Rant to Brandbucket

[JudgeMind]

Heres a rant to brand bucket and to Michael krell (brandbucket ambassador) for declining names I've submitted to list with them and then when I did not renew it Michael picks up the name and lists it on BB..

Poor form sir

 

[margotb]

To follow up on Michael's post above:
We have many long-time sellers who have been around to see our acceptance rates go from very strict, to more open, back to strict. We understand that this can be frustrating, which is why we created the rule that all domains may be resubmitted for appraisal after 9 months — just in case anything has changed with the marketplace or buyer trends. We want our sellers to be able to get our opinion on a name at least twice within the first year of owning the name.

As Keith pointed out, dropping a name and then seeing it sold (on BrandBucket or anywhere else) after the fact is painful. Feeling that a marketplace is intentionally taking advantage of you is even more painful. My primary takeaway from this thread is that we at BrandBucket are currently doing a very poor job at keeping an open door for communication — the fact that this thread had to be a “Rant TO BrandBucket”, not ABOUT BrandBucket, shows me that David wasn’t presented with a more obvious or better option other than a public forum for getting in touch with someone at BrandBucket about his concern.

One of my primary goals for BrandBucket in 2017 is increased communication and transparency with our seller base. Please keep an eye out for changes, but also please jot down these lines of communication:

* For issues like the one in this thread, or any issue with a fellow seller: [email protected] (comes directly to me).
* For reconsideration requests or repricing requests: [email protected] (this will soon be more automated)
* My direct email: [email protected]

Finally, in the matter of seller relations, we are making a change behind the scenes at BrandBucket. For a long time now, Michael and I as sellers on the platform have submitted our names through the same process as everyone else, and are looked at blindly by the domain submission team. As "regular" sellers, we have also been privy to the “resubmit after 9 months” rule. However, I feel in some cases we need to hold ourselves to a higher level of strictness than the rest of the seller community. Starting immediately, any member of BrandBucket's staff that is also a seller (now or in the future) will no longer be allowed to submit anything that has ever been rejected by the domain submission review team -- not nine months, not 1.5 years like the scenario in this thread, not 10 years down the line. To be clear, neither Michael or I look at lists of rejected names (this has NEVER been allowed), but as you all know Michael is very active catching dropped domains, and at times he may pick up something that has passed through our system at some point. This may still happen, but that domain will not have the privilege to be listed at BrandBucket.

Thank you to our sellers who continue to push us to be a better marketplace, and who hold us to a high standard because they believe in the value of brandable marketplaces as an important part of the domain aftermarket ecosystem.

 

[JudgeMind]

It's clearly a strong brandable name.. he's now got it listed for almost $4,000... not impressed at all. Think I'll be moving my portfolio away from brand bucket.

 

[Recons.Com]

I guess next visit of BB staff can be expected June 2018, until then, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Spicer, sorry, Mr Matmor...

 

[Recons.Com]

Here is BrandBucket's way:

1. Recruit sellers and see what they've got.
2. If a name is great one (a killer name, a pronounceable LLLL.com etc.) that either is hard to obtain or costly to obtain, then list them. They get $10 for listing, traffic that those names normally have, natural buyers that might come with them and 30% of sale if it happens.

Math works this way:

Cost to obtain very high quality names: average $300. Listing price for this kind of names: average $5000. Sell %: 3%. If you have 100 of this names, upfront expense of $30K, renewals 1000, logo payout $300, revenue $15K annually, so BB would make around 45% return before other expenses.

Now if the cost burden is shifted to sellers, then upfront cost $0, renewals $0, revenue 3x5000x30%=$4,500.

Obviously, $4,500 on 0$ investment is better than $13K+ on $30K, as that is "only" around $8.5K incremental on your "idle" $30K in the bank.

It is completely different dynamics on brandables that are not unique. Meaning there are literally hundreds of thousands of equivalents for them.

BB can buy 100 of those at $2000 average, sell 3 a year at $2K average, minus renewal and logo, for a bit under $5K annually

With your 100 names, though upfront is $0, they get only 3 x $2K x 30% = $1,800

Obviously, $5K on $2K upfront investment is better than $1.8K on 0$ investment. Why? Because the incremental $3.2K on $2K that you have on your bank account is still very healthy return.

So, if they do have "idle" 30K in the bank account from the example above, they are better off filling up the segment of generic brandables with their own 1500 names for around $50K annual earning than using it towards quality names and making around $8.5K with it.

So to summarize: they don't want your good names as for that segment, they'd rather have names of owners, managers, ambassadors and Matmor, whatever his capacity in that organization is. They will still take some, not to completely turn you off, but don't look for a logic here. They only want your great names.

 

[BrandVenue]

For a long time now, Michael and I as sellers on the platform have submitted our names through the same process as everyone else, and are looked at blindly by the domain submission team.

Once I requested a name for reconsider to Michael and he immediately accepted it, so it's clear that Michael (or you as a matter of fact) has power to overrule the decisions of domain review team anf accept a rejected name.

And Michael has told on one of domainsherpa episode about his sale of domain ultracast dot com where he was asked by Michael Cyger what was the reason behind pricing ultracast at nearly $15K his exact answer was "" I don’t know if I can explain it very well. I think it’s just one of those kind of gut feeling, you know, with the name.""

So it's clear that he can price his domains whatever price his guts tells him to.

So Michael has power to approve rejected names and he has power to price his domains, how are you really telling us that you and him both follow submission steps like normal sellers??? Is it really believable?

 

[MapleDots]

This whole BrandBucket situation just....

Stinks

 

[Recons.Com]

This thread is about BB stealing people's names anyway. Are you one of the guys who steals people's names @Justin Matmor ?

Matmor has a special role of attacking anyone that might express any concerns about BB. Kind of anti-ambassador. For that, possibly, he is rewarded with better sales. I can't see how otherwise he makes 1 sale a month on 120 names.

 

[wwwweb]

There has always been buzz about insider portfolios getting special treatment, this hands down shows that assumption is very true.

I don't know why you guys stand in line to hand over 30 percent, or whatever it is now, if someone wants your name, they will find you on a direct lander, when you have 30% to play with, more deals get completed.

If brandbucket does not have domainers, it does not have a business, might as well call it KrellBucket

 

[Chris Hydrick]

To update everyone on this thread, I’ve spoken directly with @JudgeMind. There was a domain that he submitted in October of 2015 that was rejected at that time, and he dropped the domain about a year after. I picked it up in the drops in December of 2016, and submitted it to BrandBucket in February of this year, and it was accepted by the submission review team.

I’ve apologized for any misunderstanding, and I’ll continue to work directly with him to repair any lingering mistrust.

How about running a bulk scan of all rejected domains > isolate ALL domains registered by brandbucket staff / ambassadors confirmed via bulk WHOIS > then work directly with ALL effected sellers in efforts to repair lingering mistrust throughout?

It's not like this is a one off event. Not everyone will run a bulk WHOIS of their rejected domains to see if they're a victim. This is where brandbucket as a company has the opportunity to take the high road and run the bulk rejected scan to remedy all effected.

It's not like this domain even hit the drops. Assuming based off my WHOIS creation date that it was picked up at expiring auction. -- not even allowing me to re-register with coupon...

@margotb -It was reported that you moved some of your domains to privacy. So I'm not sure if some of my rejected domains under privacy such as the example below.

EDIT (ADDED)

I’ve also been in touch with @Zoltan P. , and to clarify his post, he has had names drop that were picked up by a variety of sellers that were later resubmitted successfully.

By running a bulk nameserver scan of all rejected domains and isolating all brandbucket nameservers, you will be able to isolate all rejected domains that are now published. This give you the opportunity to get in touch with all victims.

All were once rejects:

Zenably is a funny one. It now redirects to @Brandroot and is owned by Michael Rader. (though it's still live on BrandBuckets site)

If Rader wanted to (though I doubt he wants to cause issues) he could BUY NOW Zenably.com off brandbucket, and watch brandbucket not being able to deliver. A situation similar to what @DomainingCom publicized when they purchased a domain from BrandRoot that BR couldn't deliver.

 

[ksusha64]

BB exists because of domainers. Their model to sell crap names for 2-4k range does not work if u need to renew them. They let domainers buy domains, renew them and also pay $10 to list. They are the only site that charges $10 to list the name ( its a scam by itself). Godaddy, Namejet, Sedo, afternic and even flippa for non auction listings charge zero. 99% of domainers lose money with BB. They charge ridicilious 30% plus logo fees! This is just insane. They have new policy. SEND Them names before u register them!! Now we know why, so they can register them first if they like them

 

[12345]

To update everyone on this thread, I’ve spoken directly with @JudgeMind. There was a domain that he submitted in October of 2015 that was rejected at that time, and he dropped the domain about a year after. I picked it up in the drops in December of 2016, and submitted it to BrandBucket in February of this year, and it was accepted by the submission review team.

I’ve apologized for any misunderstanding, and I’ll continue to work directly with him to repair any lingering mistrust.

I’ve also been in touch with @Zoltan P. , and to clarify his post, he has had names drop that were picked up by a variety of sellers that were later resubmitted successfully.

 

[karmaco]

Honestly I can't understand paying someone 30% plus a logo fee for the "honor" of selling on their site. I am not directing this at BB only but in general at these sites that make themselves out to be branding gods.

You can sell it on your own page with your own logo or are any number of other marketplaces that charge a lower commission. It makes no sense to give away that much money and have to follow their rules. It's your damn domain. Also, the "ambassador" is extremely rude to people here. That's enough to make me not look at the site no more than once.

 

[maksimfa]

It is amazing to see @Justin Matmor defend the company.... yet they themselves (BB) does not respond more.

such as it is when they are succesful, but it is short sighted as it will come back.

As justin mentioned, they do NOT need to respond here, for their own customers... BUT... it would be to their benefit.

Personally, prospective buyers and sellers would be likely to find their content here and between this brand bucket thread and the @Brandroot issues.... as a Prospective seller, it is enough to turn me away from both.

Why is Trip Advisor and Yelp trusted? Because of third party reviews. NamePros is that place for anything domain/web related, a place where owners cannot sweep things under the rug, even if they are "sponsors."

I would agree, first to take up an issue via official channels, but issues like delays, accounting etc.

This however is an issue of business ethics... and if you are dealing with unethical people, taking it up via their own channels would not resolve anything.

Discussing it on a third party site, such as HERE.... is exactly the purpose of NamePros...it is a forum for customers and businesses to discuss services... and most of all, a place for Prospective Customers, such as myself to research, and to look for issues that the company would otherwise try to sweep under the rug or "delete."

A company who would tell me my domain is bad.... but then registering themselves and listing it on their service is downright slimey.

 

[slader23]

Ah yes, the past. Most company's run into problems and make mistakes. The reason BB has gone unresponsive here is because one can't live anything down here. I'm not concerned that you mentioned a regretful, publicly apologized mistake from years ago but it is with similar reason that BB chooses not to partake in discussion here. I have also distanced myself from Namepros for this reason. I'll poke in every now and then but it's almost always futile.

I would also just like to ask, is there a domainer out there who would start a domain name marketplace without listing their own domains? Isn't that how they all start and grow? Should BB pull their entire inventory and Krell's because they are successful? Or because Krell is now working for BrandBucket? Would Krell still want to work for BrandBucket if his entire inventory was removed?

When you provide a service, your customer must always be of the highest importance. There is an inherent sense of distrust when people realize that an insider is enriching themselves using the same system they pay a premium for.

No matter how you look at it, there is a clear conflict of interest. That may not be important to companies like BB right now but down the road it could be an important factor in deciding whether or not they survive the next few years.

This kind of behavior leaves a bad impression on people and with over a million members on NP I don't think it would be advisable for them to just brush this off. As a business the lack of communication they have exhibited is shocking to me. There is nothing to live down. If they're not addressing people's concerns publicly and in a timely fashion that says a lot about how much they care about their own reputation and that has a negative effect on people's perception of them.

I think businesses like BB would be far more focused and value driven if they did not have their own portfolios being marketed and brokered using the same platforms they charge as a service to others. When they are not pushing their own domains they'll be able to direct their attention to their customers and provide better service.

They'll have more sales if they focus on working exclusively with their available client pool. The incentive should be providing constant justification of the fees they charge by getting their clients domains sold. Having their own domains being listed...IMHO tells me that they are not fully dedicated to their customers and that leads to distrust, disdain, suspicion and hostile protest...all of which can be easily avoided by separating the service they provide from their own individual self interests.


If I started my own brandable domain market like BB I would never list my own names on it. Not only is that unethical...I just don't think that doing so would be a viable plan of action especially when trying to build long term trust and the current state of affairs between BB and their customers is a clear example of that. The money I would earn as a founder or c-suite exec from fees and kickbacks would be enough for me to save for better names(not brandables) during the early stages and enable me to buy
more premium names at a higher clip when the business is more established. My focus would be helping domainers first and not myself. How much I make would be directly correlated to the amount of time and effort I put towards my clients and their domains because those sales would result in fees for my business and that would eventually trickle down into improvements in my own portfolio and also my livelihood. Therefore, sales made from my own portfolio would be passive and unrelated to my marketplace.

You don't bite the hand that feeds you. Trust is the most important factor of any sucessful business. In the case of BB, I don't think they've got any left.

Cheers

 

[bonin]

I closed my account at BB a year ago, one of the best decisions in my domain "career"

 

[offthehandle]

By employees, partners or insiders of a company listing their own inventory for sale is next to impossible to consider fair.

Nah, margot's online now; Just viewing an old thread that hasn't been updated since 2014.

Rather than reviewing TONS of invaluable feedback on the BrandBucket Experience Thread as suggested.

Show attachment 62078

It is impossible. I don't believe these people have ever taken business ethics 101, based on what has been posted in this thread. This situation about favoring their own "house account" listed domains in the search means every sale they are competing against you and they have no reason to sell your domains. Why should they?

This situation is not unusual, as I have been involved for 35 years with many sales people and reps and distributor contracts where such conflicts of interest existed. I have sales people friends who got screwed out of really large commissions. Like: $xxx,xxx. So this is chump change really and you are dealing with a mickey mouse operation. The only solution and answer when you get screwed is walking away. Take your losses and create a competing situation. The barrier to entry is not huge.

Especially after reading that patronizing BS about transparency. The only way to receive trust is to earn it. Open up their last 5 years sales records by an independent auditor to prove they are not competing, but that will never happen. They have used you all you domainers for their own growth and market intelligence, all at your expense. I think its foolish to believe anything will change. If I owned this company, I would never have let this mess get this far with their "evangelist" and the owner selling their own domains. If they had respect for you guys, they would voluntary recuse themselves from the market, now.

They have free valuable SEO because of the 40000 domains owned by others, and inside information about how and what to buy based on the free market research that you guys give them by listing your domains.

Take all your domains off and create your own coop market and see what happens.

 

[boker]

I fully agree.

But if people can not have a constructive conversation then no progress is made either.

I think all concerns should be expressed, but where possible in a professional manner, and we are more likely to have a conversation that has two sides instead of one.

I fully agree that the tone should be professional, but I think that BB has missed the opportunity to respond to any complaints in the last year and a lot of frustration has gathered. Knowing that they come and check other threads constantly but they don't respond in the thread where they should, it's not helping. You think that if you are trying to talk to the customer service of a big company and they ignore you, do you think that it will do them any good? Just ignoring peoples with turn everything from unsatisfied to anger and hate. It's like google, when they reached 1 billion in revenue and if they would have start ignoring new customers, do you think that they will have been around today? It's their company and they can do whatever they want, but it's not constructive for anybody and in the end of the day, I think that they have more to loose, because domaining world it's not so big.

 

[urlurl]

Thats not good, that's defiantly sneaky if you ask me

 

[ksusha64]

This thread is about BB stealing people's names anyway. Are you one of the guys who steals people's names @Justin Matmor ?

 

[Recons.Com]

To follow up on Michael's post above:
We have many long-time sellers who have been around to see our acceptance rates go from very strict, to more open, back to strict. We understand that this can be frustrating, which is why we created the rule that all domains may be resubmitted for appraisal after 9 months — just in case anything has changed with the marketplace or buyer trends. We want our sellers to be able to get our opinion on a name at least twice within the first year of owning the name.

As Keith pointed out, dropping a name and then seeing it sold (on BrandBucket or anywhere else) after the fact is painful. Feeling that a marketplace is intentionally taking advantage of you is even more painful. My primary takeaway from this thread is that we at BrandBucket are currently doing a very poor job at keeping an open door for communication — the fact that this thread had to be a “Rant TO BrandBucket”, not ABOUT BrandBucket, shows me that David wasn’t presented with a more obvious or better option other than a public forum for getting in touch with someone at BrandBucket about his concern.

One of my primary goals for BrandBucket in 2017 is increased communication and transparency with our seller base. Please keep an eye out for changes, but also please jot down these lines of communication:

* For issues like the one in this thread, or any issue with a fellow seller: [email protected] (comes directly to me).
* For reconsideration requests or repricing requests: [email protected] (this will soon be more automated)
* My direct email: [email protected]

Finally, in the matter of seller relations, we are making a change behind the scenes at BrandBucket. For a long time now, Michael and I as sellers on the platform have submitted our names through the same process as everyone else, and are looked at blindly by the domain submission team. As "regular" sellers, we have also been privy to the “resubmit after 9 months” rule. However, I feel in some cases we need to hold ourselves to a higher level of strictness than the rest of the seller community. Starting immediately, any member of BrandBucket's staff that is also a seller (now or in the future) will no longer be allowed to submit anything that has ever been rejected by the domain submission review team -- not nine months, not 1.5 years like the scenario in this thread, not 10 years down the line. To be clear, neither Michael or I look at lists of rejected names (this has NEVER been allowed), but as you all know Michael is very active catching dropped domains, and at times he may pick up something that has passed through our system at some point. This may still happen, but that domain will not have the privilege to be listed at BrandBucket.

Thank you to our sellers who continue to push us to be a better marketplace, and who hold us to a high standard because they believe in the value of brandable marketplaces as an important part of the domain aftermarket ecosystem.

Margot, could you please also comment on status of seller Matmor with BB?

Both on Slack and here, he attacks anyone with concerns, criticism or uneasy question to BB and pretty much every time that is the ONLY response with BB basically silently agreeing to what he writes. Are you condoning this type of behavior?

If I were a marketplace owner, I'd never let anyone with any affiliation to my platform to speak this way to my stakeholders!

 

[Chris Hydrick]

My primary takeaway from this thread is that we at BrandBucket are currently doing a very poor job at keeping an open door for communication — the fact that this thread had to be a “Rant TO BrandBucket”, not ABOUT BrandBucket, shows me that David wasn’t presented with a more obvious or better option other than a public forum for getting in touch with someone at BrandBucket about his concern.

One of my primary goals for BrandBucket in 2017 is increased communication and transparency with our seller base.

You'd get a lot more takeaway if you read / responded to the BrandBucket experience thread. Rather then staying off NamePros for over a year.

June 8th, 2016 was the last time the managing director added content to NamePros. The owner last logged on to NP May 25th, 2016.

You'll find some vocal sellers like Matmor struggling to defend sellers concerns. It's not his job to be a company spokes person (or is it?) The total and complete silence from bb staff on NamePros has contributed to this transparency collapse.

Not to make this political but the Trump administration is doing a better job communicating than y'all have been; similar wording / communication tactics though.

(I sincerely hope ((for the good of the brandable domain ecosystem)) to be proved wrong by seeing another response by you or MK within a month)

 

[Michael M]

I personally think it would be beneficial for everyone in the conversation to take the tone down a couple of notches.

I understand there are some hard feelings out there, but Margot and Michael both did take the time to respond and engage in this thread. If everyone starts attacking them do you think they are likely to come back to respond to you? Whereas if questions are asked in a professional way I think maybe there would be more chance to hear the answers.

I'd recommend everyone keep it as civil as possible and there is good room for conversation, constructive criticism, and a chance for everyone to get heard and have a chance to respond.

Just a thought. I know asking a forum to be civil is like telling a kid to not touch something.

 

[Beezy]

You are all giving Brandbucket way too much power in your lives.

Some of you have been at this same thing for 2+ years.

 

[JudgeMind]

@JudgeMind What was the timeline on this? When did you submit it and when did Michael buy it?

Rejected 2016
Picked up by krell 2016

About 3 months apart

Probably backordered the name after rejecting it so he could list it on BB..?? Just an assumption..