I read yesterday morning’s Internet Traffic update sent to clients by Frank Schilling, and there are a few points that I think will be of interest. Most notably, Schilling has given clients full access to the robust DomainNameSales.com platform his company uses to negotiate and close domain sales.
The platform offers a variety data for domain owners to use in order to negotiate a fair deal. Of course, the site will give the owner access to all of the domain name’s data like traffic and revenue, which is standard with other platforms that also provide parking. What sets this platform apart from others is that it catalogs information about the people and companies inquiring about the domain names.
“This powerful suite of information about your inquirer is your data and you will be able to manage the information and communications that you share with them. This system will ultimately help you sell more names for more money and help you make informed decisions about the trend of your names and their value. It is the secret of how I sell more names, for more money.”
One thing that would be neat is if the platform could attempt to track who is actually inquiring about the domain name. It would be great if it could search Google, LinkedIn, and other sources for references to the person inquiring as it relates to the domain query. For instance, if someone named Frank Schilling was inquiring to purchase DomainNames.com, it would search for Frank’s name and domain-related articles. It would also be helpful if it tracked and searched IP addresses and email addresses. These are things I do manually but could likely be done via algorithm. This, of course, wouldn’t be fail proof, but it could save some time.
While some people speculated that Schilling’s DomainNameSales.com platform could be damaging to other leading aftermarket platforms if it were to become used by people parking with Internet Traffic, I think the update sheds some light on the platform and shows that this speculation isn’t quite accurate.
“If you’re like me, you don’t have a huge team of in-house brokers. This system will let you select from a list of competitively priced third party brokers, or to broker the names yourself if you have the time.”
I’ve seen Name Administration’s in DNJournal’s sales report, and more often than not, those are reported by aftermarket websites like Sedo or Afternic.
I think there is the potential for Internet Traffic to hire domain brokers to close deals on behalf of its partners, but that hasn’t happened. If it did, it would likely put downward pressure on commissions in the marketplace, but I have no idea if that’s in the cards or even desired. One might assume that if it was being considered, it would have happened quite some time ago considering Name Administration owns hundreds of thousands of names already.
It’s been fun observing the growth of Internet Traffic and thinking about how the company could quietly become a leading player in the domain space. It really illustrates the importance of trust in the domain space, and it shows how much goodwill Schilling has earned amongst his colleagues.
Hi Elliot,
Very well written and thorough post….
Best,
Dan
*disclaimer* ~ my bias has to be noted 😉
Good man, I hope he blows them all out the water
*disclaimer* ~ even though I don’t qualify 🙂
Sedo is a net loser of domains day in day out they must be feeling the pinch
Good post Elliot, makes a lot of sense how the company could transform into a major player in domain sales aftermarket.
Hey Elliot…..you may want to look at the interface a bit closer. The links are small, and that is why you probably did not see them, but you can search in Google by name, search by IP using Melissa Data, search by email, etc….however, I don’t believe there is a way to search Facebook or LinkedIn yet.
Speaking of negotiating and closing domain sales, I recently sold a domain via GoDaddy auction. Or so I thought. It’s been almost a month and the guy hasn’t paid yet, and doesn’t look like he’s going to. I’ve contacted GoDaddy about it and they basically said that their “system automatically cancels the bid and suspends the buyers account after 30 days”. Gee thanks, that makes me feel better inside, jerks.
I know this doesn’t much to do with this post, so apologies. Needless to say, I’m not an experienced domain buyer/seller, I mostly develop, so this is the first time this has happened to me. Ideas? Similar experiences? Help?