Dan results (1.Viewing)

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rlm

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Ok, I've been testing Dan with small percentage of my domains (under 10%), starting a few months ago. Some are BIN and some are Make Offer.

So far, no sales, 2 offers, one bogus, one low ball.

While I think the landers are nice, its definitely not generating any more leads than my own "contact" page landers.

I also note that the hybrid dan/bodis pages definitely hurt the click through rates and thus revenue on the ads. Of course selling an extra domain or two would more than make up for that, but so far I haven't seen that happen either.

Any one else have any comments on their Dan experience?
 
I can’t really say that my testing has been noteworthy. I only did it with 1% of my domains and only BIN and lease as options.

I think my approach with Dan has been rather than get useless/fake offers with my own lander; I can avoid it completely with Dan. So I added a couple dozen domains that I get consistent offers on.

They have not resulted in any sales to date.
 
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I don't think there is any real difference in forwarding traffic to most of the venues like Dan, Sedo or Afternic, and I believe if a buyer really, really wants the domain, they'll find it.

One difference is that I believe linking straight to GoDaddy does help, as I tried that for a few months and made a lot of sales - I switched back because the 20% commission was really eating into the bottom line and I was hoping to keep sales up at Dan for only 9%.

It's worked to some extent and I've made some nice sales at Dan, but in December for example, I still sold more at GoDaddy (no traffic) than Dan (traffic) and my only 4-figure offers in January have been through GD. I think eventually I'll move everything to Domain.io to make use of their multi-vendor sales lander.

Some buyers just want to buy at GoDaddy and don't either trust or want to set up an account at Dan/Sedo, so I think giving these guys the choice directly on the lander could not only increase offers and sales, but also give your domain listing a slight bump in terms of trustworthiness.

Like it or not, GoDaddy is the gold standard.
 
MapleDots said:
Dan 3.0

If you don't know what that is you soon will and Godaddy has a challenger

I seriously doubt it. This isn't about what service is better or worse, but who is bigger, more well-known, trusted, and utilized by more end users. Dan would need a few decades to change that.
 
DomainRecap said:
Some buyers just want to buy at GoDaddy and don't either trust or want to set up an account at Dan/Sedo, so I think giving these guys the choice directly on the lander could not only increase offers and sales, but also give your domain listing a slight bump in terms of trustworthiness.

Like it or not, GoDaddy is the gold standard.

I think there's some trust factor involved, but we mostly overcome those by offering Escrow.com to close any deals. As you say, if they really want a domain, they'll buy it from whoever as long as its not completely sketchy.

I also think there's something to be said for the traffic they bring. People who know _what_ domain they're looking for are going to find us by visiting the domain. But its those that may be browsing for options, that's where it helps. A recent example is that an inquiry came in on a domain and my price was out of the guy's budget. He instinctively knew that he wanted a one-word domain, but he was more focused on getting a one-word domain in his budget rather than the one word he liked best. When you've got open-minded buyers, that's when the traffic of GoDaddy pays off for guys who are willing to sell at lower prices. It doesn't really help me too much, not that I've noticed, because I'm usually the high price they're turning down.

And here's another example I encountered today which was for pure convenience. A friend wanted to buy a domain for his business, its owned by HugeDomains. He's never bought a domain before, so he also needs a registrar. I was just going to tell him to transfer the domain to GoDaddy - its a known and safe (if not annoying) quantity. But then I noticed that if you search for the domain on GoDaddy, they're selling it at the same price too. So simply for the convenience to my friend who knows nothing about domains, I told him to just buy it through GoDaddy so that they'll deal with the transfer and he won't have to create accounts at two places and deal with the transfer himself (or myself).

So I agree, GoDaddy, purely based on having the largest customer base and name recognition, is going to have an advantage, like it or not. The only way I counter that is by not listing there. So when I make a sale through GoDaddy its only because their brokers reached out to me - and thus all commissions are paid on the buyer side.

So is their commission justified by increased sales volume at the expense of margin? I guess it depends on how big your supply is, and how easy it is to replenish it. For quality one-words, maybe not since there's not an infinite supply and their wholesale costs are only going up. For lessor domains you're willing to sell cheaper because they're easier to replace, then maybe the commission is more justifiable?
 
rlm said:
So is their commission justified by increased sales volume at the expense of margin? I guess it depends on how big your supply is, and how easy it is to replenish it. For quality one-words, maybe not since there's not an infinite supply and their wholesale costs are only going up. For lessor domains you're willing to sell cheaper because they're easier to replace, then maybe the commission is more justifiable?

That's why I'm currently forwarding to Dan, as that 20% is just too high for a long-term business plan - if GD switched to a 10% commission it would probably put everyone else out of business in a year.
 
DomainRecap said:
That's why I'm currently forwarding to Dan, as that 20% is just too high for a long-term business plan - if GD switched to a 10% commission it would probably put everyone else out of business in a year.

I would agree but too bad they do not see it that way. The volume of transactions they could process will quadruple and make up for the lost percentage.

Majority of the requests processed through them fail to convert to sales, all because of the premium we have to add on to the asking price. Not even once have they justified bringing in an offer that makes good of the additional premium we have to pay them.
 
rlm said:
Any one else have any comments on their Dan experience?

I have not had any success too, except found myself being branded as a "Domain Seller", which is their default setting.

I put through one transaction for which I had a buyer, just to test their platform and it worked well without any issues. Payment was prompt.

I find the "Lease to Own" and "Renting" option interesting, but no one has bitten the bullet yet to know how it works.

I feel it's a showroom of Lambos, Bentleys and Ferraris. Because no one wants to leave money on the table with their premium domain names, thus pricing them ridiculously high.

The potential buyer for any of them will know how to find that domain owner.
 
Sounds like it may be the new Uniregistry, then get bought out by Godaddy eventually.

If Godaddy/Afternic dropped their commission into the 10% range, instead of the 20% range, probably they'd get lots more listings. I know it's a factor for me.
 
GoDaddy has massive domain search volume both directly at GoDaddy.com and via their Afternic DLS network. The exposure that gives your domains is enormous compared to any other platform today.

Keep in mind that when Joe Public wants to buy a domain, they go to the domain registrar they have heard of or use or they type the domain into their browser.

They know nothing about marketplaces, even legacy ones like Sedo, and certainly not the 'new' ones like Dan.

Personally, I really like what Dan is doing, and they are bringing a lot of innovation to the aftermarket. But GoDaddy beats them hands down with the exposure GoDaddy provides to domains listed with/via them.
 
I tend to agree regarding the exposure that Godaddy brings but I don’t believe for .CA that is the case. I do see a lot of inquiries by Godaddy brokers for .com domains but it doesn’t seem to happen much for .CA. For .CA it is common that people reach out to the registrar that the domain is located at. This has been my experience.

I’m not too sure how many are purchasing .CA domains at Godaddy purely because of trust. Godaddy was very late to introduce .CA’s so I’m not sure Canadians feel the same way as the U.S.
 
I should have mentioned that my comments were more about domains in general, not .CA. I suspect that Joe Canuck may have a slightly different search process when looking to buy a .CA. A lot of my Canadian clients use Hover.com (Toronto) and WebNames.ca (Vancouver) for their .CA (and other) domains, although I am sure WHC has a sizable market share.
 
I will chime in, fwiw, that probably 80-90 percent of the .ca domains I sell ask to be transferred to GD.
It just seems to be the one they have heard of.
And GD still doesn’t get the RANT change right. I still get expiration notices for names I sold a year ago or many years ago, meaning I am still listed in some of the registrant info. Never have liked that.
 
jaydub said:
I will chime in, fwiw, that probably 80-90 percent of the .ca domains I sell ask to be transferred to GD.

Of leads I bring from the outside a significant percentage ask to use GoDaddy brokers and don't care about the extra charge that incurs (they pay for extra commission and broker fees over Dan).

These are businessmen (or women) that just trust in the GD name vs saving a few dollars.
 
DomainRecap said:
Of leads I bring from the outside a significant percentage ask to use GoDaddy brokers and don't care about the extra charge that incurs (they pay for extra commission and broker fees over Dan).

These are businessmen (or women) that just trust in the GD name vs saving a few dollars.

That's just weird to me. I have of course sold some where GoDaddy brokers have initiated contact with me, but NEVER has anyone asked to use GoDaddy after starting off with direct contact. I think that must be because I have a website and people can google my name, find my linkedin, I have a GST number, etc.... and thus must have more trust factor? Most of my sales are just me sending an invoice direct to them, taxes added to the price, and they pay by wire/e-transfers/EFT. I will often offer up Escrow.com at their expense, but rarely do they go that route due to the hassles of currency exchanges and fees.
 
I must be living in a different universe. I haven’t had one Canadian EVER mention Godaddy in any type of sale. All of my transactions have gone through escrow.com. I have never had any resistance due to that. The only resistance sometimes is on who is paying their fees but I am open with that upfront.
 
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rlm said:
I think that must be because I have a website and people can google my name, find my linkedin, I have a GST number, etc.... and thus must have more trust factor?

Yep, you're a registered business while the rest of us private citizens start looking like potential scammers, so enter GoDaddy.
 

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