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.​

 

[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.

 

[Deven Patel]

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.

Thanks for the kind words and for the feedback! Much appreciated. We'll see what we can do.

 

[Natto]

@Deven Patel I saw one of my listed name changed to "Pending Listing", Is this normal? (Is there anything related logo redesign?)

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel I saw one of my listed name changed to "Pending Listing", Is this normal? (Is there anything related logo redesign?)

Nothing to worry about. We're just improving the landing pages with new features like keywords and business ideas. In order to implement these new features, we had to temporarily switch some pages back to pending while we work on them. They should be republished soon.

 

[ecomslice]

Have I missed a sale post ? anyone ?


Because if not, the " traffic theory " is not sane. need to cough up some ad expense.


However If sales have happened, lets rock it !

 

[Veneris]

Sold a domain at alter

Evacart//com
Sold : $1,099
Name was there for 2weeks before sale.
Thanks to alter team.

 

[Natto]

Listed price: $3,499
Initial offered, provided a lowest accepted price to Alter and sold at $1,500
Joined Alter late Sep-2020 and have 64 names live now

 

[sellian]

Show attachment 176246
Listed price: $3,499
Sold at lowest accepted price: $1,500
Joined Alter on the late Sep-2020 and have 64 names live now

Congratulations on your sale Natto! Would you share the number of shortlists this name had prior to the sale?

 

[ecomslice]

Awesome, Congratulations both , that is promising.

 

[ecomslice]

Show attachment 176246
Listed price: $3,499
Sold at lowest accepted price: $1,500
Joined Alter on the late Sep-2020 and have 64 names live now

By " lowest excepted price " do you mean buyer made an offer and you gave this level at that time for the alter team to work with ?

thanks in advance.

 

[Reyginus]

Hello, Dave Patel.

Can one submit an unregistered name and then when it is accepted, register it before pointing the nameservers to your site and asking you to go ahead with listing in the marketplace?

 

[Deven Patel]

Hello, Dave Patel.

Can one submit an unregistered name and then when it is accepted, register it before pointing the nameservers to your site and asking you to go ahead with listing in the marketplace?

Yes, you can.

 

[Future Sensors]

Yes, you can.

Double check, are you listing / allowing unregistered domains on the platform?

 

[Kpett]

Double check, are you listing / allowing unregistered domains on the platform?

@Future Sensors - That's not what he said. Deven was saying Alter would review a name, whether registered or not, and then, if accepted, the user could then register it, and then point the nameservers to Alter for the domain to be listed. There are no un-registered names listed on Alter.

However, personally, if I were running Alter, I would not allow that ... would not want my team reviewing names that had not yet been registered.

 

[Deven Patel]

Double check, are you listing / allowing unregistered domains on the platform?

You can submit unregistered domains for review at which point we will either accept or decline them. If accepted, you will have to register and verify them before they can be listed. I hope that clarifies it.

That said, please be mindful of what you submit. You can view our existing listings for the types of domains we're looking for. Submitting random/low quality names will just waste our time and slow down the approval process for everyone. If this does end up becoming a problem, we will have to stop allowing unregistered submissions in the future.

 

[Future Sensors]

You can submit unregistered domains for review at which point we will either accept or decline them. If accepted, you will have to register and verify them before they can be listed. I hope that clarifies it.

That said, please be mindful of what you submit. You can view our existing listings for the types of domains we're looking for. Submitting random/low quality names will just waste our time and slow down the approval process for everyone else. If this does end up becoming a problem, we will have to stop allowing unregistered submissions in the future.

Ah clear. Especially the "before they can be listed" part.

I haven't tried your platform yet, but it certainly looks good.

Thank you for the clarification, @Deven Patel

 

[BRANDERX]

Some of my names listed 3 months ago are no longer live for some reason, they're now "pending listing".

Landing page shows "will be listed shortly", & logo is gone.

 

[DuDD]

I tried searching the domain name.

• If it's not in the list, can't you query it?
  

 

[BRANDERX]

Some of my names listed 3 months ago are no longer live for some reason, they're now "pending listing".

Landing page shows "will be listed shortly", & logo is gone.

Ah I see it's been addressed earlier.

Sorry

 

[ecomslice]

You can submit unregistered domains for review at which point we will either accept or decline them. If accepted, you will have to register and verify them before they can be listed. I hope that clarifies it.

That said, please be mindful of what you submit. You can view our existing listings for the types of domains we're looking for. Submitting random/low quality names will just waste our time and slow down the approval process for everyone. If this does end up becoming a problem, we will have to stop allowing unregistered submissions in the future.

Could you consider restricting only accounts with poor unregistered submission approvals ?
if I knew it would be individual basis, Id not rush bulk entries like I am currently.

 

[Reyginus]

You can submit unregistered domains for review at which point we will either accept or decline them. If accepted, you will have to register and verify them before they can be listed. I hope that clarifies it.

That said, please be mindful of what you submit. You can view our existing listings for the types of domains we're looking for. Submitting random/low quality names will just waste our time and slow down the approval process for everyone. If this does end up becoming a problem, we will have to stop allowing unregistered submissions in the future.

Please, don't. You can reduce the number of unregistered names instead if that becomes a problem. Like SH allows just 3 to be reviewed at a time.

 

[Deven Patel]

I tried searching the domain name.

• If it's not in the list, can't you query it?

Not sure what you mean. Can you please clarify your question?

 

[Deven Patel]

Ah I see it's been addressed earlier.

Sorry

No worries. In the future, please reach out to support for a quicker response.

 

[Deven Patel]

@ecomslice @Reyginus Great suggestions regarding unregistered domains. We'll certainly consider these options if it comes down to it. Thanks!

 

[Reyginus]

@ecomslice @Reyginus Great suggestions regarding unregistered domains. We'll certainly consider these options if it comes down to it. Thanks!

Another suggestion if you don't mind.

You can also have options for both Registered and Unregistered. And in Unregistered, no registered name can be submitted as attempt will show 'this name is already registered' just like in SH. That will also help to reduce the workload.

Just like you said, if you can add the good ideas others implemented to the good ideas you have and still give more commission you will be the competition.