Alter.com Marketplace

@Deven Patel The site looks good, the domain is phenomenal and the logos are great. At the moment, I couldn't see a FAQ section anywhere so I am wondering about a few things. For example:

What methods of payment are accepted and how can funds be withdrawn? Is the sale process done using an escrow service or in house? What process do you have in place in order to make sure a buyer won't use a fake credit card or try to steal the domain in another way? Do domains get transfered to Alter.com's team and from there to the buyer or are they transfered directly to the buyer? Do you plan on adding chat support? Installment plans? Marketing domains on Google/Facebook/etc.? How many people are currently working at Alter?

10% commission isn't too bad, but it seems like it's mostly for a landing page and a logo at this point in time. I don't think type in traffic for a domain someone else owns would help other sellers get sales at the moment since the marketplace isn't established yet, isn't marketed to potential buyers and probably has very few sales. SH's White Label Marketplace offers a 7.5% commission for a personalized marketplace with 24/7 support, installments, ability to upload logos and control the prices, the description and the way the domains are presented. Efty doesn't charge a commission at all, also gives a lot of flexibility regarding appearance, text and pricing plus has Dan.com integration if needed and also allows sellers to handle leads on their own. So I'm not sure if your site currently offers a better alter(native) than those options or BrandBucket/BrandPa, which might be the real competitors you're trying to be an alternative for but at the moment have a big advantage since they're already established and attract potential buyers not just based on direct traffic.

I'm open to be convinced though because I like the potential and the buyer oriented mindset (if it can result in more eyeballs/buyers).

farouk20 said:

@Deven Patel

Questions :

1. Every new marketplace must at a certain point in time, contend with choosing between keeping a low number of domain names (of say higher quality) or expanding , which can turn the marketplace quickly into a crowded shed. what are your plans when you reach this very point, as your marketplace becomes more popular and expands.

2. Can you add payonneer ,

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Thanks for asking! Agreed, every marketplace faces that challenge at one point. I'm personally not a big fan of compromising quality for quantity. We're essentially looking for brand names that entrepreneurs can build great companies on and we're not going to stray away from that goal. If we do need to expand in the future, we'll do it through other means that doesn't impact our premium listings. That's all I can say publicly I'm afraid but we definitely have plans to solve that problem.

And yes, we'll certainly look into supporting Payoneer if there's enough demand. Thanks for the suggestion!

shojib said:

are you expect a new domain? or this market only for the old domain?

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Not sure I understand exactly what you're asking but we're looking for sellers who want to sell the domains they already own. Does that answer your question?

Votumejero said:

Only one got accepted of 26 submitted. Any hope for review in the nearest future?

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Sorry about that! As I mentioned above, when comparing accept/reject rates please keep in mind that it all depends on the quality of the domains. This is a vanity metric that shouldn't be used to determine success. Each seller will have a completely different outcome based on the quality of their portfolio. The same holds true for sales/conversion rates. It all depends on the quality of the domains. No two sellers are the same.

I for one fully agree with the concept of accepting only good names. I criticize some other marketplaces because they accept all kinds of trash, which will clutter the market and will put off some buyers.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if a normal acceptance rate turned out to be 1-2%

I signed up and added a few names because the branding, look, feel and 10% commission are attractive - especially when you say, like in your original post, that you are buyer-focused. In my mind, that sounded like you'd be stepping up to invest in outreach and bring buyers to the marketplace.

But then...

Deven Patel said:

From what we're seeing, most buyers are coming in through direct/type-in traffic. All the redirected traffic is pooled together creating a win-win scenario for both buyers and sellers. It gives buyers more options and sellers more leads (i.e. a buyer that landed on domain A may end up buying domain B and vice versa). This is why we're able to offer such a low commission.

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That's not promising at all. Basically, you're not doing anything new from any other marketplace, which is, building your own brand value on the back of traffic domainers bring to you. There's nothing innovative about that. If your main differentiator, as you say, is the lower commission, well, you're late to the party - Squadhelp WLM is 7.5%, and Efty+Dan integration is I believe 5%.

If you're here to build something new and different, the only way I see for you to carve yourself a niche is to figure out a way to bring traffic in, and bring more sales. Squadhelp is also ahead of the game on that, as they advertise domains quite well. When you say you're building a community of entrepreneurs, sharing business ideas, etc, that all sounds promising but also quite vague and it all takes investment and time.

I don't mean to be grilling you and I think competition and innovation is always welcome in domaining, but I do want to hear more about your vision and how you intend to differentiate Alter (beyond competing on price/commission, where, already, you are losing.) Specifically, when you say buyer-focused, do you just mean good customer service (vague), or do you mean you'll be working on bringing in more buyers (and how?)

Igor Mironyuk said:

Why are you rule only domain must have your marketplace's landing page all the time the domain listed at your marketplace?

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Are you asking why you must forward your domain to our landing page? This allows potential buyers who visit your domain to know that it's for sale. Also, traffic from across all domains is pooled together creating a win-win scenario for both buyers and sellers. It gives buyers more options and sellers more leads (i.e. a buyer that landed on domain A may end up buying domain B and vice versa). It's standard practice with all brandable marketplaces.

SuperBrander said:

@Deven Patel The site looks good, the domain is phenomenal and the logos are great. At the moment, I couldn't see a FAQ section anywhere so I am wondering about a few things.

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Thanks for the compliments and the questions! We just launched a couple months ago in June of this year so still working on a lot of stuff. Please bear with us.

SuperBrander said:

What methods of payment are accepted and how can funds be withdrawn?

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For buyers, we accept all major credit cards and bank wires. For sellers, we support PayPal and wire transfers.

SuperBrander said:

Is the sale process done using an escrow service or in house?

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Sales are processed in-house but we do use Escrow.com if the buyer specifically requests it.

SuperBrander said:

What process do you have in place in order to make sure a buyer won't use a fake credit card or try to steal the domain in another way?

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We only transfer the domain over to the buyer once payment is successfully received.

SuperBrander said:

Do domains get transfered to Alter.com's team and from there to the buyer or are they transfered directly to the buyer?

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When sold, we ask sellers to transfer the domains to us first and then we transfer them to the buyer to ensure everything goes smoothly.

SuperBrander said:

Do you plan on adding chat support?

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Eventually, once we determine how effective it is compared to our existing support options (e.g. online, phone, email).

SuperBrander said:

Installment plans?

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This is a tough one. We considered adding the option but didn't have enough data to justify it. There's a major downside to installment payments which is that once one buyer starts the payments the domain is locked for a considerable amount of time where another buyer can't purchase it even if they're willing to pay full price. That's a huge opportunity cost. Also, if the buyer isn't willing to pay full price upfront then there's a chance they may default on the payments all while future buyers are locked out. So we'll have to wait and see if there's enough demand for it on the buyer side before we add the option.

SuperBrander said:

Marketing domains on Google/Facebook/etc.?

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Absolutely, we're just getting started!

SuperBrander said:

How many people are currently working at Alter?

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I'm afraid I can't answer that question publicly in order to keep competitors at bay.

SuperBrander said:

10% commission isn't too bad, but it seems like it's mostly for a landing page and a logo at this point in time. I don't think type in traffic for a domain someone else owns would help other sellers get sales at the moment since the marketplace isn't established yet, isn't marketed to potential buyers and probably has very few sales. SH's White Label Marketplace offers a 7.5% commission for a personalized marketplace with 24/7 support, installments, ability to upload logos and control the prices, the description and the way the domains are presented. Efty doesn't charge a commission at all, also gives a lot of flexibility regarding appearance, text and pricing plus has Dan.com integration if needed and also allows sellers to handle leads on their own. So I'm not sure if your site currently offers a better alter(native) than those options or BrandBucket/BrandPa, which might be the real competitors you're trying to be an alternative for but at the moment have a big advantage since they're already established and attract potential buyers not just based on direct traffic.

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Think of it this way, we're going to do everything our competitors are doing and more all while being 3X cheaper than them (i.e. 10% commission with us vs 30-35% with competitors). We're going to accomplish this by operating much more efficiently than them (i.e. low overhead, more automation, better allocation of marketing budget, etc). But first we need to increase our listings which means marketing to sellers. That's why I'm here talking to you! Unless we have a decent inventory, most of the buyer-focused marketing would be wasted.

The 7.5% commission you mentioned is really for a Sedo/Afternic/DAN-like experience that offers no curation whatsoever. You're basically asking buyers to find a needle in a haystack of low quality domains. No buyer is going to put that much effort searching through them. I know I never did when I was a buyer.

And I understand why sellers get excited about white label options but I haven't seen any solid data that supports the theory that white label is better than a well-trusted brand like the marketplace itself (i.e. if you were a buyer would you rather buy a domain on GoDaddy or KoolBizNames.com?). I mean I understand white label makes us feel better and we think that buyers will only see our domains vs the others on the marketplace but on the contrary I think buyers are much smarter than that especially when it comes to buying high end domains. They're not going to spend thousands of dollars without thoroughly considering the available alternatives.

By the way, do you have any concrete data that shows what percentage of sales are coming through direct vs other marketing channels on those other marketplaces? We have tried some of those other marketing channels briefly and direct/type-in won hands down. It actually makes sense when you think about it. How many entrepreneurs you know find domains for their business on social media or through PPC or through banner ads? I have started countless projects in the past and have always found domains directly by visiting their landing pages (type-in). Anyway, we still plan on utilizing the other marketing channels but just more efficiently (i.e. use them to enhance our inbound marketing efforts instead).

One last thing, more listings doesn't necessarily mean more sales. I would argue the opposite. Less listings means more sales because buyers have limited options. When it comes to quality vs quantity, I believe quality always wins hands down.

Like other brandable marketplaces, our team actually spends a ton of time curating all the domain listings in addition to the logos. Then there's a ton of marketing work we're doing behind the scenes to grow sales. Remember, we don't succeed unless we actually sell the names so believe it or not sales are ultimately our top priority. So I hope you do give us a chance because without sellers like you, we're screwed!

Nametree said:

I signed up and added a few names because the branding, look, feel and 10% commission are attractive - especially when you say, like in your original post, that you are buyer-focused. In my mind, that sounded like you'd be stepping up to invest in outreach and bring buyers to the marketplace.

But then...

That's not promising at all. Basically, you're not doing anything new from any other marketplace, which is, building your own brand value on the back of traffic domainers bring to you. There's nothing innovative about that. If your main differentiator, as you say, is the lower commission, well, you're late to the party - Squadhelp WLM is 7.5%, and Efty+Dan integration is I believe 5%.

If you're here to build something new and different, the only way I see for you to carve yourself a niche is to figure out a way to bring traffic in, and bring more sales. Squadhelp is also ahead of the game on that, as they advertise domains quite well. When you say you're building a community of entrepreneurs, sharing business ideas, etc, that all sounds promising but also quite vague and it all takes investment and time.

I don't mean to be grilling you and I think competition and innovation is always welcome in domaining, but I do want to hear more about your vision and how you intend to differentiate Alter (beyond competing on price/commission, where, already, you are losing.) Specifically, when you say buyer-focused, do you just mean good customer service (vague), or do you mean you'll be working on bringing in more buyers (and how?)

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I really appreciate your thoughts and thanks for signing up! Sorry, I didn't do such a great job answering that question.

Think of it this way, we're going to do everything our competitors are doing and more all while being 3X cheaper than them (i.e. 10% commission with us vs 30-35% with competitors). We're going to accomplish this by operating much more efficiently than them (i.e. low overhead, more automation, better allocation of marketing budget, etc). But first we need to increase our listings which means marketing to sellers. That's why I'm here talking to you! Unless we have a decent inventory, most of the buyer-focused marketing would be wasted.

The 7.5% commission you mentioned is really for a Sedo/Afternic/DAN-like experience that offers no curation whatsoever. You're basically asking buyers to find a needle in a haystack of low quality domains. No buyer is going to put that much effort searching through them. I know I never did when I was a buyer.

And I understand why sellers get excited about white label options but I haven't seen any solid data that supports the theory that white label is better than a well-trusted brand like the marketplace itself (i.e. if you were a buyer would you rather buy a domain on GoDaddy or KoolBizNames.com?). I mean I understand white label makes us feel better and we think that buyers will only see our domains vs the others on the marketplace but on the contrary I think buyers are much smarter than that especially when it comes to buying high end domains. They're not going to spend thousands of dollars without thoroughly considering the available alternatives.

By the way, do you have any concrete data that shows what percentage of sales are coming through direct vs other marketing channels on those other marketplaces? We have tried some of those other marketing channels briefly and direct/type-in won hands down. It actually makes sense when you think about it. How many entrepreneurs you know find domains for their business on social media or through PPC or through banner ads? I have started countless projects in the past and have always found domains directly by visiting their landing pages (type-in). Anyway, we still plan on utilizing the other marketing channels but just more efficiently (i.e. use them to enhance our inbound marketing efforts instead).

I know a lot of this sounds pretty vague right now but it's very difficult to describe our roadmap in detail because as you know competition is always lurking around.

Like other brandable marketplaces though, rest assured that our team actually spends a ton of time curating all the domain listings in addition to the logos. Then there's a ton of marketing work we're doing behind the scenes to grow sales. Remember, we don't succeed unless we actually sell the names so believe it or not sales are ultimately our top priority. So I hope you do give us a chance because without sellers like you, we're screwed!

@Deven Patel Thanks for the detailed response.

Regarding installment plans- while you're right and some buyers default, the ability to pay with installments can enable sales that would otherwise not happen and installments are becoming a must in any brandable marketplace these days and also at registrars and marketplaces such as Dan.com, Epik.com, NameSilo.com etc. (I think eventually installments will get to Godaddy/Sedo as well). I'm pro installments since I both sell domains using installments and buy domains using installments. Sometimes I buy domains that I would have skipped if the option to pay for them conveniently didn't exist and for startups this is even more relevant and can allow purchases they wouldn't have otherwise made. As for sales- I've only had one buyer default so far. Also, please keep in mind that there's the option of offering installments with a big down payment- so that way the buyer is more invested from the get go and the seller gets more money upfront so even if the buyer defaults- there's a significant upside. It's an option to consider.

As for the sales- I think you're contradicting yourself somewhat. You say that on the one hand most buyers arrive directly to the landing page of the domain they want and on the other hand- that you expect this direct traffic to generate sales for other people. If people have tons of direct traffic for certain domains- they can use Efty + Escrow.com or Efty + Dan.com and pay much less than 10%. Potential buyers from direct traffic that eventually buy a different domain account for some sales in brandable marketplaces of course, but you need to prove that it works at Alter and that the 10% comission is worth pointing the landing page to you. The marketing spend to get potential buyers should be significant (which might be problematic when you take 1/3 of the commission other marketplaces take and don't have that extra money to invest in marketing) and sales shouldn't be mostly based on the direct traffic the domains bring. BB and especially SH invest a whole lot of money into marketing. BB has very strong connections and repeat customers who buy many domains. SH also has potential buyers attracted by their contests. You guys have the potential to get there, but it's a leap of faith using you at the moment. I'm not against making that leap or at least trying it out with a few domains- but at the moment, it's more likely that you'll get 10% for sales that sellers could have gotten elsewhere with a simple landing page and a lesser commission since you're just getting started with advertising and Alter is still an unproven and unknown entity. Great name, great logos and this seems serious- but it might take time until this concept proves itself (or not), with your reps closing sales and the platform proving to be 100% trustworthy. I'm all for you guys succeeding but time will tell.

As for: "We only transfer the domain over to the buyer once payment is successfully received."

What happens if the domain is transferred to the buyer and then it turns out that the credit card that they used was stolen or some other mischief happened. Will you still send sellers the money at your own loss, since they lost their domain?

I think you guys should prioritize having a FAQ section that will cover all these questions I asked and countless others (here's one: can domains be removed at any time, even though you spent money on logos and advertising or is there a notice involved etc. etc.) so every aspect of the platform will be covered and clear, both to buyers and sellers. That's an important step in making both buyers and sellers know what they're stepping into when they trust you with their domains/money.

Thanks again for your time addressing these issues.

Unfortunately, I cannot receive email verification when registering an account with HotMail. Is there the same situation?

I am all for more competition in the industry and wish you the best of luck but it seems to me you are a bit out of touch with reality with that declaration about 10% being the advantage. As already noted above by SuperBrander et al. people can get lower fees than that with their own names with other platforms and until you gain great traffic/brand recognition on your own the comparison with the 30% is inappropriate.

Deven Patel said:

Thanks for asking! Agreed, every marketplace faces that challenge at one point. I'm personally not a big fan of compromising quality for quantity. We're essentially looking for brand names that entrepreneurs can build great companies on and we're not going to stray away from that goal. If we do need to expand in the future, we'll do it through other means that doesn't impact our premium listings. That's all I can say publicly I'm afraid but we definitely have plans to solve that problem.

And yes, we'll certainly look into supporting Payoneer if there's enough demand. Thanks for the suggestion!

Click to expand...

Payoneer in demand please ☺

Deven Patel said:

Sorry about that! As I mentioned above, when comparing accept/reject rates please keep in mind that it all depends on the quality of the domains. This is a vanity metric that shouldn't be used to determine success. Each seller will have a completely different outcome based on the quality of their portfolio. The same holds true for sales/conversion rates. It all depends on the quality of the domains. No two sellers are the same.

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Well said

Please share some sold history/data from the marketplace if it made

Here is one suggestion for you and your competition:

Charge 30% for every sale, 10% for you, 20% distribute to all sellers who didn't make a sale in a current year. At least they will have some money for renewals, and keep domains pointing at your site.

This is a win-win for all, and not win-win for some.

Mark this date. Let's see how long does it take to implement this.

OK. Ready... Set... GO!

SuperBrander said:

Regarding installment plans- while you're right and some buyers default, the ability to pay with installments can enable sales that would otherwise not happen and installments are becoming a must in any brandable marketplace these days and also at registrars and marketplaces such as Dan.com, Epik.com, NameSilo.com etc. (I think eventually installments will get to Godaddy/Sedo as well). I'm pro installments since I both sell domains using installments and buy domains using installments. Sometimes I buy domains that I would have skipped if the option to pay for them conveniently didn't exist and for startups this is even more relevant and can allow purchases they wouldn't have otherwise made. As for sales- I've only had one buyer default so far. Also, please keep in mind that there's the option of offering installments with a big down payment- so that way the buyer is more invested from the get go and the seller gets more money upfront so even if the buyer defaults- there's a significant upside. It's an option to consider.

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That's a great explanation. We'll certainly consider adding this option to our marketplace as we move forward.

SuperBrander said:

As for the sales- I think you're contradicting yourself somewhat. You say that on the one hand most buyers arrive directly to the landing page of the domain they want and on the other hand- that you expect this direct traffic to generate sales for other people.

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I apologize if my explanation was confusing. You're assuming that when buyers land on a domain, they have their mind set on buying only that domain. But the actual benefit comes from both of those things working together. They're not mutually exclusive. It's the total pooled traffic from all the domains listed at the marketplace that helps everyone equally. That's essentially the point of a marketplace vs individually selling domains yourself. Maybe this will make more sense if we put ourselves in the buyer's shoes for a second and walk through what they experience.

Buyer Sales Flow (direct/type-in traffic):

Let's say you're a buyer looking to start a new business.

Step 1. The first thing you're going to do is make a list of names you like off the top of your head and maybe even brainstorm a few with friends and family.

Step 2. Then you're going to check if any of those names have an available domain by directly going to that domain's landing page.

Step 3. When you find a domain that's for sale and realize it's listed on a marketplace your natural instinct is to start browsing the marketplace for alternatives. Because your goal at this point is to find the best name possible for your business within your budget.

Step 4. If you find a better alternative for your specific business idea, you buy someone else's name. Otherwise, you buy the original name that you landed on.

And this doesn't mean that one seller benefits more than the other. Both sellers benefit from each other's traffic as long as both have similar quality domains listed on the marketplace.

SuperBrander said:

If people have tons of direct traffic for certain domains- they can use Efty + Escrow.com or Efty + Dan.com and pay much less than 10%. Potential buyers from direct traffic that eventually buy a different domain account for some sales in brandable marketplaces of course, but you need to prove that it works at Alter and that the 10% comission is worth pointing the landing page to you.

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The major difference with a brandable marketplace like Alter vs a regular marketplace like Sedo is that we're investing our own time and resources into marketing your domains (e.g. curating them, appraising them, designing logos, adding descriptions, categorizing, marketing through other channels, etc).

SuperBrander said:

The marketing spend to get potential buyers should be significant (which might be problematic when you take 1/3 of the commission other marketplaces take and don't have that extra money to invest in marketing) and sales shouldn't be mostly based on the direct traffic the domains bring. BB and especially SH invest a whole lot of money into marketing. BB has very strong connections and repeat customers who buy many domains. SH also has potential buyers attracted by their contests.

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Have the other marketplaces actually provided any solid data that shows what percentage of their commission is actually spent on marketing your domains? And what their CAC/LTV metrics are for each individual marketing channel? Every company spends money differently. Our goal is to be as efficient as possible with everything from our overhead to marketing through more innovative approaches. We're also willing to reinvest most of our profits back into the business for long term growth. All of this essentially means the sellers get the same exact benefits as on the other marketplaces but at 3X less cost.

Let's talk about data. Here's something interesting. I had listed a few of my own domains with a big competitor (brandable marketplace) in the past and then moved those domains over to Alter once we launched. Here's the traffic comparison between the two:

If this competitor was really investing time and effort into individually marketing my domains they would've received much more traffic, no? Now we do market our domains too but our marketing budget is much smaller than our competitors at this point yet the data shows opposite results.

SuperBrander said:

You guys have the potential to get there, but it's a leap of faith using you at the moment. I'm not against making that leap or at least trying it out with a few domains- but at the moment, it's more likely that you'll get 10% for sales that sellers could have gotten elsewhere with a simple landing page and a lesser commission since you're just getting started with advertising and Alter is still an unproven and unknown entity. Great name, great logos and this seems serious- but it might take time until this concept proves itself (or not), with your reps closing sales and the platform proving to be 100% trustworthy. I'm all for you guys succeeding but time will tell.

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Agreed, there is certainly a leap of faith here for sellers. There has to be, just like how there was for every other marketplace when they first started out. I'm here to ask sellers to take that leap of faith and give us a chance because I honestly believe that it'll be worth it.

SuperBrander said:

As for: "We only transfer the domain over to the buyer once payment is successfully received."

What happens if the domain is transferred to the buyer and then it turns out that the credit card that they used was stolen or some other mischief happened. Will you still send sellers the money at your own loss, since they lost their domain?

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Great question. We make every effort to ensure that payments are processed securely (i.e. for larger transactions we'll take additional steps to verify the buyer's information). Although this would be very rare if it does happen we would eat that cost. It would be unfair to put that on the seller.

SuperBrander said:

I think you guys should prioritize having a FAQ section that will cover all these questions I asked and countless others (here's one: can domains be removed at any time, even though you spent money on logos and advertising or is there a notice involved etc. etc.) so every aspect of the platform will be covered and clear, both to buyers and sellers. That's an important step in making both buyers and sellers know what they're stepping into when they trust you with their domains/money.

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Absolutely, we're building a list of FAQs as we speak so keep those questions coming!

aheiven said:

Unfortunately, I cannot receive email verification when registering an account with HotMail. Is there the same situation?

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That's odd. Please reach out to support for help.

Don Gondon said:

I am all for more competition in the industry and wish you the best of luck but it seems to me you are a bit out of touch with reality with that declaration about 10% being the advantage. As already noted above by SuperBrander et al. people can get lower fees than that with their own names with other platforms and until you gain great traffic/brand recognition on your own the comparison with the 30% is inappropriate.

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Please see my response to SuperBrander above. I even included some data that shows you an apples-to-apples comparison between Alter and one of our major competitors.

The major difference with a brandable marketplace like Alter vs a regular marketplace like Sedo is that we're investing our own time and resources into marketing your domains (e.g. curating them, appraising them, designing logos, adding descriptions, categorizing, marketing through other channels, etc).

Sure, the other brandable marketplaces have some name recognition but nowhere near enough to justify the outrageous commission they charge. Most buyers don't have a clue who they are and in the brandable domain business repeat buyers are rare so that recognition doesn't help as much as it would help a registrar like GoDaddy.

Also, every company spends money differently. Our goal is to be as efficient as possible with everything from our overhead to marketing through more innovative approaches. We're also willing to reinvest most of our profits back into the business for long term growth. All of this essentially means the sellers get the same exact benefits as on the other marketplaces but at 3X less cost.

Kazi said:

Please share some sold history/data from the marketplace if it made

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Unfortunately I can't share this publicly in order to keep competition at bay. But you are more than welcome to list your domains with us and compare the end results yourself.

timestamp said:

Here is one suggestion for you and your competition:

Charge 30% for every sale, 10% for you, 20% distribute to all sellers who didn't make a sale in a current year. At least they will have some money for renewals, and keep domains pointing at your site.

This is a win-win for all, and not win-win for some.

Mark this date. Let's see how long does it take to implement this.

OK. Ready... Set... GO!

Click to expand...

That's an interesting idea but I don't really think it would work because not all sellers are the same. Some sellers invest heavily into building a quality portfolio while others buy everything in sight. Quality vs quantity. It wouldn't be fair to treat both equally.

@Deven Patel Thanks for the response. Good to hear about the fraudulent buyer scenario, about consideration of installments and the FAQ section. As I said, there's no dispute that traffic from one domain can lead to a sale of another, but you guys seem to be counting on it to a much larger extent than you should. Most brandable domains (ignoring popular dictionary words and the like) even ones that sell for $XXX-$XXXX in the wholesale market, don't get a ton of traffic. I understand that the pool will help, but any brandable marketplace offers that. You said that Alter is buyer oriented but I still don't understand what that means. The only thing I see in relation to that is the 'Featured Business Ideas' trying to pitch a few ideas to entrepreneurs. Personally, I don't think people step into a site without an idea and look for an idea to buy a domain for. But maybe I'm mistaken.

As for the traffic comparison you made- your marketplace currently has around 300 domains. Other marketplaces have tens of thousands of domains. So expecting the traffic for each domain to be higher or equal there... isn't really fair, IMO. In fact, if anything- I would have expected the traffic to be much higher at Alter based on the fact that a person can browse your entire inventory within a few minutes at the moment.

A few additional issues that perhaps you could address:

1. Visibility. You guys currently have the same domains always at the top as featured so any visitor of your site is always exposed to them first. All marketplaces shuffle listings around, so you guys should do it too. Not sure that the 'popular' setting should be the default when people reach the site. Perhaps new arrivals should be at the top.

2. I submitted a few domains to see if they'd be approved and for how much. 4 out of 5 were approved, all dictionary words and they were all priced very low, so I can't publish any one of them. Also, I won't mention specific names listed at Alter but there are quite a few listed brandables that are priced very high. IMO, other marketplaces would have priced them much lower. So that kinda makes me question if you guys have your pricing figured out. What good is a 10% vs 30% commission when the pricing can be off to a degree where listing domains isn't worthwhile?

3. Are there "house" owned domains at Alter? Meaning, are you or the staff listing your own domains? Personally, I'm not a fan of marketplaces "competing" with sellers. BB does it and it's caused a lot of controversy in the past. It can create situations where the site owned names are or at least seem to be featured and/or selling more than sellers' names and it creates an air of general mistrust.

Anyway... thanks again for the responses. It's cool that you're not shying away from answers and giving in depth replies.

Is normal that the font of the business card mockup goes out of the line? https://prnt.sc/ujs9ev

Deven Patel said:

The 7.5% commission you mentioned is really for a Sedo/Afternic/DAN-like experience that offers no curation whatsoever. You're basically asking buyers to find a needle in a haystack of low quality domains. No buyer is going to put that much effort searching through them. I know I never did when I was a buyer.

And I understand why sellers get excited about white label options but I haven't seen any solid data that supports the theory that white label is better than a well-trusted brand like the marketplace itself (i.e. if you were a buyer would you rather buy a domain on GoDaddy or KoolBizNames.com?). I mean I understand white label makes us feel better and we think that buyers will only see our domains vs the others on the marketplace but on the contrary I think buyers are much smarter than that especially when it comes to buying high end domains. They're not going to spend thousands of dollars without thoroughly considering the available alternatives.

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Isn't Alter in the same situation? Noone knows about Alter so why a customer should trust more Alter than any other whitelabel marketplace? Squadhelp besides direct traffic have their own way to acquire new buyers, Brandbucket has a huge buyer base with their years of work

SuperBrander said:

As I said, there's no dispute that traffic from one domain can lead to a sale of another, but you guys seem to be counting on it to a much larger extent than you should. Most brandable domains (ignoring popular dictionary words and the like) even ones that sell for $XXX-$XXXX in the wholesale market, don't get a ton of traffic. I understand that the pool will help, but any brandable marketplace offers that.

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It seems like there is a misconception here. I'm not saying we're counting on direct traffic as our only source of marketing. I'm saying that direct traffic already accounts for a bulk of the traffic on these brandable marketplaces. Yet they charge an outrageous commission. My point is that the additional marketing they say they're doing can be done for much cheaper and isn't worth the extra 20%+ in commission. Of course we're going to utilize other marketing channels. There's no doubt about that!

SuperBrander said:

You said that Alter is buyer oriented but I still don't understand what that means. The only thing I see in relation to that is the 'Featured Business Ideas' trying to pitch a few ideas to entrepreneurs. Personally, I don't think people step into a site without an idea and look for an idea to buy a domain for. But maybe I'm mistaken.

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What I mean by that is we're going to dedicate more resources to buyers than other marketplaces. Even our name and slogan are buyer-oriented. Yes, the business idea section is part of it but there's much more to come. And I agree, most buyers will already have an idea in mind. This section is really for those who don't but are still ambitious to start a business. It just means that when it comes to allocating resources, buyers will be a higher priority because ultimately they're the ones that bring in the money.

SuperBrander said:

As for the traffic comparison you made- your marketplace currently has around 300 domains. Other marketplaces have tens of thousands of domains. So expecting the traffic for each domain to be higher or equal there... isn't really fair, IMO. In fact, if anything- I would have expected the traffic to be much higher at Alter based on the fact that a person can browse your entire inventory within a few minutes at the moment.

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Sure, but keep in mind that we haven't really invested much in any of those "additional" marketing channels like other marketplaces so the traffic on Alter should actually be lower, not higher. Maybe it's some of the other behind the scenes stuff we've been working on. Anyhow, regardless of the reason I don't see an issue if Alter brings more traffic to your domains. And this traffic will actually increase over time too as we ramp up our marketing efforts.

SuperBrander said:

1. Visibility. You guys currently have the same domains always at the top as featured so any visitor of your site is always exposed to them first. All marketplaces shuffle listings around, so you guys should do it too. Not sure that the 'popular' setting should be the default when people reach the site. Perhaps new arrivals should be at the top.

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Great point and I fully agree. We are planning to do that soon. We just wanted to showcase some of our popular listings right now to help get more sellers on board first.

SuperBrander said:

2. I submitted a few domains to see if they'd be approved and for how much. 4 out of 5 were approved, all dictionary words and they were all priced very low, so I can't publish any one of them. Also, I won't mention specific names listed at Alter but there are quite a few listed brandables that are priced very high. IMO, other marketplaces would have priced them much lower. So that kinda makes me question if you guys have your pricing figured out.

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We use a number of factors including the name's meaning, length, brand potential, and comparable sales to determine the price. We're looking for names that entrepreneurs can essentially build a company on. Dictionary words are tricky. Some fit this criteria really well (e.g. apple, oracle, alphabet, etc). While others don't (e.g. kicking, loudness, doubtfully, etc). As you know, a lot of this is subjective and up to the person reviewing the names so apologies if you think some of the names or prices don't make sense. I myself have seen countless names on other marketplaces where the pricing is way too low or high. Like the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

SuperBrander said:

What good is a 10% vs 30% commission when the pricing can be off to a degree where listing domains isn't worthwhile?

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The pricing across all the different marketplaces will be different because they're all subjective. But most should be in the same ballpark. This is exactly why we chose to offer 10% and not 29% commission. Even with the fluctuations in pricing 10% commission still works out to be much better.

Though keep in mind other marketplaces may be inflating their prices just to get sellers on board. That's pretty dangerous in my opinion because in that scenario the marketplace wins but the seller loses. Our goal is to stay true to what we think is the domain's market value. Having a lower commission helps us achieve that too.

SuperBrander said:

3. Are there "house" owned domains at Alter? Meaning, are you or the staff listing your own domains? Personally, I'm not a fan of marketplaces "competing" with sellers. BB does it and it's caused a lot of controversy in the past. It can create situations where the site owned names are or at least seem to be featured and/or selling more than sellers' names and it creates an air of general mistrust.

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We do have some domains listed but we don't treat them any differently. We had to do it to get the marketplace going. Otherwise we wouldn't have any sellers at all. I think every marketplace does this and I personally don't think it's a problem unless these domains are getting special treatment. I'm not sure why sellers feel that way about BB. All things being equal, ultimately the domain's quality determines what will sell faster. Maybe the sellers who are upset only hold low quality domains? If that's the case then I don't think it's fair. Even when every seller is treated exactly the same, those that hold a low quality portfolio will always get less traffic and sales.

xeroox said:

Is normal that the font of the business card mockup goes out of the line? https://prnt.sc/ujs9ev

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That's odd. What os/browser/resolution are you using?

xeroox said:

Isn't Alter in the same situation? Noone knows about Alter so why a customer should trust more Alter than any other whitelabel marketplace?

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Of course Alter is in the same position right now just like how all other marketplaces were when they first started. That will change as we grow. The major difference between Alter vs a WL marketplace right now is we have actually invested considerable amount of resources into building our business (i.e. our name is trademarked, our domain is top tier, we offer phone support, our about page has a face of the founder, etc). Can you say the same about most WL marketplaces?

Also, most WL marketplaces aren't truly white label so buyers are redirected to the original marketplace at some point in their journey (e.g. during checkout, for support, etc). When this happens they begin to feel like they're being deceived because they were prevented from checking out the domain alternatives available on the original marketplace.

xeroox said:

Squadhelp besides direct traffic have their own way to acquire new buyers, Brandbucket has a huge buyer base with their years of work

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Are you sure about that? Please see my response to SuperBrander above. I even included some data that shows you an apples-to-apples comparison between Alter and one of our major competitors.

I'm saying that direct traffic already accounts for a bulk of the traffic on these brandable marketplaces. Yet they charge an outrageous commission. My point is that the additional marketing they say they're doing can be done for much cheaper and isn't worth the extra 20%+ in commission. Of course we're going to utilize other marketing channels. There's no doubt about that!

And sure, the other brandable marketplaces have some name recognition but nowhere near enough to justify the outrageous commission they charge. Most buyers don't have a clue who they are and in the brandable domain business repeat buyers are rare so that recognition doesn't help as much as it would help a registrar like GoDaddy.