In a blog post this morning, Efty announced its clients can now implement a live chat functionality on to the domain names listed within their Efty marketplace, allowing domain registrants to talk in real-time with prospective buyers. Here’s an excerpt from the blog post:
“We’ve teamed up with Tawk.to to bring forever-free live chat to your Efty marketplace site, allowing you to communicate with buyers in real-time, either from the advanced Tawk.to dashboard or directly from your mobile device while you are on the go.
I have been wanting to implement a live chat functionality on my own landing pages for over a year, but I have not found something affordable and workable for my needs. I have felt that if I can chat in real time with a prospect, I can glean much more insight into their needs and get a better idea of whether I think a deal is workable or not at the outset. Unlike a phone call which would serve the same purpose, a seller can multi-task and keep a prospect at arm’s length while doing a bit of research on the domain name and/or prospective buyer. I also think a live chat offers a great chance to build a rapport with a prospective buyer more rapidly.
Doron told me that sellers will have access to all chats, including locations, IP addresses and other data Tawk.to has. Prospects can also request the chat log to be emailed to them for archiving, so sellers should be aware that their conversations are recorded. The nice thing is that if a prospect requests the chat, the seller should have access to their email address for a follow up email conversation.
You can see an example of the live chat functionality on Doron’s landing page, NameRockstar.com.
Once Efty clients have had a chance to implement this feature and test it out, I would be interested in hearing about how it is working out for them.
I had implemented a live chat (from the same tawk.to service) on some of my domains landing pages (not efty based). and i definitely started seeing higher engagement rates, though none of the domains got sold. but it felt good interacting with somebody who was interested in my domains.
All you need to do is add some javascript to your website from any of the chat providers, not just Talk.to. Why is this even news?
1) For someone with no technical experience and very limited knowledge, “just add some javascript” is way too general and unhelpful.
2) This is news because I believe Efty is the first platform to offer the live chat functionality. It’s something I’ve wanted to try, so this is newsworthy to me.
Chat integration has been around for many years and available to any website. Copying and pasting simple javascript snippet is easy for anyone who is accustomed to using email or social media or a word processor for that matter. Additionally, there are other options besides Tawk.to.
Again, it’s not that simple for someone like me to add. Had it been simple to add and use, I would have done it on Embrace.com a while ago.
Adding these tools with limits of 2000 domains? Not a great idea, anyone can take a free plugin and install/integrate it with their site. Why is this a major new everywhere? Does it come for all domains, no. Does it cost extra for over 2000 domains, yes.
EFTY.com just keeps talking about pretty landers etc all the time. The truth is their system is not user friendly and bulk editing tools are not easy to use. They don’t even provide the following on their landing pages:
1. Lease/rent to own
2. just lease only
3. Buy on monthly installments
4. Joint venture development – where potential buyers can use domain for sharing revenue and equity in the venture.
I know other players are working on the above features.
And, btw…what about people who have over 5000 domains? They can’t even use their system. I hope this is not taken as negative but as a constructive criticism.
It was newsworthy to me because it’s been something I considered and would have done had I been able to do it on Embrace.com (I still may do it). It is also newsworthy because I don’t know of any other marketplaces that offer live chat in this manner.
Additionally, I think I was the first to write about it, and probably would not have written an article had I seen several other sites write about it as well. I don’t speak regularly with other publishers, so it’s not like I knew they were going to write an article.
Thanks for these questions. I have responded to your comment on our blog but will copy the answer below in case anyone else is interested.
“You are right that anyone can (fairly easily) install a live chat plugin on their own site. But it is not so easy to launch a full-fledged, mobile-optimized domain name marketplace with payment integrations, logos, search, SSL, adjustable colors, backgrounds and themes and have all your domain names redirect to the corresponding landing pages by simply updating the name servers.
And all that, is what investors get within their Efty subscription. No technical knowledge required.
The Live Chat and Mailchimp integration simply is one of the many things that our users get without the need to host, install or update software or write code (or paying someone else to do so for you) when creating their own marketplace (or for-sale landing pages)
We launched a new bulk editor and upload tool last year that allows user to make use of a CSV to make changes to their entire portfolio in bulk. It’s a major improvement from the previous bulk editor but certainly, there’s still room for improvement. Feel free to email me at doron@efty.com and I’ll share a demo video with you if you’d like that.
The reason we don’t provide lease, payment plans or JV development as of yet is that Efty is a platform and not a traditional marketplace like Sedo or Undeveloped (where we deal with the actual domain name sale and escrow process). We agree that leasing and especially payment plans are great value ads which is why we are currently exploring partnerships with companies in our space that can bring these type of transactions to Efty.
Regarding portfolio size, the current portfolio limit at Efty is indeed 5000 domain names per account but there’ an Enterprise plan in beta at the moment that once it rolls out will allow large portfolio holders to use the Efty platform as well.”
Wonder if chat is the way to go. If buyer emails you, you reply with tracking app. Now you know what city they are located and cross check with the name you might find who the buyer is. And you can price your domain name accordingly.
Hi Sal, the cool thing about Tawk.to, the live chat platform we’ve picked for this integration is that they show you the country and IP address of the person that is chatting to you as well.
I do agree that a name, email address + IP is more powerful for research hence we gather all that information when a buyer submits an offer from any Efty powered For-Sale landing page.
Lovely and amazing features and not just a live chat but email subscriber as well. This will help domain investors to be seen as professionals that will increase sales. I believe there’s still more room for improvement and just can’t wait to see more from efty. Anyway, thumbs up.