Afternic announced the delivery of a freshly half-baked solution, Afternic Boost.
Unlike previous launches of GoDaddy products, the company ensured the registration of the matching .com domain, AfternicBoost.com. The domain is pointed to the GoDaddy blog post that describes what this service is all about.
Not surprisingly, the product arrives with disclaimers about its performance. It’s “up to” 10% improvement in sales with a 5% cost increase in fees. For the average Joe Seller on Afternic, the automatic opt-in would cost a massive 20% in fees, without delivering anything under guarantee.
In fact, what it does promise to deliver was already there until a few weeks ago, when reports of loss of visibility for domains in the almighty GoDaddy search surfaced. In other words, GoDaddy appears to have canceled out the equal terms that domains listed for sale on its aftermarket received and has decided to charge 5% to reinstate them.
In effect, GoDaddy is increasing its Afternic fees to 20% from 15% for all participants of this Afternic Boost scheme. Of course, one can opt out of Afternic Boost and turn off the switch that GoDaddy turned on automatically. In doing so, the non-participants will continue to receive the same subpar exposure that was determined as the new norm a few months ago.
Those that participate will most likely receive not much of a boost; dollar for dollar, the cost of scoring sales for the amounts that GoDaddy is known for, below the $25,000 threshold, the boost is low. But GoDaddy is willing to give it a wrapper of special treatment, including a verified badge and whatnot.
Additionally, GoDaddy seems to have timed the release of Afternic Boost to coincide with the much-discussed oncoming demise of DAN.com. By not providing DAN.com users whose BIN-priced domains appear on Afternic with the ability to boost their domains, GoDaddy is signaling the end of DAN.
The booster package was well-planned in the sense that it benefits GoDaddy primarily; there are several reports out there that show how much the seller and Afternic would benefit.
It’s also an insult to everyone’s intelligence and Afternic might as well ship a pair of GoDaddy socks with the “Boost” badge on them to all sellers it opted in automatically.
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