Alter.com Marketplace

Deven Patel · Sep 14, 2020

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.

sellian · Oct 22, 2020

Sorry about my mistakes in English, I am still improving

Lord Antares · Oct 22, 2020

karmaco said:
Deven never said he was doing this. The pull here is lower commission than other brandable markets.

What you guys are suggesting sounds like a cross between a co op and socialism etc which maybe someone will try something like that at a later date. It would be impossible to implement in a way that is completely fair to all.

All domains are not equal, all sellers don’t have the same wealth or lack thereof. So in theory the people with the best most sellable names would be providing for an entire group’s morale or renewals? I don’t get how that is fair.

If I buy a 4 letter name for 1K sell it for 15K I am providing alot more to the group than hand reggers will ever provide to me. Its an extreme example to make my point.

I have seen this idea thrown around elsewhere but its hard to see beyond people with great domains will be rewarding those with possibly not so great domains. In this business you should be rewarded for choosing right not choosing wrong imo.

Read my post. This problem has a solution which is fair, but in the end, it achieves nothing in the grand scheme of things. Things would remain the same, on average, as if he just left a 10% fixed commission.

timestamp said:
I'm sorry but you made 700k and you want more? The same year? You want to take a cut from sellers who made zero?

You don't look at this that some leechers are sucking money out of you, you look at it that you helped domainers out.

So I was right, you only want charity. Why would a wealthy domainer not just donate 20% of his profits to a real charity? Seems like a better solution than what you're suggesting.

I'm not even going to mention the fact that a person might only make 20% profit on a sold domain, which would all be given away to leechers who don't do jack shit.

Ridiculous idea.

sellian · Oct 22, 2020

Lord Antares said:
So I was right, you only want charity. Why would a wealthy domainer not just donate 20% of his profits to a real charity? Seems like a better solution than what you're suggesting.

I'm not even going to mention the fact that a person might only make 20% profit on a sold domain, which would all be given away to leechers who don't do jack shit.

Ridiculous idea.

Do you sell on any of the marketplaces that charge between 25-35%? I would be curious to see if you are this aggressive towards them when they steal your money (by not doing jack shit either) through those commissions.

Lord Antares · Oct 22, 2020

sellian said:
Do you sell on any of the marketplaces that charge between 25-35%? I would be curious to see if you are this aggressive towards them when they steal your money (by not doing jack shit either) through those commissions.

Did you read his posts?

sellian · Oct 22, 2020

Lord Antares said:
Did you read his posts?

Yes and I don't find his approach fair for everybody.

biggie · Oct 22, 2020

Hi

it's starting to read like a "pimp-coop" in evolution

imagine if all the other domain pimps and hustlers came together with a profit sharing plan.

now, that's not a reflection,
just a parody of domains, domainers and the evolving game in domaining.

imo...

Lord Antares · Oct 22, 2020

sellian said:
Yes and I don't find his approach fair for everybody.

He wants only the top domain holders to give away 20% commission when they make a sale and he wants to prevent them from collecting commission from other people's sales.
On the other hand, he wants people with no sales to earn commission from people who actually make sales. So really, he wants a system where he can leech money from actual sellers by doing nothing.

In what world is that fair?

timestamp · Oct 22, 2020

I just want to see this built by someone. Give it a go, for a year/two/three. This is trying something different and trying to make a difference in the (domaining) world. Everyone has a right to choose to use or not to use such marketplace.

sellian · Oct 22, 2020

Lord Antares said:
He wants only the top domain holders to give away 20% commission when they make a sale and he wants to prevent them from collecting commission from other people's sales.
On the other hand, he wants people with no sales to earn commission from people who actually make sales. So really, he wants a system where he can leech money from actual sellers by doing nothing.

In what world is that fair?

I personally support the idea of a universal basic income for every human being on the planet as our system is totally broken and employment alone is no longer able to support the system, but here we are talking about domaining, not politics! For now, I stand by my “equal STR/ democratic system“ for domainers

sellian · Oct 22, 2020

biggie said:
Hi

it's starting to read like a "pimp-coop" in evolution

imagine if all the other domain pimps and hustlers came together with a profit sharing plan.

now, that's not a reflection,
just a parody of domains, domainers and the evolving game in domaining.

imo...

I am not sure if I get the sarcasm here as I am not a native speaker. These are just ideas and remember, no one will ever FORCE you to join any of these alternative platforms/services. You'll always have the freedom to choose whatever method suits you best.

timestamp · Oct 22, 2020

@SuperBrander @Lord Antares
Repeat after me:
It is not my money and I don't care how it's spent.

Lord Antares · Oct 22, 2020

timestamp said:
@SuperBrander @Lord Antares
Repeat after me:
It is not my money and I don't care how it's spent.

It doesn't matter what I think. What matters is that it would be bad for the company, at least your method would. Taking from the wealthy and giving to the poor. No one with good domains would take part in an unfair system. What's left would be leechers with 1 domain trying to perpetually leech from one another.

No one would ever try that because it's a bad idea.

timestamp · Oct 22, 2020

You currently agreed to 10%. Deven decides to give half of that to others. And you are saying that is unfair? You would remove your domains from site and go elsewhere?

Lord Antares · Oct 22, 2020

The original suggestion was 10% commission + 20% spread among others. They couldn't offer just 5% commission, it's too low for the site to function.

Even you said so when you said someone selling a domain for a million would give 300k away to the site + to leechers who don't sell any domains.

Enough of this, it's silly and it dilutes the thread.

timestamp · Oct 22, 2020

Everyone is sucking money out of domainers, on every single step. Give portion of the money back to domainers ...HELL NO!!!

SuperBrander · Oct 22, 2020

@timestamp You're treating the 15%-20% difference between different marketplaces as if it's money that just landed from the air and can belong to anyone. The fact that Alter offers a 10% commission and other marketplaces 25%-30% doesn't turn the difference in commission into spare money that should be distributed to domainers who aren't doing things right. Let's remember that other marketplaces, though they charge a high commission, are proven venues that sell a lot domains and invest a lot of money into advertising and in the case of SH, also sophisticated AI systems. Some of the domains that are selling are terrible ones. So for now, in many cases the high commission they charge can be justified. Plus, in SH's case they also offer the white label marketplace. Alter needs to prove itself and show that it can really sell domains and provide the same sort of success as other marketplaces. Yesterday I got a pretty big sale at the WLM and I'm paying 7.5% commission. If it were up to you and this domain was at Alter with the "rewarding domainers who don't sell" policy you're suggesting, I'd have to take 20% of that and distribute it to other domainers and get... what exactly? A warm and fuzzy feeling? Charity is charity and domaining is domaining. Learn, work hard, make money and reinvest. If a domainer can't do that, they shouldn't be domaining.

timestamp · Oct 22, 2020

If 2.5% out of 7.5% goes to others, would you still complain?

SuperBrander · Oct 22, 2020

@timestamp What the marketplace does with their commission doesn't matter to me. They can flush the money down the toilet, if they want. But you're playing with imaginary money that for some reason you think marketplaces should give to domainers. Why should they? It just encourages and rewards unsuccessful domainers plus it's an investment in mostly low end domains that so far haven't sold. Plus, it would be a beaurocratic nightmare to put in the resources to organize all the payments, as in-store credit at different registrars. There's zero reason for a business to want to do that. Welcome to life and the business world. Nobody is going to give you gifts. If you want to succeed- you need to put in the time, work hard and earn it.

timestamp · Oct 22, 2020

SuperBrander said:
@timestamp What the marketplace does with their commission doesn't matter to me. They can flush the money down the toilet, if they want.

Thank you!

That is why I tagged Rob Monster. Epik can do it, others too if they want. Epik has masterbucks and in-store credit. They have everything in place to make it work. Security checks, know your customers... They can make website over the weekend and deploy it on monday. Giving money back to domainers should become industry standard.

SuperBrander · Oct 22, 2020

@timestamp I'm definitely not against empowering domainers, and Epik has and is doing a great job at that. But I feel there's a difference between empowerment and charity. Taking money from domainers' sales or the marketplace's commission in order to fund renewals of domainers who aren't doing well... doesn't sound like a very empowering concept to me. Maybe there's a way to do it that's empowering and doesn't just reward bad domaining. Anyway... I'll end with that because this thread is supposed to be about Alter and this whole discussion should probably be elsewhere.

Natto · Oct 22, 2020

Hi @Deven Patel , I would like to feedback on the loading time for each name. It take a little bit longer than others.

Alter took around 9-10 sec for loading, while the other took below 5 sec to loaded.

PS. I am from South East Asia

sellian · Oct 22, 2020

Ok, it's been less than 48h and everything has gone very fast and smooth on the platform.

This is my performance:

74 names submitted, 14 accepted (around 19%). Price average: $2320.

I am quite happy with the acceptance rate of my domains. I'm curious to see what the logos will look like

ecomslice · Oct 23, 2020

Finally back to thread about Alter.

All those who high jacked the thread for personal debate should make your own thread for respect of Alter.

It's valid discussion but more specialized focus

Votumejero · Oct 23, 2020

Any sales thus far???

Echo Mod Team · Oct 23, 2020

Reminder: This is a review topic about Alter.com - Please stay on-topic and focus on the marketplace being reviewed. Further off-topic commentary may result in warnings/infractions being issued to the accounts hijacking the review thread.

Do not reply to this reminder.

Thanks.

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