I enabled Afternic’s self-brokerage option as soon as I heard it went live. I immediately tested it out with one of my own domain names so I could see how the platform works as a buyer and as a seller. Before I got started, I ran into an issue, and I couldn’t tell if it was a feature or a bug. James Iles confirmed to me that it this difference is intentional.
When sellers have the self-brokerage option disabled, prospective buyers will be shown a form to submit an offer. On the form, they need to provide their name, email address, and phone number. There are also a few pop-up questions that appear after submitting the form. When sellers have self-brokerage enabled, prospective buyers who wish to submit an offer will need to sign-in to a GoDaddy account to proceed or create a new GoDaddy account. You can have a look at the difference here:
GoDaddy Brokered Leads Form:
GoDaddy Self-Brokered Leads Sign-In:
I asked GoDaddy’s James Iles for clarification about this, and here’s what he shared with me:
The login requirement does introduce an additional step, which could potentially deter some casual inquirers. However, there are a few key reasons why this approach makes sense:
Buyer Quality & Intent – By requiring a login, we’re filtering out lower-intent buyers and ensuring that those who engage in negotiations are serious about purchasing. This can lead to higher conversion rates in the long run, even if it means fewer overall leads.
Security & Trust – A logged-in user allows for better tracking, reducing spam, fraudulent activity, and bad-faith negotiations. It also gives both parties more confidence in the legitimacy of the interaction.
Consistency Across GoDaddy’s Ecosystem – The buyer side operates within GoDaddy’s broader marketplace, where authentication is a key component of ensuring a seamless and secure buying experience.
I understand the rationale, and with that being said, it is very important that investors understand this is an extra hurdle prospective buyers will need to take to submit an offer for a domain name if they have the self-brokerage option enabled.
I enabled Self-Brokerage. We will see. I wonder what happens if the person desiring to make an offer does not have a GoDaddy account? Do they need to establish a GoDaddy account in order to make an offer? I am sure if yes, a prospective Buyer would take this additional step if they really desire to own the name. Which is positive…..we will see!
Pay same commission, get no days, except country, have to pay for discount club. You do all the work, and pay the same, what’s the upside?
Buyers also need to create a Godaddy account by surrendering their info. Fun
What about the sale-closing? I mean, if you do self-brokerage and you close a sale, how do you finalize the transaction/sale (as the domain name seller)?
I believe this was one of the problems I had at DomainNameSales: after the back and forth of the negotiation, the buyer and I we finally agreed on a price, but then I would have to take the buyer to a whole different platform (escrow.com) to do the transaction. [Unlike Sedo, where I always saw a button for “Accept Offer,” in which case the whole process would be automatically shifted to the in-house escrow service of Sedo.]
How is this at Afternic’s self-brokerage? Do we get an “Accept Offer” button and Godaddy/afternic serves as the escrow platform?
Thank you.
Bull Honkey…
If the approach makes sense, this feature would be enabled on the non self-brokered option as well. Godaddy just wants to gain a new account creation.
You guys are so cooked under the monopolies control.
Why wouldn’t they do that for all offers if they only wanted to gain new account creation?
You need to create an account just to view the gd site
This will lead to very few leads to the domain owner because many won’t bother creating an account with GoDaddy just to submit the form.
Another disappointing thing is that the commission upon a successful sale via self brokerage is the same 15% without the nonsensical boost.
Also. Does godaddy co own this lead for follow ups..additional prospecting..
Hey james..maybe im just out of the loop..but i think prelaunch ddc member input would have helped this launch better than top down rollout