Alter.com Marketplace

[Deven Patel]

Hi all,

I wanted to introduce a new premium domain marketplace we just launched called Alter. I would love to hear your thoughts! As the world’s largest community of domainers, your feedback would be invaluable.

Let me introduce myself. Although I’m new to NamePros, I’ve been around the block. I’ve been buying and selling domains for my own startup ideas for over 20 years. As a serial entrepreneur, I founded a number of startups across various industries like marketing, web hosting, social networking, blogging, and SaaS. This experience has helped me understand how indispensable a brand name is to a business.

Most new entrepreneurs don’t think twice about their company name. Our goal is to change that! A brand name literally has the power to make or break their business. This is more true today than ever before now that there are countless alternatives to every product or service imaginable. Sure, every business may have their own world-changing differentiator but from the outside they all look the same at which point the main differentiator ends up becoming their brand name. In a world full of distractions, we no longer have the attention span to thoroughly research what we buy so we rely on our emotions. This is why large businesses like Apple and Amazon spend billions on their “brand” alone because they understand that customer perception is everything.

Anyway, I noticed that most marketplaces that exist today are focused more on the seller rather than the buyer. Our goal is to reverse the equation and prioritize buyers because I think they are the key to success in any industry. The domain industry is no exception. Without buyers, there’s no money. This is why we’ve made it our mission to help entrepreneurs succeed!

And what’s with the 30-35% commission rate most of these marketplaces are charging? Unless they’re doing more work than a human broker, I don’t think anything over the industry average of 15-20% is warranted. We’re changing that. Alter has one of the lowest rates in the industry, an all-inclusive 10% commission fee when a name sells. There are no other fees or restrictions.

What do you think? Are we on the right track or barking up the wrong tree?

Deven

This was a promoted post.​

 

[Charybdis]

Unfortunately, it wouldn't be economically feasible to produce the audio manually.

Can you DM some examples that sound off to you? Maybe there's another way to fix them.

They sound pretty good, but human voiceover is always better, but I get it that it would be too expensive.

 

[Charybdis]

@Deven Patel just a small thing, you haven't filled in your bio on Dan.com (Settings - seller profile - bio textfield), you can add a text description which will be visible on your public Dan profile. I am not sure whether you can add a link here, you need to check the TOS, but you can add a text description for sure.

 

[Future Sensors]

Hi @Deven Patel

One of the top 3L domains on Alter is currently also listed in the Sedo GreatDomains Auction (June 17-24).

Could you please explain how this is possible - are we allowed to do this?

 

[Deven Patel]

Quick announcement everyone...

We heard from a number of sellers who wanted to manage their own listings with our partners for one reason or another (e.g. keep prices consistent across marketplaces, auction domains without having to delist them from Alter, etc). In an effort to give sellers more flexibility, we're making partner syndication optional.

By default, all domains listed on Alter will automatically syndicate to our partners. However, if you prefer you can choose not to syndicate your domains by heading over to your account "Settings" page and then clicking on the "Syndication" button.

So if you like the "all-in-one" approach and the convenience of not having to manage listings across different places then leave syndication on. Otherwise, feel free to turn it off.

Moving forward, the only requirement of listing on Alter is that you use our landing pages. This is so that our marketing efforts aren't wasted if one of our buyers ends up typing a domain into their browser and purchasing it elsewhere.

By the way, here are some interesting insights about the value of landing pages for those who are curious. We had listed 4,000+ premium names with our partners including top tier names priced in the 6-7 figure range. So far after 4 months, we received 0 inquiries through that channel. And in terms of traffic, we estimate that the channel contributed only about 3% of the overall traffic. Go figure!

As always, I wanted to thank everyone for their continued support.

 

[Deven Patel]

One of the top 3L domains on Alter is currently also listed in the Sedo GreatDomains Auction (June 17-24).

Could you please explain how this is possible - are we allowed to do this?

Yes, this is now allowed. Please see my announcement above.

 

[Charybdis]

Quick announcement everyone...

We heard from a number of sellers who wanted to manage their own listings with our partners for one reason or another (e.g. keep prices consistent across marketplaces, auction domains without having to delist them from Alter, etc). In an effort to give sellers more flexibility, we're making partner syndication optional.

By default, all domains listed on Alter will automatically syndicate to our partners. However, if you prefer you can choose not to syndicate your domains by heading over to your account "Settings" page and then clicking on the "Syndication" button.

So if you like the "all-in-one" approach and the convenience of not having to manage listings across different places then leave syndication on. Otherwise, feel free to turn it off.

Moving forward, the only requirement of listing on Alter is that you use our landing pages. This is so that our marketing efforts aren't wasted if one of our buyers ends up typing a domain into their browser and purchasing it elsewhere.

By the way, here are some interesting insights about the value of landing pages for those who are curious. We had listed 4,000+ premium names with our partners including top tier names priced in the 6-7 figure range. So far after 4 months, we received 0 inquiries through that channel. And in terms of traffic, we estimate that the channel contributed only about 3% of the overall traffic. Go figure!

As always, I wanted to thank everyone for their continued support.

I think it's a great change, however according to your cited statistic I think the best option is to leave the partner syndication on, right? Because maybe it isn't worth the extra effort to do it manually.

But maybe you haven't received any direct inquires at your partners because the prices are higher than on the landing pages?

How can you accurately measure the added benefit of listing the domains at the partners? If someone is searching for domains on Dan or Sedo, then after that the searcher might copy and paste the found domain into the web browser, and this will increase the type-in traffic, but you can't measure in case of type-in traffic the true origin of that traffic, maybe the customer found the domain first on Dan or Sedo, or not?

 

[Future Sensors]

Quick announcement everyone...

We heard from a number of sellers who wanted to manage their own listings with our partners for one reason or another (e.g. keep prices consistent across marketplaces, auction domains without having to delist them from Alter, etc). In an effort to give sellers more flexibility, we're making partner syndication optional.

By default, all domains listed on Alter will automatically syndicate to our partners. However, if you prefer you can choose not to syndicate your domains by heading over to your account "Settings" page and then clicking on the "Syndication" button.

So if you like the "all-in-one" approach and the convenience of not having to manage listings across different places then leave syndication on. Otherwise, feel free to turn it off.

Moving forward, the only requirement of listing on Alter is that you use our landing pages. This is so that our marketing efforts aren't wasted if one of our buyers ends up typing a domain into their browser and purchasing it elsewhere.

By the way, here are some interesting insights about the value of landing pages for those who are curious. We had listed 4,000+ premium names with our partners including top tier names priced in the 6-7 figure range. So far after 4 months, we received 0 inquiries through that channel. And in terms of traffic, we estimate that the channel contributed only about 3% of the overall traffic. Go figure!

As always, I wanted to thank everyone for their continued support.

Thank you @Deven Patel of Alter.

As you know, I was one of those people suggesting such an "opt-out" feature in this thread, so I'm happy you made the decision to implement this (although it's confusing to see that some members were allowed to do this earlier before your announcement today).

I appreciate that you are testing new strategies every few months, but I also hope that policy changes like this don't happen too often.

Wish you a lot more innovations to the benefit of all members, partners, and Alter the company.

 

[Deven Patel]

I think it's a great change, however according to your cited statistic I think the best option is to leave the partner syndication on, right? Because maybe it isn't worth the extra effort to do it manually.

If it were me personally, I would leave it on because it's not worth the extra effort to maintain duplicate listings. I would rather focus on expanding my portfolio. But based on talking to a number of sellers over the last few months, I realized that everyone has their own opinion on what works better and it wasn't worth the hassle to try and convince them otherwise.

But maybe you haven't received any direct inquires at your partners because the prices are higher than on the landing pages?

We did consider that but the chances of that happening are very slim because the prices aren't that different. We also try to obtain as much feedback as possible from buyers to understand how they learned about Alter and none of them have mentioned seeing names there so far. Additionally, the same thing is true when you list with any other marketplace with an MLS feature. The partners of those marketplaces also increase prices in the same manner.

How can you accurately measure the added benefit of listing the domains at the partners? If someone is searching for domains on Dan or Sedo, then after that the searcher might copy and paste the found domain into the web browser, and this will increase the type-in traffic, but you can't measure in case of type-in traffic the true origin of that traffic, maybe the customer found the domain first on Dan or Sedo, or not?

It's certainly hard to measure which is why it's an estimate. The way we measured it was by collecting the traffic data from partner dashboards. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely valuable to cast a wide net and get as much exposure as possible. You never know if that one random buyer ends up buying on marketplace X. The question really is whether the amount of additional benefit warrants the extra manual work of managing the inventory on each marketplace individually. For large portfolios, it can be a nightmare.

 

[Deven Patel]

Thank you @Deven Patel of Alter.

As you know, I was one of those people suggesting such an "opt-out" feature in this thread, so I'm happy you made the decision to implement this (although it's confusing to see that some members were allowed to do this earlier before your announcement today).

I appreciate that you are testing new strategies every few months, but I also hope that policy changes like this don't happen too often.

Wish you a lot more innovations to the benefit of all members, partners, and Alter the company.

Thanks for the kind words! We're trying our best to make everyone happy.

And sorry about the late announcement. We had actually made the change a few days back on our website but I didn't get a chance to formally announce it.

 

[Future Sensors]

The question really is whether the amount of additional benefit warrants the extra manual work of managing the inventory on each marketplace individually. For large portfolios, it can be a nightmare.

No, most of the larger portfolio holders have procedures in place to list on several marketplaces. It's the exceptions that introduce the most headaches. So I think it's the other way around.

 

[Deven Patel]

No, most of the larger portfolio holders have procedures in place to list on several marketplaces. It's the exceptions that introduce the most headaches. So I think it's the other way around.

Thanks for the feedback! I would love to learn more about these procedures to better understand your perspective.

To me personally, it makes much more sense to take the "all-in-one" approach. Set it and forget it. Why create more work for yourself when you can use that precious time on more important priorities?

 

[Charybdis]

@Deven Patel please consider allowing to submit unregistered domains again, but with a twist.

You could introduce "Alter-owned" domains. Select sellers could submit unregistered domains for review, for example only those sellers who have at least 10 listed domains, this would solve the problem of people creating multiple accounts to receive more slots.

And then you would immediately register yourself the approved domains via an API, this would solve the problem of sellers submitting domains without adding the accepted domains to Alter.

And then sellers would receive 20-30% of the domain price as a commission should you manage to sell such an "Alter-owned" domain. And then you would list those domains yourself on Afternic, Dan, Sedo.

It's the best when you own a domain for sale, because then you don't depend on a third party seller, you can do anything with the domain and you can transfer its ownership immediately to the buyer upon selling it.

It's a lot of work coming up with unregistered domain name ideas, checking them for availability, then going through the list and selecting the potential domains. That's why you need the help of your sellers to send you these lists.

Of course a seller could still register a domain before submitting it to the marketplace, this unregistered domain name submission feature would be an optional extra opportunity for those who need it.

This would be a new way to increase your inventory.

 

[Future Sensors]

Thanks for the feedback! I would love to learn more about these procedures to better understand your perspective.

To me personally, it makes much more sense to take the "all-in-one" approach. Set it and forget it. Why create more work for yourself when you can use that precious time on more important priorities?

That would be true indeed, if I were to list all of my (4,200) domains with Alter, and you would manage all of the external listings and have my headaches.

Instead, I'm only listing some 50 (1.2% of my portfolio) accepted brandable domains at Alter. I did not choose Alter as a "one-stop" solution for all of my domain listings, I was only trying-out your new brandable marketplace for a subset of my domains.

At time of the earlier announcement a few months ago, I had to make an exception for these 50 domains in my domain management system to make sure that these domains would not appear on other marketplaces.

I can imagine that there are members who will greatly appreciate that Alter takes care of everything, but it takes some time to profile the company as such. In effect, you become an umbrella system that wants to manage listings at external marketplaces, instead of just the brandable marketplace like in the beginning.

 

[DnDigger]

Will Alter notify if domain was rejected for premium listing?

 

[Charybdis]

Will Alter notify if domain was rejected for premium listing?

No. Only in case of acceptance.

 

[tomcarl]

Hopeful one day the syndication would include GoDaddy. Highly convenient. That and the option to upload logos.

 

[Charybdis]

Hopeful one day the syndication would include GoDaddy. Highly convenient. That and the option to upload logos.

I think Afternic doesn't support syndication by third party marketplaces. Maybe in Afternic 2.0?
So I think currently it is impossible to implement.

 

[BrandableDomain]

It would be great if Alter could add a visual index of the available logo fonts similar to the example below. This is what the font foundries do to expedite font selection.

At the moment, you seem to have to use trial and error when testing fonts from the long dropdown list and this is very time consuming.

(In Illustrator, Adobe actually displays the fonts in the dropdown but that would probably be very hard to code!)

This proposed page would be linked from the logo design page. And alphabetical. Then, sellers could more quickly choose a style and apply it.

"...you can use that precious time on more important priorities..."

 

[Devanos]

Why is the Traffic Partners so weak compared to the direct Traffic or alter marketplace Traffic!!?

 

[Future Sensors]

I think Afternic doesn't support syndication by third party marketplaces. Maybe in Afternic 2.0?
So I think currently it is impossible to implement.

It has no technical reason. It's more about Afternic's willingness to cooperate with other domain marketplaces.

 

[Deven Patel]

please consider allowing to submit unregistered domains again, but with a twist.

You could introduce "Alter-owned" domains. Select sellers could submit unregistered domains for review, for example only those sellers who have at least 10 listed domains, this would solve the problem of people creating multiple accounts to receive more slots.

And then you would immediately register yourself the approved domains via an API, this would solve the problem of sellers submitting domains without adding the accepted domains to Alter.

And then sellers would receive 20-30% of the domain price as a commission should you manage to sell such an "Alter-owned" domain. And then you would list those domains yourself on Afternic, Dan, Sedo.

It's the best when you own a domain for sale, because then you don't depend on a third party seller, you can do anything with the domain and you can transfer its ownership immediately to the buyer upon selling it.

It's a lot of work coming up with unregistered domain name ideas, checking them for availability, then going through the list and selecting the potential domains. That's why you need the help of your sellers to send you these lists.

Of course a seller could still register a domain before submitting it to the marketplace, this unregistered domain name submission feature would be an optional extra opportunity for those who need it.

This would be a new way to increase your inventory.

Thanks for the suggestion! We'll definitely think about it.

That would be true indeed, if I were to list all of my (4,200) domains with Alter, and you would manage all of the external listings and have my headaches.

Instead, I'm only listing some 50 (1.2% of my portfolio) accepted brandable domains at Alter. I did not choose Alter as a "one-stop" solution for all of my domain listings, I was only trying-out your new brandable marketplace for a subset of my domains.

At time of the earlier announcement a few months ago, I had to make an exception for these 50 domains in my domain management system to make sure that these domains would not appear on other marketplaces.

I can imagine that there are members who will greatly appreciate that Alter takes care of everything, but it takes some time to profile the company as such. In effect, you become an umbrella system that wants to manage listings at external marketplaces, instead of just the brandable marketplace like in the beginning.

That's completely understandable. And we would love to have your headaches. In fact, I think it's the marketplace's job to make things easier for sellers, not harder.

What else can we do to convince you to list all your domains with us?

Will Alter notify if domain was rejected for premium listing?

We review all listed domains for premium eligibility and will send you a notification if a name is eligible. If you don't hear from us within the first week or so then it means your domains weren't eligible. That said, our criteria could change in the future so we may review all existing names again down the road. It's an ongoing process.

Also, just because a domain isn't accepted as premium doesn't mean it's not a good domain. Think of premium as the "Amazon's Choice" inventory on Amazon. Just because a product isn't accepted as "Amazon's Choice" doesn't mean it's bad quality or won't sell. Another way to think of premium is the top X% of the names we have. Since it's a limited number, we can't accept everything.

Please note that both premium and standard domains receive the same benefits except that premium names appear higher in search results. This means regardless of whether your domain is selected as premium or not, you can take advantage of all our benefits for 10% commission (i.e. our marketing, customer service, installment plans, logos, partner syndication, etc).

Hopeful one day the syndication would include GoDaddy. Highly convenient. That and the option to upload logos.

We hope so too! Regarding logos, we're considering it.

It would be great if Alter could add a visual index of the available logo fonts similar to the example below. This is what the font foundries do to expedite font selection.

At the moment, you seem to have to use trial and error when testing fonts from the long dropdown list and this is very time consuming.

Thanks for the feedback! We'll try and find ways to improve this.

Why is the Traffic Partners so weak compared to the direct Traffic or alter marketplace Traffic!!?

No idea, you know as much as we do. My assumption is that the partners have huge inventories which dilutes the traffic received by individual domains.

 

[Deven Patel]

An improved search experience is here!

Based on everyone's feedback, we just released a more advanced search functionality on Alter. Now you can click on the filter icon located next to the search bar to fine tune queries based on keyword placement, domain extension, length, price, etc.

 

[Future Sensors]

What else can we do to convince you to list all your domains with us?

Don't be scared of what I'm about to say. For me personally it is something like this...

Because you asked me:

That moment might come when Alter would have a huge partner network of its own. This network should be similar to the (combined) partner networks of Sedo and Afternic, but without Alter using these marketplaces. Skip the additional layer. Alter has to enter into these kinds of partnerships much more on their own.

Decide what Alter wants to be. A general domain marketplace for all domains; or a Brandable domain marketplace only? For me, only a really small percentage of my domains fits the Brandable category.

Alter will need to have the same brand awareness as Godaddy. Millions of people should already have an account at Alter, and they can dream your brand all day long. Visitors can simply add a desired domain to their basket, and check out with their already existing account and stored payment methods. There will be fast transfers to the buyer, within a couple of minutes. You will have a huge team of domain brokers available 24x7x365.

Finally, you will sponsor the Super Bowl, become a public figure, and appear on national television daily.

​

 

[Charybdis]

Don't be scared of what I'm about to say. For me personally it is something like this...

Because you asked me:

That moment might come when Alter would have a huge partner network of its own. This network should be similar to the (combined) partner networks of Sedo and Afternic, but without Alter using these marketplaces. Skip the additional layer. Alter has to enter into these kinds of partnerships much more on their own.

Decide what Alter wants to be. A general domain marketplace for all domains; or a Brandable domain marketplace only? For me, only a really small percentage of my domains fits the Brandable category.

Alter will need to have the same brand awareness as Godaddy. Millions of people should already have an account at Alter, and they can dream your brand all day long. Visitors can simply add a desired domain to their basket, and check out with their already existing account and stored payment methods. There will be fast transfers to the buyer, within a couple of minutes. You will have a huge team of domain brokers available 24x7x365.

Finally, you will sponsor the Super Bowl, become a public figure, and appear on national television daily.

​

You can list any domains on Alter, not just brandable domains. You could try to list all your domains on the platform for 30 days and split test against your current landing pages (in terms of traffic and sales).

 

[Charybdis]

What do you think, how many .com domains are there in the world in total (including registered and unregistered domains, and for-sale and not-for-sale domains) which would ever become premium domains on Alter?