How To Get Started With Afternic – 2019 Edition

afternic-logo

Afternic was one of the very first platforms I used to list domain names for sale, which was over ten years ago…queue jokes about me being old! Over the years they have done a great job of improving the UX, expanding the distribution network, and many more awesome things that help investors sell more domains. There are many different avenues to sell domains and listing your names in a marketplace like Afternic is free, and gets you more exposure, so there’s really no reason not to do it.

In the past I’ve heard people complain about having to pay commission when a domain name they own sells at a marketplace. There’s a very quick simple fix for this, just price your name higher to compensate. That was easy, wasn’t it?

As one of the largest global domain marketplaces, and owned by Go Daddy, Afternic has an incredible distribution network which means that people searching for your domain can find it on a wide range of other places. Since it’s been a while since I’ve done a walkthrough of getting started with Afternic I thought it was time for a refresher since it’s one of my personal favorites.

There’s some terminology to know when listing domains on Afternic and if that’s scared you away in the past get ready for it to all be demystified. Ready? Let’s rock!

Step 1: Enter your domainsafternic-step1-enter-domains

Unless you only have a handful of domain names I would highly recommend that you upload a spreadsheet with your domains in it. This makes life a lot easier because you’re able to fill out all the details about each domain name directly in Excel. While you can always do this directly through the Afternic platform, I’ve found it’s quicker and easier to do it in a spreadsheet on the front-end.

So let’s walk through what the spreadsheet will look like.

Step 2: Download the spreadsheet templateAfternic-domain-listing-spreadsheet

Okay, I know there’s a lot here, but don’t get intimidated, once you know what everything means it’s easy to get in a groove. Let’s go through each of these columns one-by-one:

Domain Name – you guessed it, that was an easy one!

Minimum offer – this is the lowest offer amount a buyer can submit, don’t confuse this with the lowest amount of money you’d accept for a domain name. You might want to get $5,000 for a domain but realistically a buyer with a $5,000 budget could start with an $1,000 offer…I’d recommend setting your minimum offer in the $250 – $750 range. Note that $250 is the minimum offer price that you can set.

Reserve price – this is an optional field. If a buyer meets this price it will automatically be accepted after 7 days if someone else doesn’t make a higher offer. I often leave this blank myself.

Floor price – also optional but I do recommend filling this one in. The floor price is the lowest price you’d sell a domain for and can be useful if someone from Afternic is helping to negotiate a deal on your behalf. Once again, like I said above, set this to a number that takes into account the commission you’ll be paying.

Buy Now Price – while this is also technically optional I strongly recommend filling it in. It also happens to be required if you’d like your domains to be part of the premium promotion level, which you want. More on that later. Simply put, the Buy Now Price, often called a BIN, is the price you’d accept for an immediate sale.

First and second level categories – if you fill this in then people browsing for names in specific categories will have an easier time finding your name. You can have Afternic do this for you but the reality is you’ll probably do a better job yourself than letting a bot do it.

Description – you’re welcome to go nuts here and write a fun description of your domain or list reasons why someone should buy it. I haven’t used this field myself since it would take a long time to fill it out for all my names.

Listing status – I see people get confused with this one and I know why…it’s a bit confusing. Essentially this is asking if you want your domain to be available through the domain reseller network or not. I’d say in 99.9% of cases you would want this since it means more people will see your domain. Simply put the number “3” in this field to select that option, a “4” means you do not want to have your domain included in the reseller network.

Step 3: List your domain for fast transfer

This is another great reason why you want to set a BIN price with names you list on Afternic. If your domains have a BIN and they qualify for fast transfer (based on price and TLD) then you’ll get automatically upgraded to the Premium Network at the same time. So what is fast transfer? It means that the buyer will get the name right after they purchase it without having to go through the hassle of auth codes and associated waiting game.

The way I look at it is – people like to take the path of least resistance. If someone is considering buying your name and another name, and your name they’ll get right away, the other they’ll have to go through auth codes, etc. then which name do you think they’re going to pick?

That’s it. Your names will now be listed for sale on Afternic. At this point you might be wondering a bit more about the difference between the Standard and Premium Network so let me break it down for you.

  • Standard promotes your domain on 32 sites, Premium promotes your domain on 100 sites
  • Standard gets you in front of a potential 25M buyers, Premium gets you in front of a potential 75M buyers
  • Standard won’t allow fast transfers, Premium will

Phew – okay well that about covers it. Hopefully this post will give you the kick in the pants you needed to get your names up on Afternic. Like any domain marketplace don’t set an expectation that suddenly all your domains will sell overnight but there’s no doubt you have a great chance of selling your domains if they’re listed in marketplaces than if they aren’t…and there’s no cost to list them, so it’s always seemed like a no brainer to me.

Thanks for reading and as always feel free to share your thoughts and experience in the comment section below!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton