How Do We Make Domain Trading Better?

[jimmc]

Hi All,

Been asked by a certain large player in the market, how they can make their services better. I want to post this to ask anyone on Acorn what they think.

I think this could/might help all of us . So once we've had a moan, if we put our constructive heads on, we could come away with a prioritised list of what we want regarding sales, how parking revenue could be much better etc. Pretty much what we want to push for bearing in mind what we think they'll allow, or could deliver.

I cant divulge the company and it cant show on the string as it would be indexed and they dont want it known how much business is being affected.

Wasn't sure where to place this but Admin suggested here. - So is this the place to put a string called:

How Do We Make Domain Trading Better?

You tell me...

 

[aZooZa]

Depends what you mean by 'better', and who you're addressing I suppose.

Are you asking for a qualitative or quantitative answer? I don't mean to be pedantic, but answers to these questions will be based on premises which you haven't made clear.

E.g. -- Is it better to have 100 domains parked earning £100 per month, or 1,000 lesser-quality domains doing the same?

In my view, the best possible model is development and direct affiliation, but you need the right domains for this. See posts passim by Edwin and Ty etc.

 

[Systreg]

we could come away with a prioritised list of what we want regarding sales, how parking revenue could be much better etc.

Parking revenue looks like it's all downhill, I wouldn't be surprised if bog standard parking pages became extinct at some time in the near future and replaced with something else.

I sometimes wonder why big affiliate companies like AW don't take the lead and have their own customisable affiliate parking pages, they could have their own model similar to myaffsite, whereby you can set up a quick affiliate store to park your domain on, much better than standard parking pages revenue wise, I think that would be a winner all round if they did something like that.

 

[aZooZa]

When domainers take a reality check, they will understand that intermediaries like parking companies and affiliate brokers are moribund. That's my guess for the next three years.

If you want to make money in this business, you'll have to a) Register the right domains, and b) Be prepared to build and put a little graft in to it.

My 2p.

 

[Edwin]

Domainers need to wake up to the fact that they're nowhere on the affiliate scene. A super-affiliate can drive hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of business a month to a merchant - even the top 0.1% of domain names are unlikely to do anything like that number unless they're developed. There's kind of this expectation that affiliate managers are missing a trick, but unless you're literally hotels.co.uk pointing your domain at e.g. laterooms.com's affiliate program there's not even going to a blip on the affiliate manager's reporting screen when you redirect the traffic to their programme.

 

[Systreg]

unless you're literally hotels.co.uk pointing your domain at e.g. laterooms.com's affiliate program there's not even going to a blip on the affiliate manager's reporting screen when you redirect the traffic to their programme.

Funny you should mention affiliate managers, I received an email from an affiliate manager for Wiggle today, saying he had seen the increased activity from my bike domains that have been generating an increased amount of sales recently for Wiggle, so he wanted to take the opportunity to introduce himself

 

[Edwin]

Your DEVELOPED bike domains. That's the key difference. Anyway, congratulations on that - the next step is to drive enough sales that they start you on a custom higher commission level. Once you're on that escalator, the sky's the limit if you can keep on upping the numbers!

 

[accelerator]

Funny you should mention affiliate managers, I received an email from an affiliate manager for Wiggle today, saying he had seen the increased activity from my bike domains that have been generating an increased amount of sales recently for Wiggle, so he wanted to take the opportunity to introduce himself

Well done there.

Rgds

 

[mat]

He should take the opportunity to raise your commision aswell!!!!

 

[Systreg]

He should take the opportunity to raise your commision aswell!!!!

Yeah, I was thinking about mailing him back and suggesting I might cease using Wiggle on my sites due to them only paying 1-2% on bikes and frames, for example, I sold a £3,100 bike the through them the other day, got £31 commission, whereas on Evans Cycles and Halfords they pay 5% and 6% on all bike and frames, yes, I get a lot less sales through those 2 retailers, but the higher % makes up for that.

I've sold £14,649.56 worth of bikes, frames and other bike related stuff since June 17th, and £10,779 of that was sales through Wiggle, so I might enquire about a % raise

 

[foz]

Yeah, I was thinking about mailing him back and suggesting I might cease using Wiggle on my sites due to them only paying 1-2% on bikes and frames, for example, I sold a £3,100 bike the through them the other day, got £31 commission, whereas on Evans Cycles and Halfords they pay 5% and 6% on all bike and frames, yes, I get a lot less sales through those 2 retailers, but the higher % makes up for that.

I've sold £14,649.56 worth of bikes, frames and other bike related stuff since June 17th, and £10,779 of that was sales through Wiggle, so I might enquire about a % raise

1% is a joke. I notice Wiggle will only payout on new accounts created too.

The upside is Wiggle don't have stores, the consumer is forced to purchase online. Whereas with those others mentioned, a consumer has been redirected from your website but they call into their local store to make the final purchase and you miss out altogether.

 

[IanTurner]

In response to the original question

Improving search facilities for buyers
Marketing to buyers more - targetting ad agencies and marketing departments, getting to know the right people in those companies and understanding what they want for marketing campaigns, product launches and company rebranding.

The domain sales marketplace is the preserve of domain traders, in order to make the best returns on domains - end user buyers are needed.

Parking revenue improvements would be good, however they are being squeezed by the browser and search engine companies - targetting the browser search boxes might be a good idea - trying to get the broswers such as firefox to change the way the search box works so that if someone targets a legal domain that resolves into the search box they are taken to that domain rather than a search service (such as Google). (I'm not sure how this could be made to work by one company or for one company but I'm sure things can be worked out if people actually get down to thinking about it.)

Services such as Open DNS are providing search results on non-resolving domains (note that BT are putting all their non-resolving DNS queries via Open DNS now - pain in the arse that it is) - they use Yahoo SERPs, could they be persuaded to put in a section of 'Did you mean?' with a list of similar domains that actually resolve.

Okay that's all I can think of just at the moment.

 

[jimmc]

Depends what you mean by 'better', and who you're addressing I suppose.

E.g. -- Is it better to have 100 domains parked earning £100 per month, or 1,000 lesser-quality domains doing the same?

In my view, the best possible model is development and direct affiliation, but you need the right domains for this.

aZooZa I would agree with the response on parking that developed website will always bring in a higher value, but it would also be more profitable to have 100 domains making the same as 1000 due to the registration fees.

 

[jimmc]

In response to the original question....

Thanks Ian, yeah we were getting just a "wee" bit off topic there. Some great stuff here though and I'll come back with some answers as soon as I've cleared the backlog we all get when the inbox is ignored for a week or so

 

[jimmc]

Systreg, aZooZa, Edwin, your 'all right' of course but we might as well shout out what we would like to see. If we could create a top 20 of what we would like and why it will be taken onboard. Dont know how much will be delivered but lets think positive.

Here's a couple of answers and points which have been touched on by the string


Affiliate companies :

· The main issues with several of the affiliate companies is quite simply in the main volume as undeveloped pages would just not supply the traffic needed.

· The other side is the volume of advertisers that are at the disposal of these affiliate companies. For even the largest of the companies i.e. Tradedoubler or AW only have a 100 or so advertisers and when you see the volume of domains names out there it is difficult to get the right domains to match that list of advertisers. In comparison to Google which has access such a large volume of advertisers.

· In the end the solution is the development of key domains to match well performing affiliate programs.

End user buyers:

· Seemingly the situation is the big co's are seeing more end users buyers going to their sites but the problem is that a large number of them are put off by the fact that so many domains just have a "make an offer" section and as such they are at a position of not being sure what to offer and often they put in a low offer and are shocked when a high ball offer is placed back.

** They think the solution to this would be to put forward more fixed prices which would enable the end users an idea of the price and then speed up the purchasing process.

Personally I dont know about this, putting in a BIN on all names does that really work? What I think (I'd like to see) is that you can place a reserve and this then kicks off the auction, that way the end-user can decide if they want to pay that price as a minimum, the domainer knows thats the minmum theyre going to get and it ends where it ends. I think you would have to put realistic reserves in though or this will wont work and after a time if there are no offers you should be able to lower that reserve to start that sale. Now I know that already happens with some but it doesnt happen until an end-user has made an approach, I'd like us to be able to do this from the off when you register a name with them!

This would be help everyone imho and would kick-start sales and stop the current way where youre sitting there in amongst millions and waiting for a punter to stick in a low-ball offer thats nowehere near what you would even consider.

Its only one answer to the 'sales side' of things but its definitely one I'd have in my Top 20!!

Anyway let me know....

 

[jimmc]

Been away this week, does anyone have any ideas on how we can let the market know what we would like to see??

Its a great opporntunity as the parking and auction sites realise that things have got to change given the current market.

 

[jimmc]

Suprised not more feedback on this. What does anyone think about this?

You get a real lowball offer for one of your names, Now you normally have to put in a counter bid to continue the possible sale or it dies, however you dont want to put a price in as

1) If you put in the price you think its worth it might scare off the buyer - sales dies.
2) If you put in a low reserve the buyer can obligate you to sell at this price - you get screwed.

Basic case where these systems dont work well for anyone. If you put in a counter priced to tempt the buyer it may be accepted and youve (in your eyes) undersold it - punt it too high and you lose the buyer.

What I would like to do would be to be able to contact the buyer and say if you bid (this figure) you will acccept this as an acceptable offer to start and auction???

If the buyer agrees, you accept when the bid comes in and the auction kicks-off with this as a reserve. If no-one else bids he/she gets the name at that price.

This in my mind satisfies everyone including the site as it makes more commission.

Fair for everyone? - Anyone????

 

[IanTurner]

That seems fairly sensible to me - it is difficult setting prices for domains as the buyer who wants your particular domain and is willing to pay a reasonable price comes along rarely.

You have to be able to get this kind of buyer into a dialogue in some way or other, as often once that dialogue is started a mutually acceptable price can be negotiated.

 

[Paullas]

ive found more and more (might just be me ) that when i refuse their first offer i get threatened will DRS, or legal action.

 

[Paullas]

Is that because those enquiring might actually have a case to bring either, of the above, against you?

no they are chancers who think they have a right over a domain name because i havent done anything with it.