BrandBucket Experience

Thanks a lot for the detailed responses Margot, and like I said I was not upset Tapvo did not get accepted, thanks for breaking it down that is a nice benefit there. Did you get my pm ? Thank you

margotb said:

Thanks!

From submission to decision that the name will/will not be accepted runs about 1-7 days (the longer side happens when there is a big influx like there was last week after our DNJournal writeup).

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HI, during busy times, would it be a good idea to accept names from existing brandbucket sellers only, and take on new submissions only when things cool down? Also it would be interesting seeing the interest in the domain from prospective buyers i.e the number of hits on your domain.

margotb said:

We are OK with you disclosing which names you have for sale (in fact we are currently working on a way that you can have a link on BrandBucket that shows only your names, so that you can link to it, pass it on, etc.).

.

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Here are mine that were accepted:

Revato
NeoByte
Alternis
Powza
Sixus
Zemz
Ozmi
Cruncha
Orbex
Adza

opalxx said:

HI, during busy times, would it be a good idea to accept names from existing brandbucket sellers only, and take on new submissions only when things cool down? Also it would be interesting seeing the interest in the domain from prospective buyers i.e the number of hits on your domain.

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I don't think this would be a good idea, new domains would never get through if that was the case.

What Margot said about logos is true.
I made the same mistake for a while, always thought the logo should always look "fancy". i am not a pro logo designer myself or something, but i made/make logos for many of my names and give them as a free bonus.

Just an example: i did this for snemy.com
And i received this question from a potential buyer yesterday:
"Can you make a different logo for this? this one looks "gay"

(no offence to gays or something, just trying to say that one should be careful with colors, design, etc. professional logo design requires a lot of research and knowledge too, just like domaining.
So i started to learn more about logo design recently and realised that its not an easy task
Also look at all the really famous brands, most of the logos are simple looking, for a good reason.



:D

@Gifted

I have been looking for a simple logo design software. Which one do you use.

hookbox said:

@Gifted

I have been looking for a simple logo design software. Which one do you use.

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Photoshop.

Thank you Margot to take time to answer all our questions.

I did a test where i selected not the standard $10 listing fee and $100 logo. I did this to see if the name did get published quicker. I selected feature listing in a category $20 and a $200 logo design. The name was published within 3 days. I still have 2 names with the standard settings and they still waiting since 20 May. By the way the prices for the domains are very similar above the $2k.

Maybe it would be good to have an option to change the fees and logo design price after we submitted the listing.

Bebito said:

Thank you Margot to take time to answer all our questions.

I did a test where i selected not the standard $10 listing fee and $100 logo. I did this to see if the name did get published quicker. I selected feature listing in a category $20 and a $200 logo design. The name was published within 3 days. I still have 2 names with the standard settings and they still waiting since 20 May. By the way the prices for the domains are very similar above the $2k.

Maybe it would be good to have an option to change the fees and logo design price after we submitted the listing.

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I think they used to have it so you could do featured listings it'd be good to have the ability to feature some older stock.

Hi Margot, thanks for taking the time off your busy schedule to respond to our questions, here are a few more questions for when you get a chance to answer.

Is there any limit as to the number of domains that are displayed at BrandBucket at any given time, is the more the better or do you try to keep them below a certain number. I know that you only approve a small percentage of all submissions, but does that mean that the rest are no good or does it mean that you only need a certain number of names no matter how good they all are, for example if someone sends you 1000 names that are all perfect do you accept them all or do you still stick to your 10% to 20% approval rate.

For the names that are not accepted can they be resubmitted at a later time, or are they rejected permanently.

Can you provide us with some stats that show what type of names have sold better in the past (as far as length, play on words, having a partial meaning, beginning or ending a certain way, being featured, type of logo, the category, or anything else that you can think of that made those names stand out), and how long it took on average for those names to sell.

Is it possible for us to know how many hits our domains get on a daily, monthly, or all time basis.

Thanks again for all your hard work, we are all glad that we found you.

GiftedDomains said:

...
And i received this question from a potential buyer yesterday:
"Can you make a different logo for this? this one looks "gay"

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Ah ah so true :D

And if you read the domain backwards it is ymens

I would hope that BrandBucket maintains a consistent evaluation standard at all times instead of becoming harder to crack when flooded when submissions. I've had a few rejected since the DNJournal write-up which I suspect would have made it when things were slower. I would not mind being told that submissions will be processed later if it meant greater consistency in this regard.

Also, it must be said that Margot is somewhat more lenient when it comes to her own (Boxador) names as opposed to others people's submissions (Boxador owns plenty of gems, but Obscuri? Droozle? I don't think so). That's both human nature and her right as the site owner; I would probably do the same in her position. But it could explain why quality names are sometimes rejected even with similar (and even inferior) featured in the marketplace.

Mystiko said:

I would hope that BrandBucket maintains a consistent evaluation standard at all times instead of becoming harder to crack when flooded when submissions. I've had a few rejected since the DNJournal write-up which I suspect would have made it when things were slower. I would not mind being told that submissions will be processed later if it meant greater consistency in this regard.

Also, it must be said that Margot is somewhat more lenient when it comes to her own (Boxador) names as opposed to others people's submissions (Boxador owns plenty of gems, but Obscuri? Droozle? I don't think so). That's both human nature and her right as the site owner; I would probably do the same in her position. But it could explain why quality names are sometimes rejected even with similar (and even inferior) featured in the marketplace.

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I have no complaints since I’ve got 14 domains accepted so far which is about 14% of the total number of names that I had submitted and I still hope that that percentage will get higher since I still have some names that are waiting to be looked at by Margot

I just want to know what to think of the other 86% that haven’t been accepted, does that mean that those were no good, is there any chance that they could be submitted again at a later time.

Maybe Margot could make something like a leftover Bucket, so that all the names that weren’t accepted for full presentation could be listed without any logos, descriptions, or prices, just a list that the visitors could browse through and make an offer if they saw something that they liked, although this is just a thought and has to be considered more carefully as having this option might affect the other names that are listed with logos.

oldtimer said:

Is there any limit as to the number of domains that are displayed at BrandBucket at any given time, is the more the better or do you try to keep them below a certain number. I know that you only approve a small percentage of all submissions, but does that mean that the rest are no good or does it mean that you only need a certain number of names no matter how good they all are, for example if someone sends you 1000 names that are all perfect do you accept them all or do you still stick to your 10% to 20% approval rate.

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We are more concerned with keeping the quality of our domain selection high than keeping the size small, so we will never reject a name just because we are getting too full. What we are seeing more and more of recently is names being submitted that are very similar (one letter different) than another name that we already have published. In some cases this is coincidence (the submitter owned this name for a while) but in other cases we're seeing domainers registering and submitting names simply because they are similar. This is NOT a good strategy, because pretty much the only time we will reject a "good" name is if it close to something we already have, or similar to a group of names that we have too many of and that are not selling well (for example anything starting with "Twit").

So if you happened to submit 1000 stellar names, we would accept all 1000.

oldtimer said:

For the names that are not accepted can they be resubmitted at a later time, or are they rejected permanently.

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Right now there is no way to resubmit them -- the system will let you know that you already submitted it. You can always open a helpdesk ticket if you feel strongly that it should be considered again.

oldtimer said:

Can you provide us with some stats that show what type of names have sold better in the past (as far as length, play on words, having a partial meaning, beginning or ending a certain way, being featured, type of logo, the category, or anything else that you can think of that made those names stand out), and how long it took on average for those names to sell.

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Average time to sell we can't ever say, because for this type of name the sale is so subjective and emotional. It's a matter of timing -- getting the right buyer to come along and fall in love with your name. One thing we've noticed on types of names that I should point out, however, is that names with a dictionary word root, or two-word combination names, seem to sell a little better than completely made up words. We have fewer of these because our decision criteria makes it harder to find a good one, but it seems customers are drawn to them more often because they connect emotionally to the word(s) in the name.

Examples:
Root word name: Cloudico
Two-word, same first letter/sound: BrandBucket
Two-word, same vowel sound: DropBox
Two-word, same vowel sound (stretching it): BrownSparrow
Two-word, same last sound: PortSuite
Two-word, semi-generic but industry relevant: HyperPixel
Two-word, common phrase: YeahBoy

(The last three were recently submitted and accepted, so they are fresh on my mind. Hopefully the owner won't mind that I listed them here.) These types of names _usually_, but not always, are priced higher than the made-up/vessel names on our site.

oldtimer said:

Is it possible for us to know how many hits our domains get on a daily, monthly, or all time basis.

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We're getting this request more often, so it's on our roadmap for the next release of our site.

Thanks Margot, I wish I had gotten into brandables a lot sooner, it's very exciting looking for all these word combinations and then seeing them being represented so eloquently at BrandBucket.

PS: I'll try to look for names that match the criteria that you just mentioned, thanks for the tips.

I think it is important to keep the number of listings / number of sales ratio more or less the same like in the past @ BB .

If listing many more names would lead to more sales, then of course that would be a good development.

But if listing many more names wouldn't change the number of sales (same number of buyers having more options now), then that is a negative development for domain sellers since their chance to sell their names will decrease.

Therefore Brandbucket should also try to boost the marketing efforts at the same time to increase the chance of more sales and buyers. But i am pretty sure Margot and her team know this and are trying their best anyway.

By the way, one question, i remember i signed up somewhere to get notified when a new site from the Brandbucket group (i think it was planned to be something similar to BB??) launches. I forgot the name, it was few months ago. Any news about that and more info?

oldtimer said:

I have no complaints since I’ve got 14 domains accepted so far which is about 14% of the total number of names that I had submitted and I still hope that that percentage will get higher since I still have some names that are waiting to be looked at by Margot

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I've had over a dozen names accepted as well. Still, I wanted to point out that there appears to be a rather large subjective element to Margot's decisions. I've had names which are strong by every objective measure in addition to sounding great be rejected for no apparent reason. (I'm speaking as a professional writer with a strong aesthetic sense...not some Joe Shmoe who adds "zer" to the end of some random word and expects to be well received). I had half a mind to start focusing exclusively on brandable domains, but am finding BB to be too unreliable at the moment. Back to generics for me.

Mystiko said:

I've had over a dozen names accepted as well. Still, I wanted to point out that there appears to be a rather large subjective element to Margot's decisions. I've had names which are strong by every objective measure in addition to sounding great be rejected for no apparent reason. (I'm speaking as a professional writer with a strong aesthetic sense...not some Joe Shmoe who adds "zer" to the end of some random word and expects to be well received). I had half a mind to start focusing exclusively on brandable domains, but am finding BB to be too unreliable at the moment. Back to generics for me.

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One of the problems that I see with listing a lot of super quality names is that they will make the average prices for domains go up drastically and then they won’t sell as quickly. One of the reasons that BrandBucket has become so successful is the fact that people can go there and find a lot of names that are within their budget rather than seeing a lot of high end domains which even though they might admire but won't be able to afford. BrandBucket has found its niche and in my opinion should follow in the same path. IMO

SearchEngineZ said:

Here are mine that were accepted:
...
Alternis
...

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I think this one is reminding me of 'Afternic.com'. :bingo:

margotb said:

...
One thing we've noticed on types of names that I should point out, however, is that
names with a dictionary word root, or two-word combination names, seem to sell a little better than completely made up words.

We have fewer of these because our decision criteria makes it harder to find a good one,
but it seems customers are drawn to them more often because they connect emotionally to the word(s) in the name.

Examples:
Root word name: Cloudico
Two-word, same first letter/sound: BrandBucket
Two-word, same vowel sound: DropBox
Two-word, same vowel sound (stretching it): BrownSparrow
Two-word, same last sound: PortSuite
Two-word, semi-generic but industry relevant: HyperPixel
Two-word, common phrase: YeahBoy

These types of names _usually_, but not always, are priced higher than the made-up/vessel names on our site.

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Nice tips! Thanks! :kickass:

What are the peak sales months at BrandBucket? Is there a summer lull as is often the case for the industry as a whole?

my guess would be the Fall

About 5-6 years ago when sites started appearing that allowed people to create "contests" for logo designs, a huge backlash happened in the designer community. Essentially, designers who actually valued their time did not want to work for free. They called this "spec work", and you can Google it and see the general negative connotation that it has. When BrandBucket was launched around this time, we had to come up with a way to get good designers to essentially work for free, and only on the hope that they will get paid for their work _someday_. To do this, we had to pay them at least $100. We absolutely did not want domain owners to foot this bill, and since the award was being given at the time of sale, it made sense to make it part of the sales price. We could have done the math to take it out of our commission, but for other requirements (affiliate programs, etc.), we needed to keep our percentage consistent across every sale.

Next, we found that some of the very good designers we were recruiting wouldn't do work for anything less than $300, some for $500. So we added the different prices, and let the domain owner decide. Most people choose $100, and that's fine with us, but there are the few that want to reach the better designers.

This goes back to my first post today (above) where I put in the "**". When a logo designer applies for our program and gets accepted, we rank them on a skill level from 1 to 5. We have very few 5's, a few more 4's, a handful of 3's, more 2's and the most 1's. Only a Level 5 designer can see and reserve awards for $500. Level 5 and Level 4 can see/reserve $400 awards, and so on.

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hi Margot,

Your reasoning is pretty sound but when you look at some of logos done at BB, they really do not look that premium and many of them are just different types of fonts without any major design concepts. It is really hard to pay $100 for that.

The readymade logo maker site particularly (logo type maker - I have no affiliation) has better designs and even I felt some of logos may have been created there or ideas may have been taken from there.

Again as a business owner, your supplier (we) and your customers (domain purchasers) should have smooth flow. Based on your explanation, only reasons things are delayed is due to logo designs. I think it is always a smart business decision to fix what causes delay in "business process flow".

What I mentioned here comes from my significant experience in different industries where customer experience is paramount and when steps were taken to improve them it lead to long term growth.

My sincere 2 cents....

margotb said:

...
transferred to them, finding out that they can't trademark it (or that it conflicts), and then asking for a refund. It's pretty standard across all domain marketplaces, including places like Sedo & Afternic. They do not allow refunds at all, for any reason.
Hope that helps clarify things a bit!

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Thank you Margot for your time to clarify things.

Nomax

Go on Ya BrandBucket!

Good on Ya

Great to see a company explain thing in such detail and by the founder no less

i'll be submitting domains for review now that i understand the terms and conditions much better

:great:

sids70 said:

hi Margot,

Your reasoning is pretty sound but when you look at some of logos done at BB, they really do not look that premium and many of them are just different types of fonts without any major design concepts. It is really hard to pay $100 for that.

The readymade logo maker site particularly (logo type maker - I have no affiliation) has better designs and even I felt some of logos may have been created there or ideas may have been taken from there.

Again as a business owner, your supplier (we) and your customers (domain purchasers) should have smooth flow. Based on your explanation, only reasons things are delayed is due to logo designs. I think it is always a smart business decision to fix what causes delay in "business process flow".

What I mentioned here comes from my significant experience in different industries where customer experience is paramount and when steps were taken to improve them it lead to long term growth.

My sincere 2 cents....

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A logo can be simple, but can convey a big message, it takes a lot of talent to come up with the right logo, look at Gifted’s gay logo, the colors and the design convey a powerful message of hope and a bright future, although some people might not like it, but nevertheless it’s a nice logo.

I agree with you that if making the logos is slowing things down then perhaps it needs to be addressed, it’s kind of like when you go to the grocery store and they don’t have enough cashiers.

IMO