SquadHelp - Marketplace

[JudgeMind]

Hey Folks,

I've just started using squadhelp.com to list some of my brandable. So far I have 76 domains listed, there is no fee to list. I've had some decent action so far in the way of interested buyers but no sales as of yet. I've only been with them for 1 week now.

A bit of a summary review of SquadHelp:

PROS

• No Listing fee
• No Logo design fee
• Ability to submit your names to end users holding naming contests
• Ability to chat directly or send a message directly to end users.
• Stats of your marketplace domains are shown in the marketplace dashboard.
• Their customer service and support has been great, 24hr a day chat.
• Ability to increase or decrease the list price of your domains or to show a discount. You can decrease or increase the price yourself by $200. If you want to lower more, you can contact support.
• End users can shortlist your domains before they make a decision on which they want to purchase. The number of shortlists is shown in you marketplace dashboard.
• When you submit your names you get to set the price you wish to get. Because their commissions are high I recommend listing at a higher price to offset the commission costs.
• Their landing pages are fairly basic but they work. Because the marketplace is fairly new, I'm sure we will see style improvements in the future.
• One thing I really like is they accept multiple extensions. I have listed .co and .io along with .com
• Each seller gets a direct link to their marketplace portfolio, HERES MY PORTFOLIO. It is handy if your trying to p[promote your portfolio through social media.
• I like that their marketplace doesn't have tens of thousands domain listings like BB. They are fairly strict on the domains they accept to list and so this helps keep the number of domains in the marketplace down and gets your listings more exposure.

CONS

• Their commissions are very high, depending on the domain name they are usually between 30% and 35%. However, there are no listing fees, no logo design fees, so in the end their commission is very similar to brand buckets.
• Their logos are not top quality, in fact I requested to have some of my logos remade.
• I think they have a big backlog of logos to design, the wait time for logo design has been around 1 week, but your names are still listed while the logos are being designed.
• After your names are accepted you need to agree to their commission rate, at this point you also need to apply your own keywords, descriptions etc. I found this was very time consuming.

 

[JudgeMind]

 

[Avijit Roy]

disappointing

What i find is really terrible is that, they are adding twice the name than other brandable marketplace, with that they are compromising with quality.

 

[BRANDERX]

They are trying to reinvent the brandable space with their new inventory.

Most end users wont fall for it.

imo

 

[Ategy]

When I tried SquadHelp over a year ago, the experience was really very bad.

I submitted a batch of about 25 domains in no particular, and they approved 5 in row (somewhere in the middle) and none of the others .. as if they had a quota and really didn't give it any real thought, as they dismissed some of the better ones.

Worse yet .. the rejections seemed to have counted as negative ratings towards me like if a contest holder had rejected them .. everything from that point forward was so limited that there really wasn't any point in doing anything further .. it was just frustration after frustration.

I even sent in some UX/Bug feedback, and never heard anything after the initial canned response.

Nothing was clear at all .. they had different submission types, and seems they wanted exclusivity, when I simply wanted to add domains that I could suggest for relevant contests.

I realise a lot has likely changed in a year .. but considering their super high commissions, and more importantly, that I'd likely restart with negatives on my account, I really couldn't be bothered.

 

[ecomslice]

I would like to address few of the recent comments .

We are currently operating at highest level of marketing spends, and we plan to increase them even more. However at the end of the day we absolutely understand that you would not want to continue to list your domains with a platform if you are not seeing results. We also recognize that some sellers may find that they are seeing better success with other platforms - in those cases, it certainly makes sense to move more domains towards that platform.

While ultimately it is your decision, we do recommend to list your domains for atleast 12 months before evaluating your overall portfolio performance.

@Grant while you acknowledge excepting the move of domains, your policy also does full suspension and punishment of accounts for doing so. I may have to send one of my premiums to a sedo auction this month, I will expect no recourse due to this.

As for defense of the current topics, I will share to this thread that I have been fortunate, I have many good things to say about the platform, and in all fairness, even though I agree with the dilution being problematic It was always a choice to throttle expense of adding versus sales coming in. it is our choice to wind up or down our growth on the platform.

Squadhelp team should however take into account the amount of loyal / long term creatives that are now halting or drastically reducing their input.
of course you will always have pouring in of additions and new comers @Grant , but you should judge the affects of happy or unhappy creatives based on the data with longer-term view, not the influx of those new and unaware of the dilution ripple effects.

 

[BrandCougar]

I would like to address few of the recent comments .



The Average time to sell and sell through rate are two different (mostly independent) metrics. It is possible to have a really short time to sell, with a really low sell through rate. This is because the time to sell is based on the domains you actually sold, while the sell through rate is based upon all your domains. For example, let's say you have a portfolio of 100 domains , but you sold one domain 2 weeks after listing. In that case, your time to sell would be 2 weeks while your sell through rate would be 1%.

Infact, based upon our current algorithm, your sell through rate will actually show 0% because the 12 month and 6 month sell through rates are calculated only for those domains that were atleast listed for 12 month and 6 month respectively. In other words, if your domain sells in less than 6 months, it is currently not reflected in the sell through rate.

As indicated in one of the previous posts, we plan to update the sell through rate calculation over the next few days to provide a more accurate view of the sell through across the platform (by also including those domains which are selling in less than 6 months).

On the broader point, it is certainly expected that our platform's overall sell through rates will gradually decline and settle towards a lower number as we increase the listings in the Marketplace. Regardless of this expected decline, our goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry by ensuring a high level of marketing spends. In addition, we are significantly more selective in approving new domains to the marketplace to ensure that the growth of marketplace is extremely controlled.

Since all these metrics are averages, it is possible that the experience of individual sellers may be different - some may achieve a much better sell through than the average, while others may achieve a lower sell through. These variations will likely be even higher, if you have a relatively smaller portfolio.

We are currently operating at highest level of marketing spends, and we plan to increase them even more. However at the end of the day we absolutely understand that you would not want to continue to list your domains with a platform if you are not seeing results. We also recognize that some sellers may find that they are seeing better success with other platforms - in those cases, it certainly makes sense to move more domains towards that platform.

While ultimately it is your decision, we do recommend to list your domains for atleast 12 months before evaluating your overall portfolio performance.

@GrantP -

Thanks for your response.

Based on you current Sell-Thru-Rate (STR) formulas, are the following statements below correct?

Please advise.

-Cougar


FOR EXAMPLE:

A) As of today, if you currently have 10,000 domains listed (that have been listed for more than 12+ months on the site) and you sold 1,179 of those domains to date - your 12+ month STR would be displayed as being 11.79% - Correct?

B) As of today, if you had a surge 6 months ago of domains being added to the platform and you currently have 22,000 domains listed (that have been listed for more than 6+ months on the site) and you have sold 1,340 of this pool of domains to date - your 6+ month STR would be displayed as being 6.09% - Correct?

C) And excluded from those calculations - are any sales that have occurred prior to 6 months (both on the numerator and denominator) of each calculation? - Correct?


OBSERVATION:

Using the above example would indicate that your "true" STR for prior 6+ month to 12+ month window [months 6/7/8/9/10/11] had a STR rate of 1.34 % = (1340 - 1179) / 12,000) for domains having been on the site for 6 months, but less than 12 months.

With this model, this would annualized to 2.68% for a 12 month period. (give or take)


SUGGESTION:

1) Please provide the (actual) numbers for the above calculations, so we all have a crystal clear picture of the STR reality that exist today.

2) Use the above model to illustrate the 6-to-12 STR for the past 5 (bi-annaul windows). This would provide CONTEXT for your Sell-Thu-Rates currently displayed on the Dashboard. For example, bench 2017(Q1Q2) with 2017(Q3Q4) with 2018(Q1Q2) with 2018(Q3Q4) with 2019(Q1Q2) using the above "Observation" modeling formula. This would normalize the trending to a consistent window capture/bench - and would indicate performance hampering via upward scaling.

3) The problem with your current modeling is that you have a HUGE "ramp up" slide on your metrics for newly added domains. The only way to normalize your data and provide an apple-to-apples comparison is to provide CONTEXT to your calculations by providing actual numbers to each of the 6-12 window periods. By sharing these numbers, you will table the mystery.


I am not asking for monthly details or individual transaction details, I am asking for a simple quantum way of benchmarking your 6 month progressions - which should be a KPI for performance level tracking.

This is one way of providing the "fluidity" of your STR by benching like performing sliding windows with identical lengths (bi-annual clustering).

What this model will do is provide a clear picture of "inventory turn".

 

[BrandCougar]

@GrantP -

I hope the above observation is helpful.

Many on this thread are Data Analyst by trade (myself being one for a manufacturing firm). We track inventory turn per product, per bin, per category, per distribution channel to gauge product sell-thru. This also provides us forecast modeling for inventory capacity needs.

Stocking has a carrying costs, whether physical or digital. Yes, digital assets have a carrying cost - not only in out-of-pocket cost to create logos and publishing expenses, but also in lost opportunity cost and carrying cost for the inventory providers (domain selling partners).

Using bi-annual or quarterly "inventory turn" as a KPI will help to clarify performance impact when considering inventory acquisition, inventory throttling, inventory glut, vendor (seller) impact, and also can be helpful for forecasting or identifying carrying cost for seasonal (or trendy) stocking.

Regards,

-Cougar

 

[Laguna]

@GrantP -

Thanks for your response.

Based on you current Sell-Thru-Rate (STR) formulas, are the following statements below correct?

Please advise.

-Cougar


FOR EXAMPLE:

A) As of today, if you currently have 10,000 domains listed (that have been listed for more than 12+ months on the site) and you sold 1,179 of those domains - your 12+ month STR would be displayed as being 11.79 % - Correct?

B) As of today, if you had a surge 6 months ago of domains being added to the platform and you currently have 22,000 domains listed (that have been listed for more than 6+ months on the site) and you have sold 1,340 of this pool of domains to date - your 6+ month STR would be displayed as being 6.09% - Correct?

C) And excluded from those calculations - are any sales that have occurred prior to 6 months (both on the numerator and denominator) of each calculation? - Correct?


OBSERVATION:

Using the above example would indicate that your "true" STR for prior 6+ month to 12+ month window [months 7/8/9/10/11/12] had a STR rate of 1.34 % = (1340 - 1179) / 12,000) for domains having been on the site for 6 months, but less than 12 months.

With this model, this would annualized to 2.68% for a 12 month period. (give or take)


SUGGESTION:

1) Please provide the "real" (actual) numbers for the above calculations, so we all have a crystal clear picture of reality.

2) Use the above model to illustrate the 6-to-12 STR for the past 5 (bi-annaul windows). This would provide CONTEXT for your Sell-Thu-Rates being displayed. For example, bench 2017(Q1Q2) with 2017(Q3Q4) with 2018(Q1Q2) with 2018(Q3Q4) with 2019(Q1Q2) using the above "Observation" modeling formula. This would normalize the trending to a consistent window capture/bench - and would indicate performance hampering via upward scaling.

3) The problem with your current modeling is that you have a HUGE "ramp up" slide on your metrics for newly added domains. The only way to "normalize" your data and provide an apple-to-apples comparison is to provide CONTEXT to your calculations by providing actual numbers to each of the 6-12 windows. By sharing these numbers, you will table the mystery.


I am not asking for monthly details or specific transaction details, I am asking for a simple quantum way of benchmarking your 6 month progressions - which should be a KPI for performance level tracking.

This is one way of providing "fluidity" of you STR by benching like performing windows (with identical lengths - bi-annual clustering).

What this model will also do is provide you a clear picture of "inventory turn".

Geez, I just went dizzy reading that

 

[BrandCougar]

@Lagunaboy -

So did I writing it...

The bottom line ---> bi-annual "inventory turn" tracking for each 6 month window period would illustrate the impact of the recent inventory acceleration.

-Cougar

 

[ahmed gamil]

Nice post
its Good Market but high fee you cant add price more 2300 I think you must pay to list with a high price

 

[BrandCougar]

@GrantP -

Another side of this would be to (in parallel) track the bi-annual or quarterly "inventory turn" for those individuals who are reviewing and accepting Premium names to your marketplace.

By tracking "reviewer performance" per Acceptance Review Employee, you will have a KPI to help standardize your review process, identify potential training needs, and strive for Acceptance consistency.

Another way of viewing the value of "inventory turn" tracking - not only for stakeholder benchmarking, but also for performance improvement and quality assurance.

-Cougar

 

[auctionpop]

I would like to address few of the recent comments

@GrantP - Can you review my most recent chat log with Vincent? My username on SquadHelp is Bourbon. I lost a frustrating amount of time due to errors with your website, and even more time trying to pry some semblance of attentiveness and care from your chat agent. I was promised a refund for both the coins I purchased and the contest submission fee, but your customer service agent didn't seem especially interested in even acknowledging the problem on your end until I mentioned NamePros. Extremely disappointing experience.

 

[GrantP]

it is unfortunate however, as many of us sellers scaled our portfolio of premium listings after SH announced the average sell through rate was 20%... this misleading information has cost us sellers a lot of time and money

Thanks for your feedback. We have been extremely transparent with providing a wealth of metrics from day one (not only for seller's portfolio but also for the entire website) so the sellers can get an overall sense of the platform at any given time. We have also shared in several of the previous posts (including on Namepros) that the sell through rate is expected to decline as we add more names to the Marketplace. We believe that there is a general lack of transparency across several platforms when it comes to sharing specific information and metrics. We could have chosen to publish vague metrics in quarterly reports but instead we believe it is important for sellers to see specific metrics in real time.

Having said that, our goal is to continue to deliver the highest sell through rate in the brandable space, which is why we are continuing to make marketing and platform investments at a rapid pace. We are also now significantly more selective in accepting new domains because we want to grow the marketplace in a very controlled fashion.

As far as the quality of names is concerned, we use a combination of data as well as our understanding of our customers to determine which names will best resonate with them. There is a lot of subjectivity in the brandable space, and we do our best to apply our learnings from 25,000+ naming contests and end user feedback. We certainly do not get it right every time, but we use a wealth of metrics internally to learn and improve our ability to pick the names that would resonate with our customers.

A) As of today, if you currently have 10,000 domains listed (that have been listed for more than 12+ months on the site) and you sold 1,179 of those domains to date - your 12+ month STR would be displayed as being 11.79% - Correct?

B) As of today, if you had a surge 6 months ago of domains being added to the platform and you currently have 22,000 domains listed (that have been listed for more than 6+ months on the site) and you have sold 1,340 of this pool of domains to date - your 6+ month STR would be displayed as being 6.09% - Correct?

C) And excluded from those calculations - are any sales that have occurred prior to 6 months (both on the numerator and denominator) of each calculation? - Correct?

Yes all these 3 examples provide a correct view of how these metrics are currently calculated. We will continue to add additional more metrics to the platform over time - however the most immediate change you can expect to see is that the sell through rate will begin including names that sold in less than 6 month time frame as well.

Can you review my most recent chat log with Vincent? My username on SquadHelp is Bourbon. I lost a frustrating amount of time due to errors with your website, and even more time trying to pry some semblance of attentiveness and care from your chat agent. I was promised a refund for both the coins I purchased and the contest submission fee, but your customer service agent didn't seem especially interested in even acknowledging the problem on your end until I mentioned NamePros. Extremely disappointing experience.

I looked into the interaction with our team and I am sorry to hear that you had a disappointing experience. When new users sign up in our platform, they are randomly assigned contests by our platform to minimize any potential of misuse. Since it is a competitive platform, we are extremely sensitive about ensuring that new users are not in any way connected to the contest holder, and the random assignment is one way to address that situation. I see that you were interested in joining one contest that was not assigned to you. It appears that if you select certain filters, it also shows contests that may not be assigned to you, which can lead to confusion. We will work on making this more clear on our platform so that we can minimize any confusion because I can see how that could be frustrating. I see that your payments have been refunded but if there is anything else we can do, please reach out and our team will address the issue promptly.

 

[Recons.Com]

The meaningful and either to understand way to calculate the sell through for the past 12 months would be to divide the total number of sales in the past 12 months by the average daily number of the domains listed within that period. No need to complicate it.

When people see your numbers, like 11% that is what they assume. Basically, that if they list 100 names and give it 12 months, they will have a good chance of having 11 sold.

 

[DomainBanana]

Re: Quality -- In addition to the logo problem, it reflects poorly on the marketplace when SH gives premium status and pricing to a great deal of hand-regged junk (and I'm not saying all hand-regs are junk):

M / o / n / a / r / c / h / s / A / n / d / M / a / v / e / r / i / c / k / s . com, $1499
T / h / e / P / e / r / f / e / c / t / i / o / n / i / s / m . com, $2299
A / v / r / i / o / A / c / c / o / u / n / t / i / n / g . com, $2399
M / a / l / e / O / r / d / e / r / P / r / i / d / e . com, $1349
Y / o / u / n / g / P / o / w / e / r / m / e / n / t . com, $1699
t / h / y / n / k / v / e / n / t / u / r / e / s . com, $1599
I / g / n / i / t / e / d / I / m / p / a / c / t .com, $1849
C / u / m / m / u / n / i / t / o . com, $1699
A / v / a / n / t / a / C / B / D .com, $2199

???

I'm not right all the time, either, but I don't believe any of the above belong on a brandable marketplace. Many premium SH names make me cringe.

Sales data should help correct course in the long-run, but in the interim, I'd strongly suggest bringing on some industry veterans to give you some insight into the definition and valuation of brandable domains.

 

[GrantP]

Another side of this would be to (in parallel) track the bi-annual or quarterly "inventory turn" for those individuals who are reviewing and accepting Premium names to your marketplace.

By tracking "reviewer performance" per Acceptance Review Employee, you will have a KPI to help standardize your review process, identify potential training needs, and strive for Acceptance consistency.

Another way of viewing the value of "inventory turn" tracking - not only for stakeholder benchmarking, but also for performance improvement and quality assurance.

This is great feedback. Intact, we have started tracking our team's performance on the following levels:

• Sell Through Rate by Reviewer: This metric allows us to offer incentives to the reviewer who delivers the best sell through rate for names they approved.
• Sell Through Rate by Logo Designer: This metric allows us to see if a certain designer is able to achieve better sell through rates on the logos they designed.
• Overall Logo Ratings by Logo Designer: We use this seller Logo ratings to provide feedback as well as make staffing adjustments in our Logo team (e.g. if a specific logo designer is consistently receiving poor ratings on their logo designs, it will likely affect their ability to continue to work with us on new logo designs)

We will continue to add even more internal metrics to ensure a high level of accountability that is directly linked with delivering a strong portfolio performance.

 

[auctionpop]

I looked into the interaction with our team and I am sorry to hear that you had a disappointing experience. When new users sign up in our platform, they are randomly assigned contests by our platform to minimize any potential of misuse. Since it is a competitive platform, we are extremely sensitive about ensuring that new users are not in any way connected to the contest holder, and the random assignment is one way to address that situation. I see that you were interested in joining one contest that was not assigned to you. It appears that if you select certain filters, it also shows contests that may not be assigned to you, which can lead to confusion. We will work on making this more clear on our platform so that we can minimize any confusion because I can see how that could be frustrating. I see that your payments have been refunded but if there is anything else we can do, please reach out and our team will address the issue promptly.

I didn't select any filters of my own accord. The issues that arose were in relation to filters displayed to me as pre-selected defaults. NamePros wont let me link to the screenshot that I provided during chat, but 'Assigned To Me' is clearly shown as a filter that has been applied. I registered dental assistant related domains, spent time on research, and even started design on logos (Chef Michelle Ann & Eco-Logic) under the belief that the listings shown as being assigned to me were... actually assigned to me.

This issue isn't that anything needs to be made clearer. Being a web developer, there's usually not much that confuses me in regards to navigating a website.The issue in this particular case is that your website displayed incorrect information that ended up costing me time and money.

The domains will be a plus thanks to affiliate programs offered by companies specializing in invisible braces, and obviously there was no guarantee that they would win the contest.

It's the loss of time, oddly blasé attitudes, and having to abandon projects (and a platform) I was genuinely excited about that irks me the most.

 

[SuperBrander]

@DomainBanana SH accepts some types of names that other marketplaces don't and vice versa. I suggested The Perfectionism dot com and it was accepted as a SH registered name. It currently has 888 views and 34 shortlists. Close to 4%. The site's average is 2.64%. So yeah... you're not right all the time. Since this is a public forum that's indexed in search engines, "shaming" a bunch of domains in public without masking the urls isn't something you should be doing.

 

[DomainBanana]

@SuperBrander Even if that domain sells, I would still say it's a bad brandable.

This is not domain-shaming. The only way to discuss SH's choice of premium names is to give examples.

 

[SuperBrander]

@DomainBanana When you don't mask the urls... it is "shaming" because you're putting down other people's domains in public and potential end users can trace back to this thread. I'm currently the person who's second on the sales' leaderboard at SH. I probably know what I'm doing.

 

[DomainBanana]

@SuperBrander Even you might have a bad name once in a while, it is conceivable.

URLs have been masked.

 

[SuperBrander]

@DomainBanana Thanks for masking the domains. I'm not against discussion about quality. For sure, I also handreg some bad domains sometime. I'm not saying the one you mentioned is my favorite name ever or even close to that for a handreg. Had it been that- I would have registered it myself instead of letting SH do it. And yes, it's not a classic brandable domain.

However, it has a good chance of selling. 'The' + word is a popular combination and perfectionism is something that can lend itself to education, crafts and other fields. I think the relatively high shortlist % probably speaks for itself. BB likely wouldn't have accepted it. But SH is a different type of place.

Had I had a dollar for every name I saw sold on brandable marketplaces that I never in a million years would have thought would sell... I'd be a millionaire. Or at least have some serious spending money. I often scratch my head at names I see and think that I would have never taken them for free let alone handregged them, but that's true to any marketplace. SH seems quite data oriented in their decisions since they have the added metrics from contest wins, Likes and Loves by CHs etc. They slowed down their acceptances at this point so the bar should be higher moving forward.

 

[DomainBanana]

You're right that data analysis can often yield surprises and maybe SH has discovered some suprising, protfitable formulas based on all its contests and clients.

And yes, I am regularly surprised by what sells. But these surprises come as the exception to some fundamentals.

I suspect SH's high STRs are mainly due to marketing efforts, and that STRs would be even higher if the selection was better.

Re: this particular domain:
*it has never been regged before April of this year
*not a single person in the world wanted it before SH accepted it
*it has 16 characters and six syllables
*it falls short of a premium form of "perfect", something I have noticed with many SH names in various ways:

1 - Perfect
2 - Perfects
3 - Perfection
4 - Perfections
5 - Perfectionist
6 - Perfectionists
7 - Perfectionism
8 - Perfectionisms
9 - ThePerfect
10 - ThePerfects
11 - ThePerfection
12 - ThePerfections
13 - ThePerfectionist
14 - ThePerfectionists
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
15 - The Perfectionism
16 - The Perfectionisms

I could see 1-14 selling. Beyond that, it's is a big stretch

Regardless, @SuperBrander, thank you for your openness to discuss.

My goal is certainly not to shame or offend but to encourage quality domaining and continue to learn along the way.

 

[SuperBrander]

@DomainBanana I'm sure you didn't mean to shame anybody. But singling out and criticizing other people's domains in public while posting the domains and not masking the urls... not really a fair thing to do to anyone, even if their domain sucks or in your opinion sucks.

As for the specific domain- the fact that it was never registered in the past was one of the reasons I didn't register it myself. Some of the variants you mentioned are certainly better. However, it's impossible to dispute the fact that this domain is being shortlisted at a significantly higher rate than the site's average. I'm all for short domains with 1-3 syllables that are easy to spell. BB is quite strict about that. SH is less so. An overwhelming majority of my portfolio fits the usual formula. But every rule has exceptions and if I find a domain that I think has potential and I don't even have to pay a cent for it... then why the hell not. Based on the shortlisting rate, it was a good call by SH. I'll update if/when it sells.

 

[Recons.Com]

The/Perfection/ism is perfectly fine. I even like it and can see it taken by a diet/fitness/health/wellness/beauty company...

Names like Avrio/Account/ing or Young/Power/Ment are head-scratchers. In the former, the brand is actually Av/rio and accounting is just the industry. If they accept this, they should accept avrio/construction, avrio/cars etc... You can flood the marketplace with 100K of those names in a week. And the latter is plain bad name. It is either Word+Word or Word+Suffix or Modified word, not everything at the same time. Meaning Young/Power - great, Young/Empowerment or Young/Empowered - good, but Young/Power/ment??? Really???