Atom marketplace (formerly Squadhelp Marketplace)

JudgeMind said:

why not setup a payoneer account?

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Just sent you a DM, @JudgeMind ,

Heads up -

I had 3 names disappear from my account a couple of weeks ago.

I initially reached out to SH because I was *pretty sure* I had a few more names in my account, than were showing up in the total.

They told me nothing was wrong, there were no signs of names being removed, none of my names had been delisted...

So, I went through and audited every name in my registrar accounts to cross-reference to every name in my SH account, and found that 3 names had, indeed, gone missing from my SH premium listings.

After about 10 days of back and forth and "having our tech team look into it", SH finally asked me what those names were. I had previously told them the names days prior, and they said they were looking into it...

I'm not sure what they could have been looking into for 10 days without even knowing the names in question... but alas...

It turns out that somebody was sending SH fake proof of ownership of domains, and SH was transferring those listings to them without even contacting the rightful owners of these names, and without giving any warning or notification that they were transferring the listings, and without even leaving any type of note or sign that it had happened.

They were just shadow-transferring listings from one account to another, based on one person showing fake ownership.

I don't blame the support staff for the fact that it took so long to sort this out, but it's absolutely ridiculous that Squadhelp will transfer ownership of listings so flippantly, without any warning, without any notice, and without any log that it had even happened.

If someone reaches out and says "Hey, I'm the person who owns this domain, please move the listing to my account," at the VERY LEAST squadhelp needs to contact the current owner of the listing - right? You'd think so!

And if not, at the VERY least, they need to keep some record of this having happened that support staff can easily see when the rightful owner reaches out, right? You'd think so!

And if none of that is possible, at the VERY VERY VERY least, they should send some sort of notification like "We've removed this listing from your account because somebody else provided proof of ownership."

But it turns out, it's none of the above.

The listings just get removed from your account, and if you don't notice it yourself - you're out of luck.

The names that were removed and transfered to another user's portfolio had been purchased by me very recently directly from SH's marketplace, I sent payment to SH for these names, I verified they had been transferred and received, yet all it took for someone else to claim ownership was sending in fake proof of ownership.

Squadhelp has assured me that this won't happen again because the seller who was claiming ownership over other people's names has had "action taken against them," but I don't see what prevents anyone else from doing this to any SH seller, unless the system in place is changed to prevent this from happening.

I suggest that Squadhelp does the following:

- If someone claims ownership of someone else's listing, contact BOTH parties. Don't just communicate with the person claiming ownership, communicate with the person who currently holds the listing.

- NEVER EVER transfer ownership of someone's listing without sending them a heads up, a notification, a quick email. Anything.

- Keep notes about when you're moving names from one account to another based on another seller claiming ownership, so that it doesn't take weeks to get it sorted out.

Be really careful out there folks, especially if you have fast transfer enabled on your names with SH, because if you have a lot of listings and you aren't paying super close attention to ensure that all of your names are still in your account, every single day, then anyone can come along and claim to own your SH listings with a fake screenshot and you might never even notice.

@Peak.Domains Thanks for your feedback. We have looked into this closely and are re-evaluating our processes. Here is some additional context about our current policies and what we plan to do going forward:

1. We often have situations where a domain was previously submitted for review by another seller and is now owned by a new seller. In those cases, we ask the new owner for some proof that they are the current owner and we transfer the listing to their account (as long as the current listing is in a Rejected or Delisted status). The new owner must point the name servers to SH in order for their listing to remain active.

2. We typically do not transfer currently live listings to other sellers unless we reach out to the previous owner. It looks like in this particular instance, we did not follow that process, so that is certainly a miss on our part.

3. We have kept the ownership verification process straightforward because frankly we do not see how a seller could financially benefit by falsely claiming that they are the new owner. Even if they go to the extreme of producing a fake screenshot of their registrar account, and the listing is transferred to their name, they still would not have access to the actual domain. So if that domain sells in future, they would not be able to transfer it, and therefore will not get paid for it, and will likely get their account suspended. Even if the domain has fast transfer enabled, the domain is still held in the registrar account of existing owner, and therefore any sales via Fast transfer will happen under the original owner's registrar account. Therefore, until now we have found that the current simple ownership verification process works well.

What we plan to do going forward?

1. We will perform additional training to ensure that our team reaches out to the existing owner before transferring the listing to the new owner in case the domain in question is a live/published listing.

2. For long term, we will move towards a different verification process where the new owner will need to add a unique TXT record to demonstrate that they in-fact have access to the domain before we will transfer the listing over to them.

We are sorry that it took several days to get to the bottom of this situation, and we certainly agree that we should have handled the communication of listing transfer more proactively in this situation.

is anyone else bothered by the fact that an accepted offer on a domain
that happens friday evening will not get responded to or finalized till monday.

that is alot of time for a buyer to have buyers remorse or change mind.

I would think @GrantP you might have one staff on weekends to close the most important factor of a sale.

ecomslice said:

I would think @GrantP you might have one staff on weekends to close the most important factor of a sale.

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@ecomslice we have a 24x7 team that engages with buyers during night and weekends as well. Typically we do not let any offers go unresponded for the entire weekend. In case of Standard listings, the sellers also have the ability to communicate directly with the buyers via their offer center. For premium listings, we monitor any offer activity during the weekends as well, and respond to the buyers as quickly as possible. If an offer requires a routine followup, we typically only do those types of followups during weekdays during business hours.

If you have an example where it has taken longer than expected to respond to a buyer, please feel free to DM me, and we will look into it.

@GrantP Thank you for acknowledging how incredibly poorly this was handled at every step of the way. It was a huge waste of my time.

If I hadn't been proactive to notice names were missing, and then to keep looking into it even after SH told me that no names had been removed from my account, this could have been very bad.

These names were purchased from the SH marketplace itself, and should never leave my account without my knowledge or consent.

It sounds like you're going to make changes that prevent people from easily stealing other people's listings and then silently moving the names to their accounts without giving any heads up and without even leaving a note so that your support staff can see that the names were moved, and that sounds like a positive change.

GrantP said:

@ecomslice we have a 24x7 team that engages with buyers during night and weekends as well. Typically we do not let any offers go unresponded for the entire weekend. In case of Standard listings, the sellers also have the ability to communicate directly with the buyers via their offer center. For premium listings, we monitor any offer activity during the weekends as well, and respond to the buyers as quickly as possible. If an offer requires a routine followup, we typically only do those types of followups during weekdays during business hours.

If you have an example where it has taken longer than expected to respond to a buyer, please feel free to DM me, and we will look into it.

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Just an update everyone, I was now responded to within a day on the negotiations update. So I stand corrected. They do have staff dealing with sales on weekends by the details Grant mentioned. Thanks Grant for clarity.

I had requested payout on 31st march but its not been released yet. The support is also taking long to respond to our queries, upto to 24 hours. Is it normal at SH? This is my first sale there.

I have been a seller at SquadHelp for a little over a year and have had 19 names listed and yesterday I had my sale nummer 3 - It's hard for me to complain, so thanks to SquadHelp from me.

wwwulff said:

I have been a seller at SquadHelp for a little over a year and have had 19 names listed and yesterday I had my sale nummer 3 - It's hard for me to complain, so thanks to SquadHelp from me.

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Congrats!

Hangregs or aftermarket buys?

Thanks

ArielT said:

Hangregs or aftermarket buys?

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Thanks, one handreg, one bought here at NP 2 years ago (was not listed then), one backordered via DropCatch

wwwulff said:

I have been a seller at SquadHelp for a little over a year and have had 19 names listed and yesterday I had my sale nummer 3 - It's hard for me to complain, so thanks to SquadHelp from me.

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Similar story with mine until last year.

Initially, I listed 7 names on SH and sold 3 in less than 10 months. Added 2 more and sold 1 in less than 2 months. Oh my, I thought I have cracked the SH sales formula and wanted to scale it. I have added 42 higher-priced names since then and sold 1 more name. No formula cracked. It appears $1,799 and below is the sweet spot for SH if you really want to move names.

Please don't increase your portfolio

gblasting said:

Please don't increase your portfolio

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I have no current plans to scale my portfolio much because I think you are right that most sales are below $2k (although I have seen more expensive sales) but they move many names - My 3 sales are 2 x $1,999 and the last one $2699

March Squadhelp/afternic Sales

.com

BlueTriton $1999 - afternic (squadhelp listed)
NutriQore - $2199 SH premium
JadeAndRose - $2429 SH premium
SharpHawk - $1699 SH premium
urfashionstore - $499 - Sedo SH WLM

.ly

Start - $6799 SH premium

.ca
VitaminShop $3300 (WLM)

JudgeMind said:

March Squadhelp/afternic Sales

.com

BlueTriton $1999 - afternic (squadhelp listed)
NutriQore - $2199 SH premium
JadeAndRose - $2429 SH premium
SharpHawk - $1699 SH premium
urfashionstore - $499 - Sedo SH WLM

.ly

Start - $6799 SH premium

.ca
VitaminShop $3300 (WLM)

Show attachment 187368

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Thanks for sharing once again.

I've always believed that "Shortlist" should have been called "Like" or "Love" and your dashboard reinforces my belief. There is no way you can have over 100 shortlists daily if we mean "short list" in the real sense of the word.

Majority of people clicking the heart icon (domainers inclusive) only like the name and are not really considering it for purchase.

@GrantP I would like to draw your attention to the inconsistencies between Squadhelp ads and the names that are available for sale.

For example, the attached ad is currently running on Facebook.

Launchably dot com is sold and has an already established website.
Overleap dot com is recenty sold.
AIVI dot com is currently listed at Dan.com so you're sending traffic to Dan It's name servers were changed from SH to Dan on 16 Oct, 2020
Galore dot com is also currently not listed at Squadhelp. It seems to be listed on Uniregistry.
So out of five names that are being displayed just one (Weblytic dot com) is still available to purchase on Squadhelp. How come?

Sometimes the same problem occurs with your blog posts too. For example, in this blog post https://www.squadhelp.com/Name-Ideas/616/real-estate-business-names-ideas The name HomeMe dot com is advertised as "for sale" in two separate sections of the article while in reality, it's no longer available for sale at Squadhelp.

This situation can potentially bring unwanted results, such as:

1. Potential buyers contacting current owners of sold domain names thinking they are selling their name.
2. Some potential buyers might feel frustrated after they learn that the name they really liked is not available even though the ad clearly says otherwise.
3. Some potential buyers might interpret this as some kind of a "bait & switch" situation.
4. You're sending paid traffic to competitors
5. It's simply confusing for potential buyers.

gtldomainer said:

I had requested payout on 31st march but its not been released yet. The support is also taking long to respond to our queries, upto to 24 hours. Is it normal at SH? This is my first sale there.

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I added Paypal and I got paid the very next day. Thanks SH!

Anyone has ever used boost or superboost for their domains? If yes, was it worth it? Which domains are really worth boosting, how do you decide? Thanks!

NameWell said:

@GrantP I would like to draw your attention to the inconsistencies between Squadhelp ads and the names that are available for sale.

For example, the attached ad is currently running on Facebook.

Launchably dot com is sold and has an already established website.
Overleap dot com is recenty sold.
AIVI dot com is currently listed at Dan.com so you're sending traffic to Dan It's name servers were changed from SH to Dan on 16 Oct, 2020
Galore dot com is also currently not listed at Squadhelp. It seems to be listed on Uniregistry.
So out of five names that are being advertised just one (Weblytic dot com) is still available to purchase on Squadhelp. How come?

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Thanks for pointing out this issue. You raise some valid points however let me provide a bit more context about our Marketing strategy.

Most of our display ads that we run are dynamic which means they showcase actual domains that are currently listed on SH. The names in those ads are automatically selected based upon the browsing history and interest of the buyer.

We have also been testing some "static" banner ads such as your example. If the Ads continue to provide good results (e.g. good conversions, high CTR, low CPC etc), we typically continue to run them without refreshing them too often. We run different marketing campaigns with different objectives - some are designed to introduce our platform to new prospective buyers (long term focus), while others are designed to present specific names to buyers based upon their recent browsing history (short term/ immediate focus).

For context, in the last 30 days, our ads were shown more than 4 million times across various websites and platforms and the static ads such as this example represent a fairly small % of those impressions.

Having said that, I have shared this example with our Marketing team so that we can evaluate this closely and make any adjustments if needed.

karmaco said:

SquadHelp taking on DAN
https://www.squadhelp.com/white-label-marketplace#squad-benefits

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Ok, this is a pretty big deal. I’ve been quite disappointed in SH,

kaposzta said:

Anyone has ever used boost or superboost for their domains? If yes, was it worth it? Which domains are really worth boosting, how do you decide? Thanks!

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I have, both - I boost 10-15 domains every other month (no science behind it, just when I remember that I should.) I've boosted names that are either A. already getting traction, good number of views, shortlists (because it means they resonate) and B. names I *just* listed, just to get them to rank higher faster.

I don't know if it works though, I don't track the names I boost and I don't remember an instance of a name I boosted recently selling. But I do have a decent sell-through rate, so maybe it helps?

Nametree said:

Ok, this is a pretty big deal. I’ve been quite disappointed in SH,


I have, both - I boost 10-15 domains every other month (no science behind it, just when I remember that I should.) I've boosted names that are either A. already getting traction, good number of views, shortlists (because it means they resonate) and B. names I *just* listed, just to get them to rank higher faster.

I don't know if it works though, I don't track the names I boost and I don't remember an instance of a name I boosted recently selling. But I do have a decent sell-through rate, so maybe it helps?

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Can you guide about accepting the names from squad help. They are rejecting very branded and great names.

M Usman said:

Can you guide about accepting the names from squad help. They are rejecting very branded and great names.

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I pay with coins for all of my submissions, I don't know if that influences acceptance rate (probably not that much) but it certainly influences speed of approval. My approval rate is 37% which seems higher than average but I'm also pretty picky about what I submit because I pay for submissions.

Be picky, have good taste

(I will add this: of all my approved names, probably 2/3rds or more are not hand-registrations, but names I've paid at least $50-100 each at auctions in previous years.)

GrantP said:

Thanks for pointing out this issue. You raise some valid points however let me provide a bit more context about our Marketing strategy.

Most of our display ads that we run are dynamic which means they showcase actual domains that are currently listed on SH. The names in those ads are automatically selected based upon the browsing history and interest of the buyer.

We have also been testing some "static" banner ads such as your example. If the Ads continue to provide good results (e.g. good conversions, high CTR, low CPC etc), we typically continue to run them without refreshing them too often. We run different marketing campaigns with different objectives - some are designed to introduce our platform to new prospective buyers (long term focus), while others are designed to present specific names to buyers based upon their recent browsing history (short term/ immediate focus).

For context, in the last 30 days, our ads were shown more than 4 million times across various websites and platforms and the static ads such as this example represent a fairly small % of those impressions.

Having said that, I have shared this example with our Marketing team so that we can evaluate this closely and make any adjustments if needed.

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@GrantP thank you for a fast and very informative reply. I understand that the objective of the ad I shared was not to advertise those specific names, but I still think it is better to display either names that are currently listed on SH or success stories (sold names that evolved into strong, successful businesses). But that's just my two cents

Also, I would like to add that this problem is present not only with some of your static ads, but with some of your video ads too. Please see the attached files. It's your video ad that seems to be currently active. Three out of six names displayed are no longer available on SH. Please look at those video ads too.











Anyways, I'm glad your marketing team will be looking into this.

Sales update End of April

Only 1 sale at squadhelp in April so far, slowest month ive ever had with sh. I have spent a fair bit of time this month building my squadhelp portfolio. Its getting more difficult everyday to find decent brand names to invest in and the average overall price to pay for these has been going up like the price of lumber in north america . Still hoping to land a decent 5 figure sale with squadhelp. It seems the demand for 4L .com dropped off at squadhelp as soon as i started to list mine last year.

Sold name:

HotLikeMe (c.o.m) $3059

Note: Total sold includes wlm sales

Happy May

SOLD - UserSpark (c.o.m) for $3077 on the new flexible financing option

This is a milestone sale as we’ve now sold 50 premium domains through Squadhelp.

Thank you @GrantP for the un-waivering support you and the day to day customer service team provide.