy, I will pay 25% instead of 9%. I am going to, for those names, either delist from Dan/Afternic, or list at about 18% higher price to account for the commission difference (7.5% at SH WL vs now 25% at Dan).
With Sedo, it is a tougher call for me. I do have some names pointed there at BIN. Those names would now be 25% at DAN. Not sure what I will do. Since .ca qualifies for Sedo MLS with certain registrars, there is an advantage in registration path exposure to staying at Sedo.
For names you think are most likely to sell in Afternic network, and that is true for many names, it makes sense to simply keep them at Afternic/Dan but make sure you point at one or the other. Probably almost half of my names fall into that category, so will likely make no change on those.
Over past months I have listed a lot of brandable at BrandPa. They allow you to list everywhere else too, just ask not at lower prices. They require you point them to BrandPa though. So for those, any that happen to sell at Dan move from 9% to 25% commission, but that is the BrandPa commission, so logically I guess similar pricing makes sense.
A lot to think about by Feb. 1.
Good discussion here at DN.ca. Thanks for all the contributions, everyone, and Happy New Year.
-Bob