Afternic Should Better Explain Broker Communication Process

My Afternic Lead Center is full of Stalled, Qualifying, Confused, and Unknown leads. As a domain investor, this is pretty confusing and slightly frustrating. I don’t blame Afternic brokers for this because I have become familiar with how their platform works, but I do think Afternic and GoDaddy should better educate its sellers on the brokerage process.

When a prospective buyer submits an offer or inquiry, I am pretty certain they quickly receive an automated email with information about the domain name and a broker contact. The Afternic broker will follow up various times via email and a phone call if they have the correct phone number. Afternic brokers earn a living on commissions, so they have a vested interest in selling domain names.

I think sellers may not really understand that many of the inbound leads aren’t genuine or qualified buyers. There are many buyers who are confused and have no idea they are submitting a domain name purchase inquiry. Perhaps they don’t speak the language of the inquiry or are trying to access a website on the incorrect domain name. I deal with this on many of the inbound inquiries I handle for my domain names via Embrace.com. To me, it seems pretty clear they are submitting a purchase inquiry/offer, yet here they are trying to get an answer to something totally unrelated.

Other prospects who submit an offer or inquiry may genuinely want to buy a domain name but don’t have the required budget. Someone might submit a $5,000 offer that I set as my Minimum Offer, but they only have a $200 budget and submitted the lowest offer the platform would allow to be seen. It appears they made a $5,000 offer but can really only pay $200 and just wanted their offer to be seen.

I don’t need Afternic brokers informing me about offers that were made that are below my minimum. It’s a waste of their time and mine. However, from the seller’s perspective, they may see a lead in their Lead Center and it’s listed as “Stalled” within a short time. Without additional commentary, this is confusing and may make the broker appear lazy or disengaged.

If I hadn’t learned about how the Afternic broker communication process works, I might be concerned about Afternic brokers handling my leads. I like managing my own leads because it can cut down on the time to communicate with a prospective buyer. This can be helpful if a prospect wants a name ASAP and sleeping on the decision could result in a lost deal. However, I am also pretty sure Afternic brokers are better at sales than I am, and they have a vested interest in getting a deal done.

I think GoDaddy and Afternic need to do a better job of communicating how their brokering process works, and the “Status” section of the Lead Center could be more detailed. This would likely give sellers more confidence in the brokers handling leads.