The future of SMB domain sales is in the registration path.
It’s been about a year since I first start using Go Daddy’s Premium Listings option for selling domain names. This option lists your domain names for sale in Go Daddy Auctions, but more importantly in the registration path on GoDaddy.com when someone wants to register a domain name you own:
I currently have about 250-300 domains with Premium Listings at Go Daddy, although for most of the year it was in the range of 100-150 domain names. As of yesterday I’ve sold five domains through the service:
$950 in February
$500 in June
$449 in September
$4000 in October
$347 in December
You may be thinking that only one of the sales is decent. I disagree. In all cases I made a healthy profit. The domain name that sold for $500 is one I’d listed many times on many venues and never got an offer over $60. The one I just sold for $347 I considered dropping when it came up for renewal this year. And the one I sold for $4,000? I bought it on SnapNames for $59 just last year.
If you consider I had an average of 200 listings during the year then my sell through rate (so far) from Premium Listings alone is 2.5%. It’s a small sample size but that’s a great number. Although Go Daddy charges a 30% commission I’ve just baked that into my asking prices for the domains. Another bonus: I don’t have to deal with transferring domains I sell. It happens instantly and automatically.
This is one reason I’m excited about Afternic expanding its premium promotion level partners before the end of the year. Now if you have domains at Moniker or eNom you’ll be able to list them for sale through Afternic’s service, getting your domains in the registration path at large end user registrars such as Register and Network Solutions.
When it comes to selling domain names to small and medium businesses, this type of sales distribution is the wave of the future.
Simonetta says
Same thing is true for a SedoMLS listing. Works the same way and we are also rapidly expanding our premium partner network. While having most of the same registrars as DLS in our network as well we have a number of additional partners in Europe and Asia. A current list can be found on our website in the SedoMLS section.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Simonetta – good point, and the beta of SedoMLS just got expanded. With regards to the registrars in your network, I believe Name.com is the only one also on Afternic that does instant transfer. Is this correct?
Leonard Britt says
I heard about Godaddy Premium Listings on Namepros in late 2009 and decided to give it a try. In January and February I sold seven names through the service, then went till the fall before I picked up a few more. Many of my sales were ~$300 or below but in some cases were domains I might have dropped the next renewal. I just wish they allowed .TV listings 🙂 Well, hopefully early 2011 will be similar to 2010. Regarding Afternic I’m not sure what the issue is but I only sell about one domain a year through their service. SEDO continues to be a consistent sales venue.
Simonetta says
All the ones listed as our Premium Partners are doing instant transfers. The ones listed as our Standard Partner network display your names for sale, but refer the buyer back to Sedo for the completion of the sale. More and more of our standard partners upgrade to the Premium instant transfer network.
nancy says
I’ve sold 2 premium names via godaddy- a nice sale for dishthedirt.com sold within 2 days of listing it (Thought I’d found a miracle for sales!) – sold another that the buyer never paid for. It is a good venue if they’re looking exactly for what you have! My only complaint is that it takes them so long to pay you. 45 days is ridiculous when they are the registrar for both parties.
Just my opinion.
M. Menius says
@ Simonetta – Are the SedoMLS listings confined to com/net/org? Or are other leading tld’s included?
Paul Nicks says
Andrew,
I’m glad our service worked well for you, hopefully those 300 other domains will get some love too. While obviously biased, I completely agree with your assertion that the registration path is the best place for end user sales, just think about where the first place a SMB business owner will go when looking to build a brand.
One thing to note for anyone interested in this service, Go Daddy has recently opened up .CO as being a premium TLD. Now might be a good time to start registering your generic .CO domains and listing them on the premium channel given our plans to incorporate .CO into Super Bowl advertising.
-Paul
revonah says
Good point, totally overlook godaddy’s premium domain auction listings. I’ve allowed domains to expire but now I’ll plan ahead by setting up the auction feature.
How comfortable are you in disclosing your top domain name that sold?
DR.DOMAIN says
I listed about 40 names the first time you mentioned using this service…Andrew.No real success to report. Let’s just say I’m currently re-evaluating my domain strategy.Good for you nonetheless.
Steve M says
“Go Daddy has recently opened up .CO as being a premium TLD.”
Respectfully, Paul, calling a tld “premium”–even when it’s Go Daddy doing the calling–doesn’t make it so.
You guys were also real big on .mobi as I recall.
Ooops, eh?
Adam says
I’m seeing about 2% STR and I did mid 5figures in sales on GD. The best part is the no effort part. I’d likely transfer/list many more if GD would bring down that commission.
Zak says
@ Adam
Then how would he pay for his million dollar
bash, if he didn’t bend us over?
Mike C says
@Simonetta, in the website under SedoMLS it looks like you need to have a portfolio of at least 5,000 domains. any plans to lift this restriction?
Simonetta says
@ M. Menius:
We are allowing a number of addtional ccTLDs and are constantly adding new ccTLDs to the network. SedoMLS Premium currently works for (.com, .net, .org, .info, .us, .biz, .de, .ch, .li, .ws, .me). We’ll be adding .it and .co shortly, others are coming on board when their registry policies allow.
@Mike
We are currently working with portfolios larger than 1000 domains and will be opening this up to smaller portfolios in Q1 2011.
Jason says
I never had any luck in Go Daddy auctions or with their premium listings. You reminded me thaf I should list again. I can list my resume and education domains.
I make my sales through emailing businesses and contacting past buyers. I gave up on Go Daddy’s premium listing, but from the looks of the service, the sales rate is similar to the click rate.
The $4000 sale was a healthy transaction. I would definitely look to list a few quality resume names. I know businesses are looking to start a resume business. I have some perfect domains to attract attention.
Thanks for the article. I will list again. I have good
Performance stats to back up every sale (if needed). Thanks.
randomo says
I’ve only made a couple sales via GD Premium, but they’ve certainly brought in more than I would have made through reseller channels, and with essentially no effort.
Though I haven’t made many sales at Afternic either, the ones I’ve made have delivered excellent margins. I’m delighted to hear they’re adding Moniker to their Premium listing service. That makes it a slam-dunk for me. (My portfolio is currently too small to qualify for SedoPro; I’ll see what happens in Q1 when their requirements change.)
Dave Bhatia says
GoDaddy.com keeps 30% instead of 10% sedo or 20% afternic.
And godaddy pays the seller after upto 75 days. From sedo I have got payment within one hour after sale.
I sent an email to Bob Parson about this many months ago. He never replied.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Dave –
SedoMLS is 20% (unless the sale takes place on Sedo’s web site, then it’s 10%)
I’ve always been paid by GoDaddy within 45 days. I think the reason for delay is to make sure there are no credit card chargebacks or fraud.
Jason says
Go Daddy worked out a deal for me. They said the buyer paid. A few daay later they said the case was closed and that the buyer never paid.
I sent an email telling them that the buyer paid and I was unhappy with how they took over a month to close the deal. They paid me out the next day. I sent the new owner a message several times to accept the transfer. He never did.
I tried to transfer the domain over past year. This is the sale that got me into domaining. In my opinion, Go Daddy probably paid ne for the domain. Nobody that pays for a domain will sit back and not claim their goods.
One poster is right about Sedo. Theyre very reliable with paying quick. That builds credibility. Until I actually make a sale on Go Daddy’s premium listing, I don’t believe that it is an effective way to sell domains.
Good job selling on Go Daddy. Besides the one deal described above, I gave never made another sale on Go Daddy. I look for buyers. Well see if that changes with the quality domains I added today.
Andrew Allemann says
@Jason – that doesn’t seem like a sale through Premium Listings. With PremiumListings everything happens automatically.
Jason says
Excuse my errors. iPhones are ineffective for typing posts.
Jason says
@Andrew,
The sale was an offer made at Go Daddy. I used the premium listing before, but never had any luck. Maybe my prices were set too high. I ended up selling them to another.
I took your advice and added some quality resume and cover letter domains as premium listings.
I see how the premium listing will work. Companies that are looking for a particular name will find ths premium listing. Thanks.
bwells says
Godaddy premium is really strange..I listed about 300 names there and the last few months I have been receiving checks with no notification that anything has been sold…basically, I have sold many domains and I never know when they are sold. Actually..this is not a bad thing, but the 30% i am paying is quite crazy. Anyway…what can you do…but raise your prices 30%..
Meyer says
20% sales commission is pushing the limit in
any industry. 30% is highway robbery.
By one saying “just raise your prices 30%”, basically means that the buyer is overpaying
or the seller is leaving 10-20% on the table.
They surely can’t justify the add’l ‘premium’
pricing because of the outstanding customer
service.
And, they are not taking any risk since GD is
holding onto your money at least 45 days.
The only advantage for working with GD is
the quantity of potential buyers.
Adam says
Seems that they don’t need to justify it . I’ve told my rep they’d get more of my business if they lowered commissions but that’s not sinking in to the behemoths head yet.
Several sales that I had at GD actually contacted me directly then opted to go through GD. I’ve paid GD (or lost thousands depending on how you look at it) as a result of that. There is a certain level of consumer confidence that the GD name gives vs. dealing with some random dude that owns a domain.
Even fabulous saw an increase in conversions and sales when they ran banners that let people buy the domains through GD or NSI. The sale might not happen with out that level of confidence provided to the buyer.
As deeply entrenched in the business as we all may be we might not realize that avg. Joe on the street likely feels much safer giving $1000+ to a company they recognize rather than jumping through hoops with a domain owner. “escrow.com? transfer codes?” . . etc etc
MikeB says
Thanks for sharing Andrew, just giving this a try now.
Is there a way of seeing how may views (clicks) my premium listings are getting?
Andrew Allemann says
@ MikeB – I don’t believe so, but you can see how many times your domains are checked in whois.
MikeB says
I looked using http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx, but don’t see any view stats there. Am I looking in the wrong place?
Andrew Allemann says
@ MikeB – you can look inside your account. You go to “exportable lists” and check the whois stats box.
Karl Jackson says
I am very excited about the new MLS service Afternic has and now Sedo. I’m seeing more sales already this year than this time last year. I believe 2 things are happening though.
#1 The MLs services – Lots more exposure.
#2 More and more entrepreneurs outside of domainers are now buying 1 to 3 word descriptive domains.
Favorite Domains says
I guess I would have to put my godaddy domains with their premium listing. Haven’t tried it properly and I don’t recall I have listed my godaddy domains with premium service.
Karl Jackson says
I think everyone agrees that fast pay and fair a commission are key points.
I typically see payment for my domains within just 2 business days and pay a 10% commission to Sedo which I think is fantastic.
Kenny says
Any follow up on this posting?
Stella Mark says
Hello, good to have found this, it’s my first time getting into domain flipping with Godaddy, I’d like to know if they’ll charge me any fees for Listing my domain for use (if I don’t make any sales within a period of time).