Jeffrey Gabriel, VP of Sales DomainNameSales, replies to my Go Daddy syndication problems

I made a post last week detailing my first 2 months syndicating my DomainNameSales domains to Go Daddy. I didn’t have any luck with the syndication and received very few offers and 0 sales. Today Jeffrey Gabriel, VP of Sales DomainNameSales, posted a comment in that post that I quote here (you can find my reply below):

Konstantinos,

Jeffrey Gabriel here form DomainNameSales. Thank you for your constructive criticism. We greatly appreciate it. Your comments are surprising to me. The Godaddy/DomainTools syndication is a service where you will get more exposure then in-turn more leads for your domains. There is no confusion about auctions, minimum bids, or the values. We as brokers are provided a price by you the seller, a minimum offer that your account requires and we quote it. Like many sales leads they are unqualified for 1,000′s of reasons, and others are very qualified and ready to buy. In your particular case it would be interesting to know the domain that you found the lead we missed because the .net sold. We do a very thorough job on following up, calling and trying to work out an equitable deal. It would be even more interesting to hear what your list price was with us and what you settled for.

We have had sellers quote us 25,000 USD for a domain, but when we say the best we could get is 3,000 they say sure take it. That is a little puzzling at times.

When looking where we came up short in your eyes, I try and look at a solution. One of our clients who we have been very successful with using the Godaddy syndication provides us with a list price, and the lowest he will accept price. He trusts us to get him the best price possible, and we have exceeded his expectations. He views our relationship as us being a team.

Getting into the notion of the buyer who did not end up buying. This is an unfortunate situation for everyone, and it happens to all sellers. After we spoke on the phone about this opportunity you were very adamant about receiving some sort of a VAT tax for this sale, and additional information about the buyer. We attempted to speak with the buyer about that, but he was not very excited about it to say the least. I think that paid a large part in non payment. I think he will be back.

Also during that phone call, being the Vice President of Sales I told you if you needed anything else, or had any issues to please contact me directly. Me hearing that you have tried to opt out of our Godaddy syndication repeatedly is news to me. I do not want our Brokers spending time on opportunities to make you money, when your not interested. We would rather have them focus their time on our clients who do. I will make sure your opted out today.

There is gold and opportunity in every lead….I think looking at our syndication service in 60 days and evaluating it is not particularly fair. We are closing opportunities on our in-house portfolio that the leads were generated over a year ago. That is NO exaggeration.

Sometimes you need to also look toward yourself, your pricing and how you are communicating to the broker who is involved. Make adjustments, just like we do everyday. Perhaps calling our 1-800-818-1828 number and discussing the lead with the broker would help you better understand how to price it. If we can all take a step back and view it from that angle then I think DomainNameSales.com, Konstantinos Zournas, and all of our other clients can learn something to get better. Which equals more sales!

To all of our clients Happy Holidays from DomainNameSales!

Jeffrey M. Gabriel
VP of Sales DomainNameSales
1-800-818-1828

And here is my reply to the comment:

Dear Jeffrey,
I don’t know why my comments are surprising. I simply stated stats and I am not the only
one that have had absolutely no luck with these leads. I know there is no confusion with auctions and that is why I wanted to try the syndication. The problem is mainly with Go Daddy leads. The percentage of qualified leads is so small that is simply not worth the hassle for both me and your brokers. This has nothing to do with DNS as a sales/parking venue.

You didn’t actually miss the lead for the domain for which the .net sold. The broker got a 5k offer that failed to pass on to me. My net price was 50k. When I talked directly to the buyer the offer went immediately to 20k. We are still in negotiations.

I believe that any offer should be presented to the seller. I was presented with an offer that was below my minimum price so I am not sure why I didn’t get the 5k offer.

Now about the non-paying customer. I had already explained to Eddie that I am required
to charge European Union buyers with 23% sales tax if they don’t have a valid VAT number. Eddie told me that the buyer was from the US, so that was the end of it. There was no sales tax. So I don’t understand how this played a large part in the non payment.

Also I didn’t have your email address. I just got it now with your post. I really don’t like talking on the phone especially when it is that expensive. I am in Greece and phone calls overseas cost a fortune.

I have opened 2 tickets requesting that I am opted out of the syndication because the control panel option is not opting me out. It worked to opt me in but not for the opposite. The first ticket was on the 17th of November(request #2374) and the second was on the 26th of November(Request #2416). Still nothing has happened despite being told that I have opted out and that support was looking into the matter.

It seems that DNS support is unresponsive to say the least. I now have 4 support tickets that have not received a single reply with the oldest being 23 days. 1 ticket was closed without any reply from DNS. I assumed that it was solved but I am not sure. The syndication opt out tickets are the only tickets that have gotten a reply.

My evaluation is not based on the 60 days alone. It also based on circumstances that are not bound to change. Like the fact that I am never supposed to know who the buyer was, not being able to produce proper invoices to the buyers, not been able to use escrow.com, being paid twice a month etc.

I have looked toward myself and I have said that maybe my prices are a bit high. But that is especially true when it comes to Go Daddy leads, so that why I need to stop the  syndication. It’s a dead end for me.
Thank you.
Konstantinos