Pay Close Attention to Dan.com’s Meet the Seller Box

Pay Close Attention to Dan.com’s Meet the Seller Box.

Last week and into the weekend, I dove into researching and setting up a couple of hundred domains from my domain portfolio using Dan.com, formerly Undeveloped.com.

Most of my domain portfolio is listed via Afternic.com, generating a minimum of 2-3 monthly sales, roughly $2,700 average sale price.

While Afternic.com provides a rather large footprint and exposure to potential domain buyers, it commands 20 percent commissions for each domain sale transaction.

Enter Dan.com with 9 percent commissions for each domain sale transaction.

I originally created my Dan.com account about 2 months after their “big leap forward” re-branding effort, especially after discovering potential commission savings to be realized on future domain transactions.

At 11 percent savings, loading at least 100-200 domains as a test!

So, just what are the differences between the Dan.com and Afternic.com user experience?

Personally, I find the Afternic.com experience clunky, dated, and leaving much to desire — GoDaddy could and should COMPLETELY rebrand Afternic.com with a modern experience to match the competitive landscape, at the very least.

Meanwhile, Undeveloped.com’s rebrand to Dan.com is a breath of fresh air, to say the least. Dan.com provides a simple, easy-to-use interface consisting of four intuitive management areas: Dashboard, Portfolio, Sales activity, and Administration.

In addition, I’m most impressed by Dan.com’s landing page — seamless, responsive, professional design, and various customizable options:

Buying options — Various buying options to help seal your next domain deal with Buyers. This section offers the following options to select from:
Buy now, Buy now & Make offer, or Make Offer.

Payment options — Various payment options to help seal your next domain deal with Buyers. This section offers the following options to select from:
Disable installments, Sales & Revenue accelerator (NEW!), or Installments.

Traffic Graph — Displays a traffic graph of monthly visits to the domain, possibly creating urgency for the Buyer to purchase the domain. This section offers the following options to select from: Always show, Only when 100+ monthly views, or Don’t show anything.

Captcha — Increases the opportunity for real-qualified buyers.  No bots here. This section offers the following options to select from: Only enable the captcha for high-risk visitors, Enable the captcha for all visitors, or Disable the captcha.

Meet the seller — Buyers can view your Dan.com profile page from the domain For Sale page. This section offers the following options to select from: Show domains, Show bio, or Don’t Show anything.

Meet the seller box — A box viewed by Buyers when they are in and visit a domain’s For Sale page. The first and second lines are set to Automatic.

Host your for-sale pages on Dan.com — Redirect your buyers to the internal marketplace for-sale pages.

Analytics — Associate your Dan.com and Google Analytics accounts for insightful reporting.

While there are many options to configure in For Sale page, Seller Profile, and Privacy settings, be certain to pay close attention to the following:

Seller profile settings
The Seller profile page offers a number of options, such as adding a picture, bio, nickname, background image, personal details, and company name to For Sale and Profile page(s). Personally, I opted for the Bio and opted out of adding a photo, although I plan to update the photo with an optimized DN Strategies logo.

Privacy settings for Public Name and Public Profile
The Privacy page allows for the Public name display of a full name, nickname, company name, or Private Seller, the default option. I chose Private Seller for now and will test and report results for all other options over the next 9-18 months.

As for your Public profile, you may display or NOT display a list of your domains on each For Sale page and link or NOT link For Sale pages to your public profile. I opted to check the box to disable both of the Public profile options. I don’t care to offer additional domain portfolio information at the fingertips of Buyers to possibly use as a negotiation strategy or tactic to lower the domain asking price.

For Sale page settings for Meet the Seller
While Seller and Privacy settings are worth a review and consideration, the most critical setting to select is the Meet the Seller box.

While the previous sections drastically alter the For Sale and Profile page(s) appearance, select the most appropriate First and Second line options under the Meet the Seller box settings.

If you leave these options to their Automatic default setting, then your total number of domains listed on Dan.com is displayed (see Domain Seller box in the image below).

I prefer for Buyers not to know this critical information, as it could sway or bias their offer or desire to purchase a domain.

As for the First line option, I prefer for Buyers to know “Member since X months” versus “X domains sold” or “X domains on offer.”

The latter options are applicable, but only when a few or more offers have been received and sold.

When Automatic is selected, below is how the First line option is displayed to Buyers (see Domain Seller box in the image below):

As for the Second line option, I preferred the default setting of Automatic, which displays nothing, instead of “Delivers within about 50 years”, “Responds within about 50 years,” and “X offers received.”

With the exception of “X offers received,” “Delivers within about 50 years,” and “Responds within about 50 years,” selections don’t make sense. They could deter Buyers from buying and taking the page seriously.

Not certain, but it’s possible these default options are only meant to be snarky and playful. Personally, I prefer an option for a custom entry field, allowing for a text-based message as input.

Nevertheless, when the Second line option is selected, below is how it displays to Buyers (see Domain Seller box in the image below):

All in all, the Meet the Seller box has the potential to be a critical deal maker or breaker based on the domain, the Buyer, and Buyer’s perspective and emotional reaction towards the First and Second line options when in the buying process.

In closing, I’m pleased with what I’ve accomplished so far with listing a segment of my domain portfolio using Dan.com.

I’m hoping to report back in a few months with solid sales to share as well as any additional tweaks and adjustments — private seller vs. public seller, background image, traffic chart, “X domains sold,” “X offers received” — I’ve made along the way.

Well, that’s all for now!

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Written by Alvin Brown
He's an experienced and passionate serial entrepreneur, founder and publisher of Kickstart Commerce. Alvin possesses a great love for startups dominating their market using profitable digital strategies for greater commerce.