Rant to Brandbucket

JudgeMind · Jun 19, 2017

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

toughdomains · Jun 28, 2017

JudgeMind said:
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

Really ?! What? Wow!

I guess the old saying holds true here.

One mans rubbish is another mans treasure!

offthehandle · Jun 28, 2017

toughdomains said:
Really ?! What? Wow!

I guess the old saying holds true here.

One mans rubbish is another mans treasure!

Check out the other main brandbucket thread there are 311 pages, if you want to see all the history.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/brandbucket-experience.793278/page-311#post-6229530

toughdomains · Jun 28, 2017

I took a deep look at the traffic coming into BB and noticed they do have a considerable amount of traffic and links coming into their site. They invest heavily on advertising the site which results in sales. You use this marketplace because it gets eyeballs and there is something novel about it right now.
The great marketing with a logo attached to every names makes them an easy story in the blogosphere.

However I think with all the recent tools and services that let you have sales pages and store with logos makes BB less special. I personally have my names listed with BB , Sedo, Afternic, Godaddy and flippa. And of all the marketplaces I get the most offers from
a. my own landing pages and
b. godaddy
(although GD offers are all lowball offers. ie $200 for one word 6 letter .com)

I would have to speculate that based on my experience,
if your making a killing in BB you would probably make a bigger killing using a landing page with logo and listing the name on GD. everything is relative.

JudgeMind · Jun 29, 2017

toughdomains said:
I took a deep look at the traffic coming into BB and noticed they do have a considerable amount of traffic and links coming into their site. They invest heavily on advertising the site which results in sales. You use this marketplace because it gets eyeballs and there is something novel about it right now.
The great marketing with a logo attached to every names makes them an easy story in the blogosphere.

However I think with all the recent tools and services that let you have sales pages and store with logos makes BB less special. I personally have my names listed with BB , Sedo, Afternic, Godaddy and flippa. And of all the marketplaces I get the most offers from
a. my own landing pages and
b. godaddy
(although GD offers are all lowball offers. ie $200 for one word 6 letter .com)

I would have to speculate that based on my experience,
if your making a killing in BB you would probably make a bigger killing using a landing page with logo and listing the name on GD. everything is relative.

It's even easier to simply point your domain name to a sales page on afternic or sedo. Most people landing on your domain would know about these marketplaces. They don't include a custom designed logo, but if they type the name in their browser, it's what their after anyway so no need to jazz it up with a logo.

Example:

Notebin.com

You can bulk update your name servers to point all of your domains to a landing page in about 10 min using the nameserver.io function.

Recons.Com · Jun 29, 2017

Grilled said:
Sorry guys - offer is no longer valid. I'm done trying to bring transparency to the existing marketplaces. Any attention focused on brandable marketplaces is attention I spend away from selling. This will be my last post regarding brandable marketplaces for at least 30 days. (self imposed ban after getting manic last night)

@Grilled

For one, I really appreciate what you do and your spirit! Your insights are always interesting and valuable. But I understand that it doesn't provide any benefit to you and you need a time off.

Brandworthy · Jun 29, 2017

Arca said:
The sellers who removed 724 names most likely notified BB about wanting those names to be removed during the 20-28 May window. The majority of the removed names over the past week might belong to brandworthy, his account page now shows 4XX BB listed names, down from 9XX.

Yeah, I imagine most of those removals are mine. I haven't yet reached my 30 days, but it looks like BB changed their validation method, and my intermediate redirect for tracking now gets flagged as invalid. I've changed nothing on my side, and my names have used this tracking technique for around 2 years now, so this looks like a change on their side. I only have round 1 week more of my 30 days, and I don't see any value in updating things on my end to re-validate my names.

slader23 · Jun 29, 2017

Brandroot said:
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

offthehandle · Jul 14, 2017

So any updates to this situation? How many more names have been removed?

xn--v4h.com · Jul 14, 2017

Asfas1000 said:
Well you know, sometimes when you are exposed to the same domain for a second time, familiarity makes it look a little better Maybe the reason why he decided to pick it up.

I honestly think this is what happened here. This might sound naive but quite plausible having done so myself.

xn--v4h.com · Jul 14, 2017

Grilled said:
You can (sorta) confirm if it was back ordered by checking the registration time. If registered between 1800 and 1930 most likely backordered If later than 19:30 Zulu time than most likely hand regged. Also if registrar is namebright there's a giveaway. (Based on MK's trends)

Does the domain still retain the old who's creation date or does it have a new 2016 creation date?

Your knowledge is incredible man

xn--v4h.com · Jul 14, 2017

slader23 said:
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

Well said! Even the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest (assuming their intentions are good) is wrong.

maksimfa · Jul 14, 2017

JudgeMind said:
It's even easier to simply point your domain name to a sales page on afternic or sedo. Most people landing on your domain would know about these marketplaces. They don't include a custom designed logo, but if they type the name in their browser, it's what their after anyway so no need to jazz it up with a logo.

Example:

Notebin.com

You can bulk update your name servers to point all of your domains to a landing page in about 10 min using the nameserver.io function.

I would disagree with one point.... while yes, domainers and domain investors would hear of Sedo, end users landing on your sites would have ZERO clue about who they are.

The one exception is GoDaddy simply due to their status as the 800lb Gorilla.

If you have an offer from Sedo/Afternic and your domain is not parked there, you pretty much know it is a domainer or another broker.

If you have it going through your own landing page... more than 50% probability it is the end user.

offthehandle · Jul 25, 2017

http://www.sothebys.com/content/dam/sothebys/PDFs/JC_1416483_Legal_Code of Conduct Brochure.pdf

Typically, in companies that have formal written ethical standards, the above accusations of employees and their representatives selling against vendors is clearly prohibited.

Here's what Sotheby's states about insider trading:

It is your individual responsibility not to engage in trading at any time when in possession of material non-public information.

Avoid Conflicts of Interest:
Employee buying and selling
The purchase or sale of property by a Sotheby’s employee, or his/her family member, may create an actual or potential conflict of interest, or the appearance of such a conflict, between either Sotheby’s and the employee or Sotheby’s and a client of Sotheby’s.
No purchase or sale, or proposed purchase, by an employee, or his/her immediate family member, may directly or indirectly deprive Sotheby’s of an opportunity
to acquire an item on consignment for auction or for private sale. If an employee has any question as to the existence of corporate opportunity or conflict, the question must be raised with the employee’s supervisor or Compliance & Business Integrity.

xynames · Nov 23, 2017

Given that people seem to think that a BB acceptance means little or nothing:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/wh...-domain-does-it-mean-anything-at-all.1051324/
why would a BB denial mean so much then? It is just one marketplace. You get denied at one marketplace so you let your name expire worthless? Once you've made that decision, what happens to the name after expiration shouldn't be your concern.

I do see the flip side of this as well, but only if BB is systematically denying names just so that it may pick them up for reg fees on down the line. But, that would be a stretch and belies the above indication that people seem to think that BB isn't a great indicator of value in the first place.

xynames · Nov 23, 2017

maksimfa said:
If you have an offer from Sedo/Afternic and your domain is not parked there, you pretty much know it is a domainer or another broker.

If you have it going through your own landing page... more than 50% probability it is the end user.

I’ve sold domains at Afternic and Sedo to many end users (I do not use their landing pages). And via my own landing page to brokers.

Arfy · Sep 17, 2018

Arfy · Sep 17, 2018

sorry posted in the wrong thread!

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