Flippa has certainly upped its game in the category of domain only auctions this year. The platform has certainly had its fair share of domain sales in the past. In our interview last August with Ophelie Lechat, she detailed the five biggest sales ever on the Flippa platform.
Kevin Fink has come aboard in 2014 and has really shaken things up for the better, listing fees for domain only auctions have come down, Kevin provides updates on the Flippa blog.
Today he was kind enough to give us a little insight into selling domains on Flippa.
1) Tell us your role at Flippa ?
Kevin Fink: I am Flippa’s Domains Manager — I oversee all angles of domains bought and sold on Flippa. Whether it be new member acquisition, account management of existing members, Premium marketplace and brokerage partnerships, advertising, blog and newsletter content, and some other hats!
I work very closely with our Melbourne-based Product team and our global Customer Success team, who I hold personally responsible for the momentum and success we’re starting to see as one of the fastest-growing domain name marketplaces.
2) Since you have come on board it seems that Flippa has made a great effort to promote domain only auctions, how has that been going ?
Kevin Fink: We’ve been scaling quite well. I came on board in January, and the domains space has more than doubled since. We’re seeing the usual summer doldrum effect that everyone else goes through, but overall, we’re in a really good place. July was the best ever, and most active month for Premium domain sales, and our most-active month we’ve ever seen for buyers. We’re going to be expanding on both sectors with some exciting changes in the coming months.
3) Do you have any data on what kinds of domains have been selling best ?
Kevin Fink: One of the more striking contrasts to other marketplaces’ bellwether TLDs — which we still sell fairly well, just less of — has been our success with the .INFO extension. July was our best month for Premium .INFO domains, with three five-figure domains changing hands. We are starting to do much better with Premium .COMs, too — but we’re definitely catering to a slightly different audience of ccTLD buyers, .IO being a crowd favorite.
4) A few readers have asked in the past, how does one negotiate after an auction that closed without selling?
Kevin Fink: On my weekly Flippa blog posts, I may refer to PAN — that is Flippa’s “Post-Auction Negotiation” system. There’s been unanimous praise of this new tool from a buyer and seller perspective, and here’s how it works:
Let’s say you are the seller and the auction ends without hitting its reserve price; your domain is effectively unsold. But let’s say you had X number of people watching the auction, and X number of bidders. You can invite them into PAN and negotiate via offer/counter-offer, until one party Accepts or Rejects the final offer put forth.
One thing to note: if you’re a bidder, you can put forth an offer to a seller before the seller has initiated PAN.
And most recently, we’ve opened up the system so that even if a buyer wasn’t participating in the domain auction in some way, but happened to stumble upon the ended listing at a later date, they could still make an offer to the seller.
5) What are the fees associated with a domain only auction at Flippa ?
Kevin Fink: We lowered the listing fee this past January, so it now costs $9 to launch a domain auction . Should your domain sell, Flippa takes a 10% Success Fee — among the lowest in the industry. There are listing upgrades available at an additional cost that help you promote and expose your domain auctions to more buyers. I work with sellers on a daily basis in helping them craft a personal plan of attack; happy to do so for anyone reading this, as well.”
Flippa’s Domains Catalog is a new separate wing of the Flippa Marketplace, where domain sellers can upload an unlimited number of domains for free. Buyers can “Buy Now” or Make an Offer, and sellers are subject to a 15% Success Fee (at a minimum of $60, the same as other competing marketplaces).
We’ve just hit 20,000 domains and are looking forward to a full-rollout soon, including Push To Auction functionality (from both buyer and seller).
There’s one important thing to keep in mind: domains listed in your Catalog currently can’t be searched from general Flippa search fields, nor are there available upgrades as of yet. Ultimately, the best place to sell your domain quickly, and to get it seen by as many people possible, is still our main auction marketplace. Keep an eye on our blog for updated Catalog functionality in the weeks to come.
6) You report sales that close to DN Journal now, do all sales over a certain price get reported ? Can the buyer or seller opt to not have it reported ?
Kevin Fink: DN Journal reports all Flippa sales over a certain price threshold: any .COM that has sold for $2,000 or greater, and any non-.COM that has sold for over $1,000. I only get about one privacy request per month, usually from the seller
7) Is there anything you would like to add, or tips you could give prospective domain sellers on Flippa ?
Kevin Fink: I could talk about Flippa’s growing domains marketplace all day, so be careful with that question! I want to address both domain buyers and sellers, the buyers first: Flippa is becoming an increasingly solid marketplace for buying domains, whether you’re an investor, domainer, startup, etc. If you’re familiar with Flippa’s private Website Brokerage arm, Deal Flow, we’ll soon be replicating something similar for Premium Domains — so keep an eye out!
As for all you domain sellers, which is probably most of you reading this, I’d like to offer you the opportunity to try Flippa out and do a test-run of domain auctions with us. As far as tips and best-practices go, I am armed with those — as well as some listing credit subsidies.
Simply email me at [Domains] at [Flippa] dotcom, and share with me a list of domains you’re looking to sell. Oh, and mention you read this interview for some free credits!
Thanks, Raymond, for these good questions…I appreciate being able to share with your readers what we’ve been up to.
Travis says
Great interview. Hats off to Kevin for the great changes/improvements that have been made. “Domains that have been selling the best”….Flippa is certainly a marketplace all it’s own 😉
Kevin says
Thanks, Travis — glad to see you starting to get some traction with Flippa sales, and keep up the great work on your blog, too!
Travis says
“Eh”, that remains to be seen lol.
Leonard Britt says
Thanks for sharing!
Jeff says
Great interview ray.
I admit I keep going back and forth on this flippa topic.
No way I’m paying for advancement and exposure to my domain for few hundred bucks and half the deals don’t even get funded.
They should drop the bullshit and make things simple. Why should I chase them down for things when all they care about is fixed amount of cash before any auction even begins.
Wish Kevin the very best but I got zero interest in trying them out I concluded. Will conduct with people who want my business and commission based.
Thedomains spent a couple grand on a domain last year and guess what it was a joke. So owner took a big loss and a brokerage unit found buyer. Commission then.
Kevin says
Jeff, hit me up to try again risk-free.
Same goes to you, Mike.
I’m helping sellers strategize “how to” — so please allow me to counsel if interested.
A says
In my view flippa has deteriorated beyond recognition – but this isnt just my view but the view of hundreds across the main forum boards and chat boards. It is time to speak out.
I used to be an active users with over $100k of transactions of my profile,
Firstly the success commission that flippa charges is outrageous. On top of paying 10% on any sales (it used to be capped) – one has to pay for upgrades $50 a pop each time and a premium listing of $250 each time just to be seen by anyone.
Flippa says they will give you ‘free upgrades and credits’ for exclusives listings. All domains my company lists are exclusive to flippa – never have I received 1 free upgrade.
An unnecessary redesign of the homepage now means that even featured listings are seen less and they are only on the homepage for a limited period – once mine was on the homepage for just 45 minutes.
As I have witnessed first hand Flippa has become too complacent and has had no care for any of its sellers but just wants to maximise its profits – this will be its eventual downfall. I am sure of this.
Raymond Hackney says
Thank you for the comment.
A says
No problem Raymond – great blog by the way!
Raymond Hackney says
Thanks for the kind words. I agree that all platforms have to be vested in their sellers success. If they are too focused on heads we win – tails we win, let’s just have a bunch of upgrades and we make money no matter what, it turns people off. That is what happened to Ebay.
Auction sites should care about simplicity. There is a need to make money and I want them to make a lot of money, but it has to have some correlation to the success of the sellers on their website.
I will say Kevin works around the clock and has responded to any complaint that I have emailed him or pointed out in comments. I hope he takes care of you as you certainly have done a lot of business there over $100,000.
Kevin says
I couldn’t agree more, the marketing tagline that says “Buy Homepage Featured Listings & get 3x views is illegitimate. It’s too much to pay for, coupled with the 10% listing fees.
All Flippa has been doing in the past years, especially since 2013 onwards was focusing on revenue stream. The ridiculous listing fees increment is beyond outrageous.
If Flippa could at least explain that the increment has something to do with putting more money on adverts to get more buyers on Flippa that could have been somewhat acceptable. But according to Alexa/SEMRush, traffic still maintains stagnant.
It’s only a matter of time when a new Flippa competitor arise.
Kevin says
Interesting take on this.
My main goal in running the domains department is to make this marketplace one of the best in the world for buying and selling domain names.
We’ve made some improvements, but we have a lot more work to do.
Meantime, as I stated elsewhere — I’m not here to sell upgrades. I’m here to help sellers sell their domains.
You know where to find me if you’d like my help!
Kevin says
I appreciate your feedback.
I am leading the charge to change this perception, and the Trust and Safety + Customer Success teams are also ensuring the same.
I am all about selling domains — not selling upgrades. Upgrades help with market exposure, but if I sell you an upgrade and you have a terrible experience, and you end up losing money, you’ll likely not be a returning customer. Then we’ll find ourselves in a tricky situation of my attempting to help you via a blog comment.
In direct answer to you, A — I haven’t offered you assistance or credits or what-have-you because I don’t know who you are!
I’ve already reached out to Jeff, who wrote me after I posted my reply to him. I’m happy to spend time with you, as well, and anyone else reading this: if you’ve had a bad experience on Flippa in months or years past, and you’re just looking to sell your domains, reach out to me so I and my team can help you hands-on.
Kevin says
One quick addendum: Flippa Exclusives are what I have been calling “hand-picked” selections. You only get “invited” to run an exclusive if you speak to me and let me know what you’re selling. It’s a very selective process.
It will also be relabeled soon, seeing as — yes, true — all Flippa listings are *supposed* to be Exclusive with Flippa!
Jeff says
Ok Kevin I will email you. Give you a shot.
Sorry sound a bit harsh. My opioion of flippa was before u joined.
Kevin says
That’s alright, Jeff — I’m looking forward to working with you further.
Travis says
Personally, I really don’t use Flippa very much, for the similar points listed above, but I couldn’t begin to argue w/ how Flippa conducts its business. I don’t use Flippa, but I watch it enough to pull out why things are the way they are.
Flippa is an auction house MOST similar to eBay, but w/ the obvious difference your dealing w/ digital goods and a different clientele. So with that “niche” comes the necessary pricing structure.
If we know anything about domains, than we know that there’s really no such thing as “shit” domains. If it can find an end-user, than there’s value to be had. But were largely not dealing w/ end-users on Flippa, were dealing w/ other domain investors, aside from sending out emails to end-users w/ a link to the auction and hoping they may find some interest, etc., etc.,. But from a domain investor perspective, we know what domains are actually investment-grade, and what one’s aren’t.
If you follow the daily Flippa listings, you’ll notice a large abundance of shit domains (as a matter of opinion), listed. Opposed to being flooded w/ too many of these like any other aftermarket house out there, the pricing structure is set in place to spot light the domains with “real value”. After all, why shouldn’t a domain with real value be put to the top?
If you refuse/unwilling to pay $9 for a basic listing, than that domain is obviously not worth listing. Do you expect the domain to sell well over $250 if you chose a premium upgrade? Use it or don’t. Flippa continually makes posts on their blog on this subject, they’re not trying to cheat anyone out of anything.
Flippa is not here to hold your hand, if you need your hand held, go over to Namepros.com. I think the safest thing going into listing a domain on Flippa, DON’T expect to replicate the result of a similar auction. There’s a number of factors that go into it, not just how much you are willing to spend on upgrades.
Frankly, the people who are bitching on forums are those who have some preconceived notion that their domains actually have value, or people who don’t do the necessary “due diligence” before buying a website/domain. Flippa should not be held 100% responsible for buying something carelessly. IMO, the fault goes to the buyer.
In the past year, Flippa has made a lot of changes (that I assume Kevin had a part in). More visibility between the buyers/sellers, “due diligence” features, and a host of promotions Flippa continually runs for free listings/upgrades. Hell, go appraise some domains for some free listing credits if $9 is too much.
I think the major problem with the “bad rep” Flippa may have among some, everything is spotlighted. Whether it’s across forums, on blogs, etc., eBay has it’s fair fare share of problems and that marketplace is how old? Nothing can run 100% when your dealing w/ fallible and dishonest people, not unlike any marketplace out there, Godaddy comes to mind here.
But the Flippa structure cannot be blamed (entirely), especially when you see the number of updates that are made to the site regularly, for better or worse, at least changes are being made. Things take time.
This wasn’t directed at anyone 😉 , just some points I wanted to make 🙂 .
Kevin says
Thanks, Travis — good points.
“Frankly, the people who are bitching on forums are those who have some preconceived notion that their domains actually have value…”
— This is true for many people, but I’m still willing to work with everyone on a case by case basis to thumb through inventory and select choices that have the best chance at conversion.
Happy to be invited to these threads, if anyone wants to show me…
Josh S. says
One important thing to realize is that not every Flippa auction is going to be a home run for the seller, and many sales are going to be strikeouts. To continue with the baseball analogy, after running approximately 20 Flippa auctions myself, I’ve hit 2 home runs (great ROI), one triple (good ROI), a couple of doubles (100% ROI), a few singles (any ROI), and I’ve stuck out around 8 times (no sale or sold for a loss). While those numbers might not sound impressive, my ROI is very solid.
There are end users on Flippa, but they are rare. The #1 improvement the platform could make is attract more buyers, as more buyers means more bids and more revenue for both Flippa and its sellers.
A note to anyone who purchases Spotlight Listings (the ones that appear at the top of the homepage): Watch them very closely to make sure they go up and stay up for the times you purchased. They are effective at getting views (thought the cost is high), but the system they have in place for the listings is not 100% functional (I wouldn’t say it’s even 50% functional), and well over half of the ones I have purchased have had problems. With that said, Flippa’s support team has always made it right by adding credits or extending auctions, but at $150 per, they should be technically flawless.
Kevin says
Thanks, Josh — great analogy. If I’m thinking of the same “Josh S” in mind who I’ve been working with, I should note that you’ve done an immensely good job of building an account up from scratch in just a couple months.
The best advice I can give a new seller is…it may take a few months of listing and re-listing auctions. I’m here to make things as easy and risk-free as possible during that time (again, connect with me — I can’t find you all in the dark).
But just keep in mind, there has to be some investment, if only your time and effort, to foster the growth of inventory and awareness of buyers.
Big Ben says
I am deeply disturbed by Flippa’s egregious mistreatment of me.
3 weeks ago I was dealing with a huge headache where Paypal.com flagged a success fee to Flippa.
I spoke with Paypal’s fraud dept. and they attested that Flippa sometimes gets flagged . (spoke with Mark csr)
Flippa.com instead thought I HAD contested payment and suspended me.
I had to send them a screenshot to get reinstated.
Next up a bidder never paid, lied to escrow.com that they had paid with a wire.
It took a long while for Flippa to relist my auction.
They didnt sanction the deadbeat bidder either.
It was getting late in the evening and as I was recently back from Labor Day vacation, I opted to get the relisting live and then add more ‘proofs’ today.
As the auction linked to my previous auction I thought that was good enough for the night.
Today I got a double whammy.
That my auction was suspended and then bam two minutes later that I was banned.
I was a perfect seller, 100% feedback.
Now I can’t even contact my customers and Flippa support keeps ‘resolving’ my zendesk support tickets without verbally replying.
After giving Flippa thousands in listing and support fees, this is a huge slap in the face.
And the fact that my public profile probably shows as BANNED is defaming my reputation and harming my income.
Kevin Fink says
Big Ben, again — who are you? Why haven’t you emailed me? We don’t even have a Mark in CS…
Big Ben says
Hello Kevin,
I was referring to Paypal’s fraud dept. regarding “Mark”
I don’t have your email to contact you directly.
Kevin Fink says
Apologies, Ben —
While it’s fairly out of my hands when it comes to PayPal, let’s discuss ways you can have a better Flippa experience moving forward. [Domains Flippa ]
Big Ben says
Actually scratch that, I see your contact is ‘domains at flippa”.
GB says
That sucks man, I never trusted flippa, I was reading on namepros that employees are allowed to bid on auctions. no thank you.
Travis says
If that’s your reasoning for not using Flippa, than I would suggest not using any domain aftermarket, because they all do it. Can you honestly expect people who have “actual” jobs in the domain industry, not to participate. The fact is, Flippa is one of the only that’s actually upfront and honest about it. They have ~more transparency than the others. At the end of the day, if you can’t beat any person(s) for a domain that’s up for auction, than you just didn’t want it enough. I would suggest sticking to BIN/offer, closeouts, and hand registering domains if you forgo purchasing a domain that’s for auction, because you are worried that an “insider” is bidding against you.
Kevin Fink says
I just responded to about 7,000 comments on that NamePros thread…Have at it.
Brian Hanson says
My only issue with Flippa is with the post-sale review. It isn’t written very clearly.
If you read that section, you’ll see the buyer/seller are asked to comment on how the process went, not on the actions of the buyer/seller.
I think many first-time buyers think they are reviewing the actual process of joining up, paying, logging in, and moving the process along.
Experienced buyers/sellers know that the review process is to be about the other party, but I know a new buyer told me he gave the process a 0% because he had a hard time finding out how to pay.
He thought he was reviewing the Flippa process, not the actions of me, the seller.