Afternic enables down payments on LTOs – Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News
Company suggests using down payments judiciously, as they could impact sales.
Afternic introduced a new feature today that allows domain sellers to request a down payment when selling domains on a lease-to-own basis.
The buyer pays the down payment first, then makes the remaining payments as normal monthly LTO payments.
The down payment will show in the GoDaddy search results path and on the Custom Lander option.
The initial payment is charged at normal sales commissions, and the monthly LTO payments are charged at LTO rates that offer discounts for terms longer than 12 months.
The benefit, of course, is that sellers can require a bit more skin in the game before taking a domain off the market for LTO.
But the company noted that down payments add friction and suggested sellers use them as a tool for high-value, longer-term LTOs.
GoDaddy has not yet tested down payments on its NameFind portfolio, so it has no hard data to share on how down payments affect sell-through rate. However, it intuitively makes sense that requiring more cash up front will cause some buyers to walk away.
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