I was chatting with a friend about landing page options and platform commissions. In general, I list a large percentage of my portfolio on Afternic, Spaceship, or both, giving up a significant chunk of revenue for successful sales. I liken this to cost to what I pay for snow removal.
I would guesstimate that 25% of my friends have snowblowers and they take care of removing snow themselves. We have a long and fairly steep driveway, and we have a snow plow contractor that comes to remove snow when it’s more than 3″ deep. I think we pay something like $75/plow. To me, this is money well spent. I don’t have to go outside to do this work in the snow, I don’t have to buy or maintain a snowblower, and I don’t have to deal with sore muscles from shoveling. Occasionally, the plow doesn’t come at an optimal time, but I think it’s better than doing it myself.
Likewise, I generally use domain name platform landing pages and brokers to sell my domain name inventory. I spend quite a bit on commission each year, but it’s worth it to efficiently close deals without having to do much work beyond acquiring good names and pricing them.
In exchange for the commission on successful sales, I don’t have to deal with negotiating small (< $10,000) deals and I don’t have to educate prospective buyers. In addition, and perhaps the biggest benefit of using a platform to sell domain names, I don’t have to deal with any headaches that come with payments, escrow services, domain name transfers, or contract negotiations.
I love the snow, but I don’t like dealing with the removal of it. I’d rather pay a guy to take care of it for me. Likewise, I like domain names, but I don’t like dealing with the lower level deals and would rather pay someone else to manage that aspect for me.
Thats fine but what about transparency re what actions/copy the brokers take/use to sell on one’s behalf. Its NOT transparent. How do we know if a solid effort is being made to sell a low- to mid-tier domain (elevant two-word domains that have a logical fit and might wholesale for 2,499? I get many leads ending up in no action (“STALLED”) and as an entrepreneur I cannot help wondering if any effort is made for these low commission sales in explaining the opportunties of a particular name. I strongly believe we, as sellers, should be copied on all sales emails so we can “SEE” if real efort is made on our behalf and reccomend copy to be used in replies to buyers.
Also, I have to assume the broker is working in good faith to close a deal. There is only so much a domain broker can do to get a prospect to agree to a deal.
It’s important for the domain name owner to price domain names well and have appropriate minimum offer amounts.
Even the best broker might not be able to convince an uneducated buyer with a $100 budget to spend $2,500 or more on a domain name.
I think many inquiries are made by “prospects” don’t even know they’re inquiring about buying a domain name. The lead gets “stalled” when that person doesn’t respond to the broker’s numerous emails.
Good for you Elliot. I agree regarding the snow and the domain names. Perfect analogy. And as if that weren’t enough, you have something that money can’t buy: More time for yourself.