SquadHelp: A Game with Too Many Rules ?

DomainBanana · Sep 10, 2019

Yesterday, SquadHelp launched a new policy of charging $1/submission to their premium marketplace, a marketplace that accepts only 9.79% of names. A major cash grab by SH, this escalates the cost of listing a single name on the SH marketplace to over $10.

Even before this damaging move, I found something about SquadHelp frustrating: the whole site is designed like a giant game.

There are ranking boards to show who's in the lead, sellers earn points for things like winning contests or getting a name approved, and now they've introduced SquadHelp coins to pay for submissions.

Gamifying business can be fun, if done well.

SquadHelp has gone to the extreme and gamified everything, two or three times over. All their points and coins and rules are dizzyingly convoluted and feel demeaning and manipulative. When it comes to listing domains and getting paid for my work, I want a clean, simple, professional, streamlined interface.

I don't want to play Candyland.

Yet, playing a childish boardgame is exactly what SH is making me do to participate in their brandable marketplace, and now this childish boardgame is ridiculously expensive to play.

I'm not interested in points or coins or rankings or any other childish, manipulative games.

I won't pay high prices and high commissions for the privilege of rolling the dice at brandable Candyland.

DomainBanana · Sep 10, 2019

An Illustration of how SH wants sellers to navigate its marketplace:

bojan1 · Sep 10, 2019

I think they are trying to be to much creative and they are just exaggerating, like they did this time. Being creative and unique is a great, being slightly different is OK, but being to much different is never smart.

iHaveThisIdea · Sep 11, 2019

I got an update from them the same day this decision was made.

They've listened to feedback (likely overwhelmingly negative) and are now leaving it up to the seller: pay $1/submission and incur lower commission if sold, or everything remains as it was. The option to toggle is down at bottom of your Seller preferences: https://www.squadhelp.com/marketplace-seller-preferences

DomainBanana · Sep 11, 2019

iHaveThisIdea said:
I got an update from them the same day this decision was made.

They've listened to feedback (likely overwhelmingly negative) and are now leaving it up to the seller: pay $1/submission and incur lower commission if sold, or everything remains as it was. The option to toggle is down at bottom of your Seller preferences: https://www.squadhelp.com/marketplace-seller-preferences

I spent a half hour with an SH agent today clarifying various policies. I'm sure I could spend hours more discovering their convoluted rules. They told me this:

In the next 1-2 days, you will have the option "to pay an upfront $1 review fee or continue to list your domains at the original commission rates without paying the upfront fee, provided all criteria are met:

* You have a minimum of 25 names published in the premium domain marketplace
* Your account is in Good Standing (i.e. no violations of our policies)
* You have not delisted an excessive number of domains from the Marketplace
* Your Marketplace approval rate is greater than 5%"

For me, SH just has too many rules.

Larion · Sep 11, 2019

just curious:
how do they verify, if you are indeed the owner of a domain-name ?

karmaco · Sep 11, 2019

urlurl said:
maybe that's what they want to improve - the submissions sellers send in

im sure some sellers are just throwing anything and everything against the wall to see what sticks - especially when you are able to send in non-registered names.

If they want to improve what’s being submitted they could limit the per week submissions. This is simply another way for them to nickel and dime their sellers to death. Next you will say it’s noble they take 5% if you wish to sell your names to another domainer.

Everything they do is an excessive money grab— even how people get paid.

Ayodeji · Sep 11, 2019

If only that would improve their annoying slow approval time and maze of a site. Even threatened you with ban if you remove a domain from basic listing. SH is just complicated and so arm twisting.

Bob Hawkes · Sep 11, 2019

Most of us have not responded to the parts of @DomainBanana post about 'game' aspects of SquadHelp changes. No doubt game features, earning points, likes, etc. have big parts in all kind of commercial activities, some hate them and some like them and some put up with them. The social research that has come to light in last year on FB early development shows that for many people simple feedback features are addictive, perhaps too much so.

Re wait times, does anyone know...

Have any of the brandable marketplaces tried automating step one in the process - not the final decision but to immediately rule out some and inform people immediately so that they have fewer to human consider?
Do the brandable places typically involve a group in the decisions or is it single person who decides?

Bob

ecomslice · Sep 11, 2019

I thought marketplaces were a service for sellers and buyers who CHOOSE to take part. I think its more of a take it or leave it. they don't work for us. they are a business, and if we're not happy, we just don't deal with them. go start your own amazing and perfect market place.
I just left grandpa myself due to their lack of innovation until they were forced to step up. and im in squad working with the good parts, dealing with the bad.

Same with Godaddy whom I despise for their broken system and lack of warning for unreliability. so , had my awakening and no longer regging with them. trying to sell anywhere else more. etc..

if your truly against a service, your best action is to promote other options. anything else seems to be a waste of energy ive learned the hard way also.

Lord Antares · Sep 11, 2019

Sites like BB and SH are a scam. What do they do for you? They charge you for your domains, then charge a commission when you sell the name. In return for what exactly?

The only thing they can offer you is SEO but the marketplace is flooded with such trash that I'm sure it puts off a lot of buyers. Because of their businesses model, they are incentivised to accept as many names as possible (at least BB is). More names accepted = more money

They earn their living from the sellers, not the buyers. Improving this business model is easy as it's so bad.

kriss05 · Sep 11, 2019

Stupid, greedy move by SH. If one has good names, one will always find suitable marketplace to list them there for free. This greedy move may result in reverse effect, i.e. their inventory will become of even lesser quality.

Yesterday I tried to submit few nice names and was like wtf, I have to buy SH coins to pay for that. Decided to let less greedy marketplaces have my names listed with them and enjoy commission fees.

bojan1 · Sep 11, 2019

Having to much submissions is a B.S. explanation. They had limited number of submissions per account, and they were pretty fast (faster then competitors!) in submission time review, which means they handled well with number of submissions.

So, there is no justification for this move.

Bob Hawkes · Sep 11, 2019

Lord Antares said:
In return for what exactly?

Err... I am simple minded I guess, but bringing in traffic from startup owners, selling your domain name and doing the negotiation/transaction for you, it seem to me. People like @richasis seems happy that BrandBucket saw the value in his name, priced it higher than he would have, brought a buyer and closed the deal for $90k.

As has been said, any of us can choose to use any marketplace or not, but I think it is a stretch to claim that they don't do anything.

Bob

Kachi · Sep 11, 2019

Why stay and complain about stuff that has suddenly become valueless and useless. AND you claim to have better options?

If you don't like the heat, leave the kitchen. Enough of this wailing as if you are being held hostage.

iHaveThisIdea · Sep 11, 2019

This thread is a bit confusing. I understand that constructive criticism is good, and no - I have nothing to do with SH, nor do I swear by them entirely or absolve them of any criticism.

But what is undeniable is that they listen to customers, respond quickly and iterate based on feedback, much moreso than any other platform in the entire industry.

Here's an updated notice of their decision to *scrap* the $1/submission rule. As you can see, it's still an option if you want lower commissions and to be moved through their queue quicker.

I just found it weird that people are still complaining about the "changes", when in fact the decision was entirely reversed.

If in the event some of you don't get these notifications, here it is in its entirety:

///

From Grant:

We have continued to receive overwhelming feedback from the sellers about the recent changes announced related to Marketplace.

It is clear that a large number of sellers do not wish to pay the upfront $1 fee in lieu of reduced commissions. At SH, our goal has never been to use these fees to generate additional revenue. Our primary goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry, while offering the shortest approval times as well as best in class customer support and platform features for our sellers.
As a result of this feedback, we have eliminated the requirement to use Squadhelp coins for ALL SELLERS.

You still have the option to use Squadhelp Coins in lieu of reduced commissions, however if you prefer to stay with the original commission rates, you can simply adjust your preferences in Marketplace Seller Preferences page.

If you are not using SH coins, your account may be limited to how many domains you can submit at a time, and your review and approval times may be a bit longer than usual. In addition, we may decide to remove the free submission option from those seller accounts which are not in good standing, have too many irrelevant submissions or have requested an excessive number of domains to be delisted from their account.

Note: If you are submitting unregistered domains, you will still be required to use Squadhelp coins if you choose to register the domains yourself. This requirement is necessary to manage the overwhelming amount of unregistered domains that are submitted every day for review.

If you have already purchased Squadhelp coins and do not wish to use them for your future submissions, simply contact our support team and we will be happy to give you a refund. Note: In the near future, you will also be able to use Squadhelp coins for other aspects (such as Logo redesigns, Lifestyle images and few other benefits)

At Squadhelp, our mission is to continue to improve our platform every day. While we may not get all the changes right the first time, we are committed to making swift adjustments based upon the feedback from our user community.

DomainBanana · Sep 11, 2019

I think this is their third major policy update in less than 24 hours, and do you see how many qualifiers and conditions this update has?

I appreciate SH's responsiveness, but that's not the focus of my criticism in the OP.

Points, coins, rankings, cryptic and convoluted rules -- this is the problem.

Are you familiar with the term kludge? This is what SH is, and it's not fun.

iHaveThisIdea said:
This thread is a bit confusing. I understand that constructive criticism is good, and no - I have nothing to do with SH, nor do I swear by them entirely or absolve them of any criticism.

But what is undeniable is that they listen to customers, respond quickly and iterate based on feedback, much moreso than any other platform in the entire industry.

Here's an updated notice of their decision to *scrap* the $1/submission rule. As you can see, it's still an option if you want lower commissions and to be moved through their queue quicker.

I just found it weird that people are still complaining about the "changes", when in fact the decision was entirely reversed.

If in the event some of you don't get these notifications, here it is in its entirety:

///

From Grant:

We have continued to receive overwhelming feedback from the sellers about the recent changes announced related to Marketplace.

It is clear that a large number of sellers do not wish to pay the upfront $1 fee in lieu of reduced commissions. At SH, our goal has never been to use these fees to generate additional revenue. Our primary goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry, while offering the shortest approval times as well as best in class customer support and platform features for our sellers.
As a result of this feedback, we have eliminated the requirement to use Squadhelp coins for ALL SELLERS.

You still have the option to use Squadhelp Coins in lieu of reduced commissions, however if you prefer to stay with the original commission rates, you can simply adjust your preferences in Marketplace Seller Preferences page.

If you are not using SH coins, your account may be limited to how many domains you can submit at a time, and your review and approval times may be a bit longer than usual. In addition, we may decide to remove the free submission option from those seller accounts which are not in good standing, have too many irrelevant submissions or have requested an excessive number of domains to be delisted from their account.

Note: If you are submitting unregistered domains, you will still be required to use Squadhelp coins if you choose to register the domains yourself. This requirement is necessary to manage the overwhelming amount of unregistered domains that are submitted every day for review.

If you have already purchased Squadhelp coins and do not wish to use them for your future submissions, simply contact our support team and we will be happy to give you a refund. Note: In the near future, you will also be able to use Squadhelp coins for other aspects (such as Logo redesigns, Lifestyle images and few other benefits)

At Squadhelp, our mission is to continue to improve our platform every day. While we may not get all the changes right the first time, we are committed to making swift adjustments based upon the feedback from our user community.

Domain_savvy · Sep 11, 2019

Yeah just saw the backout, quite admirable move.
There are very few markets/businesses who give such high priorities and support the opinions and feedbacks.

raresf · Sep 11, 2019

SH has interesting features that other marketplaces don't have(i.e. wholesale marketplace, which is awesome to have, despite the 5% fee- at the values you get at wholesale prices, that doesn't really count, as compared with the effort and risks involved in selling domains to investors at other marketplaces), really fast support team and good level of sales(smaller prices than BB, though). Regarding rules, don't forget SH is at it's base a crowdsourcing platform for naming projects (and from here some differences to other marketplace regarding rules). Rules: yes, there are more than on BB or other markeplaces; yes, there have been plenty of changes lately (mostly because the marketplace inventory exploded in the last year). Nobody forbids you to just enter the platform, submit your registered domains to the premium marketplace and see if they're accepted or not. The process is basically the same as to any other marketplace. The differences come from the extra options, which you have the freedom to opt for or not (i.e.: promoting a domain for points you get from contests/logo ratings; submitting rejected domains as basic/basic plus and then maybe try getting them to premium through contests ratings; choose to pay 1$ for submission in case of already registered domains in order to get better commissions and priority in reviewing, etc). Big plus: they made plenty of improvements and even dropped some changes based on users feedback (no other platform does this). So, yeah, some of these rules that bother some people actually came out due to users feedback

(i.e. ''what do we do with rejected domains?'' - SH: ''Well, let's create some extra categories, basic and basic plus'') One big issue that could easily be fixed: sometimes the help articles are not updated on time.

Lord Antares · Sep 11, 2019

Bob Hawkes said:
Err... I am simple minded I guess, but bringing in traffic from startup owners, selling your domain name and doing the negotiation/transaction for you, it seem to me. People like @richasis seems happy that BrandBucket saw the value in his name, priced it higher than he would have, brought a buyer and closed the deal for $90k.

As has been said, any of us can choose to use any marketplace or not, but I think it is a stretch to claim that they don't do anything.

Bob

Alright, I stand corrected. It seems like I was viewing it behind black-tinted glasses. I admit to being wrong to an extent.

BrandPlease · Sep 11, 2019

Just just sold another name on SQ late last week, payment received last night, name was listed for a total of 8 weeks, last one took 14 weeks. They bring traffic & customers who are likely to purchase services + domains.. TrophyBuds (in the com) was the name, if you were wondering.

DomainBanana · Sep 11, 2019

SH is legit. There is plenty of opportunity there, I just don't like all the hoops they make sellers jump through.

The more solid domain marketplaces there are, the better.

I'm cheering SH on, I just wish they would simplify their policies and their interface.

Commulinks · Sep 11, 2019

I don't have a problem with what they've done at all and I have been part of their marketplace since the beginning. As I recall, BB also charged something but I pulled all of my names off BB and moved them to SH because SH SELLS. I have never felt like a pawn over there. They are always clear about what they are doing and why and I have never had any reason to mistrust them.

DomainBanana · Sep 11, 2019

Commulinks said:
I don't have a problem with what they've done at all and I have been part of their marketplace since the beginning. As I recall, BB also charged something but I pulled all of my names off BB and moved them to SH because SH SELLS. I have never felt like a pawn over there. They are always clear about what they are doing and why and I have never had any reason to mistrust them.

SH clear? They have the most convoluted policies out there and they change them all the time.

In my view, BB remains the best brandable marketplace.

Commulinks · Sep 11, 2019

To each his or her own! Just saying how it is for me just like you did. I am not a BB fan. Best of luck.

DomainBanana · Sep 11, 2019

I give SH credit for responsiveness, but let's consider the new policy update. In over 2,000 words, SH rolls out eight convoluted changes. This is not seller-friendly. I don't have time for this!

We have continued to receive overwhelming feedback from the sellers about the recent changes announced related to Marketplace.

It is clear that a large number of sellers do not wish to pay the upfront $1 fee in lieu of reduced commissions. At SH, our goal has never been to use these fees to generate additional revenue. Our primary goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry, while offering the shortest approval times as well as best in class customer support and platform features for our sellers.

As a result of this feedback, we have eliminated the requirement to use Squadhelp coins for ALL SELLERS. [1]

You still have the option to use Squadhelp Coins in lieu of reduced commissions [2], however if you prefer to stay with the original commission rates, you can simply adjust your preferences in Marketplace Seller Preferences page.

If you are not using SH coins, your account may be limited to how many domains you can submit at a time, and your review and approval times may be a bit longer than usual. [3] In addition, we may decide to remove the free submission option from those seller accounts which are not in good standing [4], have too many irrelevant submissions [5] or have requested an excessive number of domains to be delisted from their account. [6]

Note: If you are submitting unregistered domains, you will still be required to use Squadhelp coins if you choose to register the domains yourself. [7]

This requirement is necessary to manage the overwhelming amount of unregistered domains that are submitted every day for review.

If you have already purchased Squadhelp coins and do not wish to use them for your future submissions, simply contact our support team and we will be happy to give you a refund. Note: In the near future, you will also be able to use Squadhelp coins for other aspects (such as Logo redesigns, Lifestyle images and few other benefits) [8]

At Squadhelp, our mission is to continue to improve our platform every day. While we may not get all the changes right the first time, we are committed to making swift adjustments based upon the feedback from our user community.

SquadHelp: A Game with Too Many Rules ?

Established Member

Established Member

Top Member

VIP Member

Established Member

Established Member

Top Member

Established Member

Top Member

Top Member

Top Member

Top Member

Top Member

Top Member

Established Member

VIP Member

Established Member

Established Member

Established Member

Top Member

BrandPlease.comTop Member

Established Member

Account Closed (Requested)

Established Member

Account Closed (Requested)

Established Member

Similar threads

We're social

Pinned

Appreciation

Agreement