Afternic Boost commissions kick in on Wednesday

Afternic sellers will pay an additional 5% commission unless they opt out of new program.

Domain investors who sell domains through Afternic will start paying higher commissions this Wednesday unless they opt out of a new program.

Afternic Boost officially kicks into gear on September 4. At that time, sales commissions will increase from 15% to 20% for domains parked with Afternic and 25% to 30% for domains parked elsewhere.

Sellers should not expect a jump in sales; most of the features of Afternic Boost have been in place for a while now. These features will be turned off for anyone who opts out of the program.

I’ve decided to opt out for now.

The last time I made significant changes to my domain sales process was when Afternic lowered commissions if you pointed domains to them. I took almost all of my domains that pointed elsewhere and shifted them to Afternic landers.

So, I’m taking Afternic’s latest change as an opportunity to rethink my approach.

The main reason I’m opting out is that I can’t make the math work. I’m a fan of the idea of recycling domain dollars — selling domains at a nice profit, even if it’s not your asking price, in order to reinvest the money in more domains. However, a 33% increase in commissions across the portfolio is too much to swallow for a potential 10% more domain sales. Even if I get 10% more sales, Afternic takes 70% of those extra sales since the increased commission applies to all transactions.

I’ve also become increasingly frustrated with the follow-up time of Afternic brokers. Now that we have visibility in the Lead Center, I can’t figure out what sort of rules Afternic has in place for its brokers on how often they are supposed to follow up with prospects. It’s all over the place. So, I’d like to self-broker more of my domains.

I’m keeping my portfolio on Afternic but using other services, too.

I’m adding more domains to Atom, which is doing innovative things in the aftermarket. While the site is complicated to use, Atom has the best support of any aftermarket. If you have trouble, chat support usually responds with a clear answer in minutes.

I also plan to try Saw.com for self-brokering.

And I’ll also update my portfolio at Sedo. I sold at least one domain at Sedo last month (another is pending payment) after not selling one there in over two years.

If you choose to opt out of Boost, go to Settings and click on Afternic Boost. Plans can’t be changed more than once per 48 hours.