Alter.com Marketplace

[Deven Patel]

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.​

 

[Future Sensors]

I think clarification is important. Is it possible to list a name on your own website, not a marketplace, if the link is to the listing at Alter? I would think this is in everyone's advantage.

Absolutely. And the non-exclusivity was the only reason I signed up for Alter in the first place. Will rethink about adding more domains.

 

[King]

How have I not seen this thread earlier? This is AWESOME on all levels Deven! Glad to see a brand marketplace that caters to both buyers and sellers, I was getting pissed off with squadhelp, brandbucket, and brandpa. I was starting to dislike brand marketplaces in general but I will give alter a shot.

Suggestions:

1) Please please please use a .svg for the logo, as a web designer it hurts me to see websites still use png or worse jpg for their logos, use a .svg for a cleaner and more professional look, the logo looks horrid on my 4K display.

2) Look into adding a profile picture option for the seller's portfolio page.

3) With the rise of cryptocurrency maybe you could add an option to pay and/or with cryptocurrency?

Also, have you thought about an affiliate or commission system where someone can get paid for referring a buyer and if someone lands on a domain but ends up buying another one in the marketplace, maybe it won't work well with such a low commission but it was just an idea that came to mind.

Any updates on these? I'm surprised not even the first one was done.

 

[Reyginus]

I love every bit of the new changes. Especially the partnerships and automatically listing with registrars and marketplaces. Great work.

 

[Future Sensors]

Thinking about this a bit. When I'm listing my domains myself with Sedo, Afternic, DAN, I have the advantage of fast transfer, SedoMLS, and I can decide about the price myself. In the new construction, Alter will place my domains on these same marketplaces without these advantages and will get an affiliate fee for this if a domain sells. This will make Alter a different type of company. The new Sedo?

 

[NameWell]

Hi everyone!

First and foremost, we'd like to thank you for using Alter to sell your domain names. We're honored to have the opportunity to serve you.

You asked, we listened. You provided so much valuable feedback over the last few months. Our team has been working around the clock to turn it into reality. We're excited to announce incredible new features!

Installment Plans
Alter now offers sellers the ability to sell domains via monthly installments! This allows buyers to spread their payments over 3-36 months making their domain purchase more affordable. Enabling installments will typically lead to quicker sales. Learn more ›

Price Adjustments
Sellers often asked us to tweak appraisals for their domains to better match their expectations. Well, now you can increase or decrease the list price of your domains by up to 20% once they're accepted.

Landing Pages
Landing pages are the best way to attract potential buyers so we're constantly tweaking them to improve performance. The latest round of updates include:

• Dynamic Colors: Looking at the same landing page for every domain can get boring even with unique logos. So we got creative! We programmed the header image along with other CTAs on the page to match the color of the logo.
• Pronunciation: Potential buyers can now hear an audio of how to pronounce the domain name with a click of a button.
• Bigger Logo: As the focal point of the landing page, it only made sense to make the logo bigger and more attractive.
• Social Proof: Buyers can now see the number of other people who viewed the domain recently. We also added our TrustPilot rating under the Buy Now button to boost conversions.

Curious about what the new landing pages look like? See example ›

Domain Management
Now that sellers are growing their portfolios on Alter, it's becoming cumbersome to manage their domains. Searching for one in their account is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. To improve this experience, we've added a new search bar and a Listed tab on the Domains page that will make it super easy to find your domains.

Smart Search
When we first launched, our search functionality was very basic. We've dramatically improved it to return results based on all of the domain's metadata like its keywords and categories. This will result in better and richer results for potential buyers. Try it yourself ›

Live Chat
Being able to assist buyers in real-time is more crucial today than ever before now that the average visitor attention span has dropped to mere seconds. We will now offer live chat to visitors on all domain landing pages to proactively help them with their inquiries during our business hours. And if it works well, we'll eventually offer it 24/7.

Traffic Breakdown
We understand it can be difficult to always see the value of using a domain marketplace like Alter to sell your valuable assets. So we broke it down for you! Your dashboard will now show a Traffic Breakdown pie chart which consists of the following three metrics:

• Marketplace Visitors: Number of people that learned about your domains through our marketplace.
• Partner Visitors: Number of people that learned about your domains via our partners (estimated).
• Direct Visitors: Number of people that learned about your domains by typing them directly in their browser.

We hope that this level of transparency will help you determine whether listing your portfolio with us is worth it. See chart ›

Partnerships
We're truly excited to announce that we've partnered up with the world's top marketplaces and registrars to give your domains maximum exposure! Starting later this month, your domains will automatically be listed on the following marketplaces and registrars:

• Marketplaces: Sedo, Afternic, Uniregistry, DAN.com
• Registrars: GoDaddy, IONOS, Namecheap, Network Solutions, Name.com, Epik, NameSilo, Hover, Dynadot, Porkbun, Register.com, BigRock, Sav, Internet.bs, and more

This means you no longer have to worry about dealing with different companies, updating prices across accounts, re-verifying domains, etc. And you still only pay 10% commission on the price assigned to your domains on Alter. We'll just list them at slightly higher prices on other marketplaces to compensate for their higher commission. Win-win!

Action Required: In order to prevent problems with our new partners, we have to be the exclusive seller of all listed domains moving forward. This means you cannot list them anywhere else yourself. If they are already, please remove them from all other marketplaces before February 15th.

Thanks for your continued support in our journey to change the world, one domain at a time. We're glad you're with us!

@Deven Patel wow, these are great changes! I'm especially excited about the partnership with the biggest marketplaces! I appreciate the efficient development of the platform!

Like many others, I would like to know if sellers are allowed to list their domains on their own websites / personal white label marketplaces or not anymore?

 

[private123]

Hi @Deven Patel, Good development,

My question is if a name sells in any of these marketplaces when you list them there urself, will you still charge selllers 10%? For names selling externally. This will determine whether we as sellers wik be able to follow put with the new development.

Overall good job...

Do I pay higher commission on domains sold through other marketplaces?
No, you will still only pay 10% of the price assigned to your domains on Alter. We simply list them at slightly higher prices on other marketplaces to compensate for their higher commission.

https://alter.com/sellers#installments

 

[Future Sensors]

Do I pay higher commission on domains sold through other marketplaces?
No, you will still only pay 10% of the price assigned to your domains on Alter. We simply list them at slightly higher prices on other marketplaces to compensate for their higher commission.

https://alter.com/sellers#installments

In fact, Alter prices your names higher on the other marketplaces. I can do this myself and have even more advantages, like stated earlier. Also: the logos on Alter will not appear on the other marketplaces. I'm not looking for a service that is managing listings for me. I liked the idea that Alter is a brandable marketplace without exclusivity. But this changed as of today.

 

[Soofi]

@Deven Patel much more power and success to you and Alter.com

Could you share success stories from Alter?

Thanks

 

[Sammy Jakes]

@Deven Patel, I love every bit of the new changes. More power to you and your team

 

[Deven Patel]

Thanks for all the compliments everyone!

Let me try and answer all your questions in one shot below:

One question about the automatic listings on other marketplaces. How will this be handled when the domain is already listed there (at a higher price)? I understood that this was no problem. Is the text below a policy change? Your website now states the following:

Can I list my domains anywhere else?
No, we have to be the exclusive seller of your domains in order to prevent problems with our partners. But there's no need to list your domains elsewhere because we already list them on popular marketplaces and registrars on your behalf (see above). This means you don't have to worry about dealing with different companies, updating prices across accounts, re-verifying domains, etc.​

Correct, it's a policy change that will go into effect on February 15th for existing sellers as mentioned above. It was a tough decision but we had to do it in order to maintain a good relationship with our new partners. As you may know, a number of these partners have to manually approve domains submitted to their platform. So if a domain exists in multiple accounts on their marketplace, it creates a lot of manual work for them to fix the problem (i.e. re-verifying ownership, etc).

Edit: Sellers can now list anywhere else they like except with our partners.

All brandable marketplaces have been struggling with incorporating Afternic because of policy issues that prevent 3rd parties (in this case Alter) from listing domains owned by other people. Is there definitely an agreement in place with them?

I personally had a phone conversation with their team and they have confirmed that it's okay for Alter to submit domains owned by other sellers with their permission.

Edit: There was a misunderstanding. Afternic/Uniregistry are not our partners at this time.

By the way, I disagree with the way it's stated here. Exceptions make it more difficult to manage a large portfolio. Always.

We definitely didn't make this decision lightly. There are always pros and cons to everything. After thinking it through we came to the conclusion that the pros outweighed the cons in this situation.

The way I see it is if you have a brandable domain, you'll most likely submit it to Alter for review first. If declined, you can list it anywhere else you like. If accepted and you choose to list it with us, we take care of everything on your behalf making it super easy for sellers to manage their brandable portfolio.

And as I mentioned above, we kind of had to do this in order to maintain a good relationship with the partners (i.e. the partners won't like working with us if we end up creating a lot of manual work for them).

My question is if a name sells in any of these marketplaces when you list them there urself, will you still charge selllers 10%? For names selling externally. This will determine whether we as sellers wik be able to follow put with the new development.

Overall good job...

If a domain is sold through one of our partners, you still only pay 10% commission on the price assigned to it on Alter. We'll simply list it at slightly higher prices on other marketplaces to compensate for their higher commission.

The other option we had was to raise our commission to something like 30% and subtract theirs from it like the other brandable marketplaces do. We didn't think it was fair for sellers to pay more for all their domains if only a subset of them sell through partners so we decided to do the above instead.

Will I still be able to list Alter-accepted domains on my own websites / whitelabel marketplaces? Some of these have only static content with price indications, others have BINs and use the payment/escrow function of DAN, Escrow.com, etc.

Is it possible to list a name on your own website, not a marketplace, if the link is to the listing at Alter? I would think this is in everyone's advantage.

Like many others, I would like to know if sellers are allowed to list their domains on their own websites / personal white label marketplaces or not anymore?

As I mentioned above, the primary goal of the exclusivity is to protect our relationship with our new partners. As long as that's not threatened (domains aren't listed in a separate partner account), I don't see a problem with that.

That said, I personally don't see much of a benefit of listing them on your own site/white label. Wouldn't it create more unnecessary work for sellers? And buyers would prefer to buy through a trusted source anyway (i.e. if the same blender was offered on both Amazon and a random Shopify store, where would you buy it?).

And the non-exclusivity was the only reason I signed up for Alter in the first place. Will rethink about adding more domains.

Not sure why you think this is a problem rather than a solution. We spoke to a number of sellers about this and almost all agreed that this was the right move (less work for them, more exposure for their domains).

The exclusivity really becomes a non-factor when you consider that you're getting exposure on 99% of the marketplaces and registrars on the planet without lifting a finger and all for the same low commission. I guess I don't quite understand why you would want to create more work for yourself by managing your domains everywhere manually when we're willing to take care of it for you. Can you please help me understand?

And in terms of determining the value Alter provides for you, we just added a "Traffic Breakdown" chart on your dashboard. It allows you to see exactly how much traffic comes through our marketplace vs directly through your domains.

Edit: Sellers can now list anywhere else they like except with our partners.

Any updates on these? I'm surprised not even the first one was done.

No other updates to report at this time. But rest assured that everyone's feedback is being considered.

Thinking about this a bit. When I'm listing my domains myself with Sedo, Afternic, DAN, I have the advantage of fast transfer, SedoMLS, and I can decide about the price myself. In the new construction, Alter will place my domains on these same marketplaces without these advantages and will get an affiliate fee for this if a domain sells. This will make Alter a different type of company. The new Sedo?

Unfortunately, sellers will not be able to take advantage of fast transfer at this time because there's no easy way to enable it in this scenario. However, your domains will still appear on the registrars listed above so the additional benefit of it seems minuscule. The benefit being buyers able to instantly get the domain upon a sale rather than having to go through the steps of transferring it manually. So the overall sell-through rate wouldn't really be affected.

In fact, Alter prices your names higher on the other marketplaces. I can do this myself and have even more advantages, like stated earlier. Also: the logos on Alter will not appear on the other marketplaces. I'm not looking for a service that is managing listings for me. I liked the idea that Alter is a brandable marketplace without exclusivity. But this changed as of today.

So then how else do you suggest we get compensated for the additional work? As I mentioned above, raising our commission to 30% like our competitors is an option. Would you prefer that instead? I don't see what the issue is if you're getting the same amount you agreed to by listings your domains on Alter. In other words, what difference does it make how much the buyer pays for your domain if you get the same share. It's not like we're making any more either.

I hope you realize that we're not swimming in profit here. Out of our 10% commission, we have to pay a 3% transaction fee to our payment partner. That leaves 7% for staff, designers, customer service, marketing, development, partnerships, etc, etc. We're certainly not trying to rip you off if that's what you're thinking. Our goal is simply to provide the best marketplace we can with as low of a cost as possible (i.e. more bang for your buck). And of course, make a little profit for ourselves in the process.

Anyway, it seems like your mind is already made up. I hope you stay with us but it's ultimately your decision. If there's anything we can do to help change your mind, please let us know!

Could you share success stories from Alter?

We haven't decided to share any data publicly at this time. But you can browse through this thread for past sales by NamePros sellers.

Hopefully, I covered everyone's questions. If not, please let me know!

 

[Future Sensors]

Hi @Deven Patel

Thanks for your clarification, really appreciate it. Let me clearly state that I do like Alter and you as a person. You're very committed, and devote a lot of your time to answering questions here on namePros all the time.

Nevertheless, I'm reasoning the pros and cons of the new Alter for my own situation. I'm not 'angry' at Alter or you personally, but may decide that I like to be independent again. There may be a lot of sellers who like the new turn-key solution you're offering, and from a business POV I can certainly understand why you want to go this new direction. You've implemented a lot of new features and I hope Alter will flourish. You have the momentum.

You will never be able to please every domainer, but as a domainer I'm happy with a person like you here on namePros.

 

[Sammy Jakes]

@Deven Patel, some of my submitted domains were automatically accepted. I don't think they have been submitted / listed by a domainer before on your marketplace. Any new reason for this?

 

[NameWell]

@Deven Patel, some of my submitted domains were automatically accepted. I don't think they have been submitted / listed by a domainer before on your marketplace. Any new reason for this?

I had the same thing happen to me too. A domain name in question wasn't truly premium (not pronounceable 4 letter .com nor exact popular dictionary word .com etc.)

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel, some of my submitted domains were automatically accepted. I don't think they have been submitted / listed by a domainer before on your marketplace. Any new reason for this?

I had the same thing happen to me too. A domain name in question wasn't truly premium (not pronounceable 4 letter .com nor exact popular dictionary word .com)

That is odd. Can you please send me those domains over a private message so I can look into it?

Edit: I looked into this and it seems like these domains were submitted by other sellers in the past and accepted by Alter. So everything appears to be working as expected.

 

[NameWell]

That is odd. Can you please send me those domains over a private message so I can look into it?

Sure! I just sent you a PM with details.

 

[Sammy Jakes]

Just tested some of the new features on Alter. They are really cool and impressive. I foresee alter taking over the brandable marketplace if other marketplaces do not up the game

 

[Natto]

@Deven Patel It would be great if there is an option to download/export the listed names.

 

[sellian]

Hi Deven, first of all I'd like to thank you for the newly added features, very neat!

I just lowered the price of some of my domains. I wanted to know if potential buyers (people that have shortlisted a domain) are in any way informed about this change?

That would be a really clever thing to do to boost sales in my opinion.

Thanks again!

 

[SuperBrander]

@Deven Patel Thanks for the reply about Afternic. I must say that I'm impressed. You guys really stepped up your game. I'm kinda concerned about the amount of sales you guys are having based on the amount of reported sales at NamePros, which is usually a good indicator about how well a marketplace is doing but I'm going to submit a few more names and we'll see how things progress moving forward. Rock on.

 

[JudgeMind]

Alter is making it happen! Congratulations @Deven Patel and team!! Keep up the hard work.

 

[Reyginus]

Alter is making it happen! Congratulations @Deven Patel and team!! Keep up the hard work.

The crown ain't safe on who (SH) is wearing it.

 

[xeroox]

Is this normal? http://prntscr.com/y9nwcf http://prntscr.com/y9nwzf
Using edge, no adblock, no zoom

 

[Embrand]

So good to see the many innovations made by Alter. And the dashboard looks great! It seems we sellers are spoilt for choice at the moment.

One small thing: When I look at an Alter listed name on my mobile phone, the text in the descriptions seems to jump a bit. Not sure if this is only on some devices.

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel It would be great if there is an option to download/export the listed names.

Great suggestion! We'll certainly consider it. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to support if you need a CSV export.

Edit: We just released a bulk export tool that allows you to download a CSV of your listed domains. You can access this tool by logging into your Alter account and then clicking on Domains > Listed > Export CSV (cloud icon found next to the search bar).

I just lowered the price of some of my domains. I wanted to know if potential buyers (people that have shortlisted a domain) are in any way informed about this change?

Great question. Buyers actually don't have user accounts and don't need to submit their email address to us in order to favorite a name so there would be no way for us to reach out to them. We didn't see a point in creating more friction for them in today's privacy-centric environment.

I'm kinda concerned about the amount of sales you guys are having based on the amount of reported sales at NamePros, which is usually a good indicator about how well a marketplace is doing but I'm going to submit a few more names and we'll see how things progress moving forward. Rock on.

Thanks for your continued support! In all fairness, we only have around 3% of the inventory compared to our competitors and most of that is of lower quality names since sellers that own high end names aren't going to switch right away. Long story short, you wouldn't see the same type of sales activity for us on NamePros right now. Also, please note that not all Alter sellers are on NamePros or are comfortable with sharing their sales. In fact, we have sellers who have already sold multiple domains.

The crown ain't safe on who (SH) is wearing it.

Thanks for the compliment but I have high respect and regard for all our competitors. Everyone started at the same place and they're all doing what they need to in order to succeed just like you and I. Competition is the backbone of our economy and necessary for innovation. It forces us to do our best.

Is this normal? http://prntscr.com/y9nwcf http://prntscr.com/y9nwzf
Using edge, no adblock, no zoom

One small thing: When I look at an Alter listed name on my mobile phone, the text in the descriptions seems to jump a bit. Not sure if this is only on some devices.

These UI issues seem device-specific. Can you please reach out to support with information about which device/OS/browser you're experiencing this on?

 

[sellian]

Great question. Buyers actually don't have user accounts and don't need to submit their email address to us in order to favorite a name so there would be no way for us to reach out to them. We didn't see a point in creating more friction for them in today's privacy-centric environment.

Thanks for your reply Deven!

But wouldn't it be a good idea to give buyers the option of entering their email addresses to receive a notification when there is a price reduction on the domains they have favorited? It could be just a window somewhere or some kind of pop-up message when the visitor is about to quit the site.

This is also a good way of gathering the emails of potential buyers which you can use in the future for marketing campaigns or something similar.