On Names.Club taking third-party listings, .com — My thoughts
Pay-over-time domain marketplace will let domainers join the party with any TLD.
Names.Club is expanding its payment-plan domain marketplace to allow third parties to list their domain names in all top level domains.
The Dot Club registry originally created the marketplace for fresh top level domain registries to offer premium domains on payment plans. Buyers make a down payment and get immediate access to use the domain name. They pay off the balance over 60 months.
Opening the service up to domainers and all top level domains is great. I love seeing domain firms innovate. And payment plans are becoming a popular way to close deals when buyers don’t have enough cash.
Dot Club CMO Jeff Sass told me that there will be protections in place to make sure that buyers don’t use domains in a way that could harm the domain’s value. As a seller, you don’t want a buyer to use blackhat SEO or use a domain to spam, only to stop making payments a few months in.
When a domain sells, the owner will transfer it to a holding account managed by Names.Club at the owner’s registrar. The domain can’t be transferred from this account but the buyer will be able to change the nameserver.
I’ve only done a couple of payment plan deals. Usually, I like to understand how the buyer plans to use the domain ahead of doing the deal.
I also think five years is a long time for payments. Five years makes sense for domain registries that are playing with “house money” on their domains, but it would be nice to be able to offer shorter terms.
Personally, I’d feel most comfortable putting names on Names.Club that won’t break the bank if the buyer does something bad with them.
Another innovative thing regarding Names.Club is how it integrates brokers into the action. They can offer buyers a discount code and then they get paid when someone they refer buys a domain.
Bottom line: kudos on expanding the marketplace. Some kinks might need to be worked out, but I love seeing stuff like this.
