Comments

Inflated appraisals and sales prices are just a couple of the problems of the first Afternic. You would think an inexperienced management team had been running it, but it was ran by one of the biggest registrars online, Register.com. Register.com may have failed miserably with Afternic, but a new management team lead by Roger Collins is trying their best to make the domain name auction giant into a success. So far they have succeeded by trimming initial fees to list names and catering more to lower priced domains, instead of ones with over-inflated prices.

Afternic is now using its exposure to focus on lower priced domains even more and create a new brand. The new brand is called Bazaar and it’s a “wholesale domain name auction”. Bazaar is wholesale because there are no sales fees and you can list a name for as little as 24 cents. This new brand will definitely be interesting to watch going forward because an old dog could be teaching the industry a new trick.

Domain Radar’s Rating (out of 5 stars): ****

Pros
•  wholesale service called Afternic Bazaar
•  management appears to be headed in the right direction
•  largest domain auction site
•  has a nice affiliate program in order to increase exposure

Cons
•  you a pay one-time fee to list names AND an escrow fee for each sale
•  your listing won’t get much traffic unless you park your name there
•  bad reputation of former Afternic still lingers

The Verdict - Failed past or not, Afternic is still the 800 pound gorilla of domain name auctions.