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.​

 

[LUCKYMONEY]

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.

Make sense!

 

[DuDD]

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

I'm so sorry, my English is not very good
I mean, in Alter.com,Can't you buy a domain name if it's not displayed?

• I don't know if that's clear.Thank you for your reply. My English is so poor

 

[BRANDERX]

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

Usually the answer can be found here, from others' experiences For urgent matters, i'll definitely do that.

On a different note, I think it would be helpful to add a "price appeal" option. Not every valuation will be spot on & in some cases it'll keep me from listing with Alter.

imo

 

[ksusha64]

@Deven Patel
Is there a way to push names from one Alter.com account to another? Thanks

 

[Deven Patel]

I'm so sorry, my English is not very good
I mean, in Alter.com,Can't you buy a domain name if it's not displayed?

• I don't know if that's clear.Thank you for your reply. My English is so poor

Sorry, I still don't understand. Please DM me so we can discuss this further without bloating this thread.

 

[Deven Patel]

On a different note, I think it would be helpful to add a "price appeal" option. Not every valuation will be spot on & in some cases it'll keep me from listing with Alter.

imo

You're always welcome to contact support if you want us to take another look at the price. Or just reply directly to the acceptance email notification you received for that domain.

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel
Is there a way to push names from one Alter.com account to another? Thanks

Yes, just re-submit the domains you want to push in the new account. They will automatically be re-accepted in the new account at which point you will have to re-verify them by pointing to a new set of nameservers. Once re-verified, they will automatically be listed on our marketplace again.

 

[Lord Antares]

I see an option to favorite domain names has been added. I like it. I assume it's new since 2 people favorited my domain since 4 days ago and never before.

After a while, I would really be interested to see some data pertaining to the favorite to sell ratio of domains. It would be a good gauge of domain desirability.

 

[Deven Patel]

I see an option to favorite domain names has been added. I like it. I assume it's new since 2 people favorited my domain since 4 days ago and never before.

After a while, I would really be interested to see some data pertaining to the favorite to sell ratio of domains. It would be a good gauge of domain desirability.

Actually the ability to favorite names has been around since we launched. Maybe you didn't notice it before your domains were favorited. As we grow our traffic, these numbers are bound to rise.

 

[Lord Antares]

Actually the ability to favorite names has been around since we launched. Maybe you didn't notice it before your domains were favorited. As we grow our traffic, these numbers are bound to rise.

I like the idea. It provides valuable data as for desirability or possible STR of a domain name. Favorites should be better than normal domain inquiries as the people who click on ''favorite'' already know the price and still think they're worthwhile.

Also, I love how you included the following point:

Relist Value Guarantee
Just like real estate assets, quality domains are hard to find and their value rises over time. We guarantee that example.com can be relisted here in the future for $x or more so you can recoup your investment if needed.

Such a clever way to poke clients with a stick and make the investment seem safer. And beautiful landing pages. Good job so far.

 

[Jeffrey]

A domain of mine was accepted by Alter, and I like the design of the logo provided. But I had to transfer this domain to another competing market for more exposure, but the new logo looks unsatisfying.

 

[Deven Patel]

A domain of mine was accepted by Alter, and I like the design of the logo provided.

Thanks for the kind words and for submitting your domains to Alter! I'm glad you liked our logo.

 

[tiletalk]

@Deven Patel how long is the wait time atm? I randomly submitted domains to see which ones would get accepted and which ones rejected and what prices would be suggested for the accepted ones.

Two domains have been pending for 3 days and still waiting.

 

[tiletalk]

@Deven Patel how long is the wait time atm? I randomly submitted domains to see which ones would get accepted and which ones rejected and what prices would be suggested for the accepted ones.

Two domains have been pending for 3 days and still waiting.

Sorted please ignore. Thanks

 

[ntjedge]

Congratulations @Deven Patel Alter marketplace looks good. Very professional Landing pages.

Quick query: Is there an option for sellers to upload their own logos for their domains once it is accepted?

 

[tiletalk]

Can I recommend you add an option which will allow sellers to reduce the price by 5%, 10%, 20% or let us choose an option where your system will automatically propose random discounts up to max %. This needs to be limited to max 10 to 20% of portfolio otherwise it will be mayhem.

Also at the same time allow increases in domain prices but with 1/2 week notice and it displays on the front saying Price increase peoposed! Buy now

Can you guys start sharing monthly sales volume? Say at the start of Feb you tally up total sales from Jan and so on? This will give confidence to sellers and may be a way to increase your popularity.

If you dont want to give total monthly sales volume then ok it is understandable, instead something like X many 1 letter domain, X many 2 letter domain, X many 3 and so on... sales for January etx

 

[Samer]

Will you ever release sales?

You would be making quite the entrance. Game changer

I saw thread; one guy say sold on Alter!

 

[Deven Patel]

Quick query: Is there an option for sellers to upload their own logos for their domains once it is accepted?

Not at this time as it could lead to a potential copyright issue. There's no way for us to know if the seller actually has the rights to upload that logo. But I appreciate the feedback, we'll certainly look into it to see if there's a way around that in the future (legally speaking).

 

[Samer]

Not at this time as it could lead to a potential copyright issue. There's no way for us to know if the seller actually has the rights to upload that logo. But I appreciate the feedback, we'll certainly look into it to see if there's a way around that in the future (legally speaking).

Never saw it from this angle; Tough.

Apologies, if you answered “disclose sales“

Samer

 

[Deven Patel]

Can I recommend you add an option which will allow sellers to reduce the price by 5%, 10%, 20% or let us choose an option where your system will automatically propose random discounts up to max %. This needs to be limited to max 10 to 20% of portfolio otherwise it will be mayhem.

Also at the same time allow increases in domain prices but with 1/2 week notice and it displays on the front saying Price increase peoposed! Buy now

Thanks for the feedback as always! I understand what you're looking to accomplish with this idea and would love to hear everyone else's opinion on it.

In the meantime, my personal thought is that this would create too much unnecessary complexity for everyone (buyers, sellers, and us).

On the buyer front, once they realize that the marketplace offers discounts, they will be more likely to wait around for them thus reducing the likelihood of an impulse sale (e.g. if you knew that GoDaddy offered discount codes every Black Friday, you would wait until November of every year to buy/renew domains; maybe that's why GoDaddy no longer offers promo codes). Additionally, one of the biggest selling points of a brandable marketplace (vs a regular one) is that the prices are reasonable and set in stone which builds a sense of trust with buyers (they would lose confidence if they knew prices could change especially after purchase; think about how you felt about your cable/internet/phone provider when you found out that new customers were receiving better discounts than you).

On the seller front, it's more work to constantly have to check/adjust prices for your portfolio (especially if it's a large portfolio). Additionally, it would be unfair to sellers who took advantage of these features vs those who didn't as they could potentially see lower STR rates. The way things are now levels the playing field for everyone as all they have to worry about is the quality of their domains.

For us, it would create more unnecessary support inquiries related to discounts which means we would have to invest more resources into the company. This ultimately means we would have to raise our commission to make up for it.

IMO, simplicity always wins. That said, if there's enough concrete data available that shows this actually works in the long-term and benefits both buyers and sellers then I'm all for it.

 

[Deven Patel]

Can you guys start sharing monthly sales volume? Say at the start of Feb you tally up total sales from Jan and so on? This will give confidence to sellers and may be a way to increase your popularity.

Will you ever release sales?

You would be making quite the entrance. Game changer

I saw thread; one guy say sold on Alter!

We'll certainly consider releasing this data at some point. But since we just started ramping up like 3 months ago it wouldn't make sense. It's too early for it to be meaningful. We only had around 200 names listed on our marketplace back in September. The sample size is way too small.

That said, I think the data would be more useful for buyers (as validation) than sellers because each seller will have a completely different outcome based on the quality of their portfolio. For example, I think a couple people posted about their Alter sales on this thread. One seller sold a domain in less than 2 weeks while it took a couple months for another seller.

 

[tiletalk]

Thanks for the feedback as always! I understand what you're looking to accomplish with this idea and would love to hear everyone else's opinion on it.

In the meantime, my personal thought is that this would create too much unnecessary complexity for everyone (buyers, sellers, and us).

On the buyer front, once they realize that the marketplace offers discounts, they will be more likely to wait around for them thus reducing the likelihood of an impulse sale (e.g. if you knew that GoDaddy offered discount codes every Black Friday, you would wait until November of every year to buy/renew domains; maybe that's why GoDaddy no longer offers promo codes). Additionally, one of the biggest selling points of a brandable marketplace (vs a regular one) is that the prices are reasonable and set in stone which builds a sense of trust with buyers (they would lose confidence if they knew prices could change especially after purchase; think about how you felt about your cable/internet/phone provider when you found out that new customers were receiving better discounts than you).

On the seller front, it's more work to constantly have to check/adjust prices for your portfolio (especially if it's a large portfolio). Additionally, it would be unfair to sellers who took advantage of these features vs those who didn't as they could potentially see lower STR rates. The way things are now levels the playing field for everyone as all they have to worry about is the quality of their domains.

For us, it would create more unnecessary support inquiries related to discounts which means we would have to invest more resources into the company. This ultimately means we would have to raise our commission to make up for it.

IMO, simplicity always wins. That said, if there's enough concrete data available that shows this actually works in the long-term and benefits both buyers and sellers then I'm all for it.

Thanks for your response Deven.

I am a new starter to domaining so I cannot give any response based on previous experience other than to say it is done by all companies such as amazon, ebay, etc.

I guess a promo every now and then wouldn't hurt and what you ideally want is an active community of sellers not just someone who lists the domains and never logs back in. They could have sold their domain elsewhere and forgot to remove it from marketplace (I guess your verification tool randomly checks for nameservers?). However by asking sellers to opt in to give discounts it forces us to login and make an update.

Also, any plans on adding a message box to talk with designer? I am not doubting their skills but sometimes as a domain owners we may have something in mind which we would like to be taken into account be it colour, the direction of the logo, etc.

Also hoping that the submitted domains will now be reviewed im around 48 hour marks rather than 72 now that we are out of holiday period.

 

[tiletalk]

@Deven Patel Can I add couple of further recommendation. Can you show the number of favourites on the front if more than 5/10 to show that it is hot domain name.

Also, the rejected names go to the bottom but I prefer to delete them once rejected. Can you allow us to select deleted domains at once and delete them rather than 1 by 1. It is not a big deal but tedious.

 

[Lord Antares]

@Deven Patel Can I add couple of further recommendation. Can you show the number of favourites on the front if more than 5/10 to show that it is hot domain name.

I was thinking about the same thing. If people can see that others have favorited domains, they might hurry and buy the domain. However, this might other domains which haven't been favorited. Not sure this is the right way.

If a person favorites a domain, you could send the other favoriters a notification. This would make them think about the domain again and might impact their decision. This might be good. But sending them an on-site notification might be useless as they won't be likely to browse it often and sending it via mail could be considered too aggressive. Many things to think about.

 

[Deven Patel]

I am a new starter to domaining so I cannot give any response based on previous experience other than to say it is done by all companies such as amazon, ebay, etc.

Thanks, I appreciate your thoughts and candor. We're definitely not ruling anything out. Just want to think it through some more. Like everything else in life, offering discounts has its pros and cons (e.g. short-term sales, customer loyalty, brand dilution, perceived value, etc). The answer is always more complicated than we think. Every company is different and makes the decision based on their own goals (e.g. Apple doesn't offer any discounts, Bed Bath & Beyond is notorious for offering discounts, GoDaddy doesn't offer promo codes BUT they offer a discount membership, etc).

I guess a promo every now and then wouldn't hurt and what you ideally want is an active community of sellers not just someone who lists the domains and never logs back in. They could have sold their domain elsewhere and forgot to remove it from marketplace (I guess your verification tool randomly checks for nameservers?). However by asking sellers to opt in to give discounts it forces us to login and make an update.

Actually, our goal is quite the opposite (simplicity). We don't want sellers to keep logging back into their account unless they absolutely need to. After all, time is the most valuable commodity we have in this world so why waste it? The more time we save for sellers, the more time sellers have to do what they love (domaining).

In terms of old listings, our system constantly checks every domain's nameservers and automatically removes the listing if they can't be verified. In case the nameservers were accidentally changed, the seller has an opportunity to correct the issue and relist the domain instantly.

Also, any plans on adding a message box to talk with designer? I am not doubting their skills but sometimes as a domain owners we may have something in mind which we would like to be taken into account be it colour, the direction of the logo, etc.

That's an interesting idea but the risks here are that (1) it's more work for the seller and (2) the seller might unknowingly lock themselves into a niche if they're not experienced enough. We try to keep the logos as generic as possible so they can be used across various industries. We also focus on current trends, etc. Ultimately, we want to simplify the sales process for sellers instead of complicating it.

Also hoping that the submitted domains will now be reviewed im around 48 hour marks rather than 72 now that we are out of holiday period.

We are doing the best we can so please bear with us. Remember, there's no downside here for sellers because they're allowed to do whatever they want with their names while we review them.