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.​

 

[DnDigger]

It could be more filtering options for buyers: by length, price, category, starts/ends with, contains.

 

[NameWell]

It could be more filtering options for buyers: by length, price, category, starts/ends with, contains.

Oh yes, that would be great!

 

[Deven Patel]

I have never seen in the other marketplaces, a small notification in the submitting form to alert us if is there a backlog of work and reviewing is delayed? or anyway more information to keep seller updated

Thanks for the feedback. We'll consider it.

couple of recommendation...
1) increase the speed tone by around 20% so so its faster. sounds slow and boring atm.

2) allow bulk/all selection of listed domains to be selected to increase/decrease prices and change installment settings.

1. Not sure I understand what you're referring to. Can you please clarify?

2. We'll consider a bulk price change feature. A bulk installment setting feature is already available here.

May I request a feature, that listing my domains at other marketplaces is optional at Alter?

I second this suggestion.

I appreciate the suggestion. We went back to the table and thought about this again. However, the pros still outweighed the cons. In fact, we came up with a few more pros this time. Here's our thought process:

• Simplicity: The beauty of automated partner listings is that sellers don't have to worry about putting more work into managing their portfolios on multiple platforms (i.e. prices are auto synced, domains are delisted at all partners upon a sale, etc). This efficiency benefits both sellers and partners. The productivity boost also increases over time as sellers grow their portfolios. Less time managing the portfolio = more time domaining (finding more quality assets to flip).
• Fairness: We invest a considerable amount of resources into the marketplace (staff, designers, customer service, marketing, development, partnerships, etc). Sellers are able to reap these benefits without spending a dime (no initial fees). When sales occur outside our platform, all the investment we made into promoting those domains is wasted (unlike our competitors who still take their cut). This means the rest of the sellers have to take the hit and eat that cost. And ultimately we would have to raise our commission to compensate for that loss.

As always, I welcome everyone's feedback. We're more than happy to work with everyone for the greater good as long as all parties benefit. A marketplace is a symbiotic relationship between three parties. When that balance breaks, everyone loses.

Deven, any chance you guys could also handle non-premium domains? I would love if I could control the listing and delisting of domains from 1 website...?

Thanks for the suggestion. We may consider it down the road. At this time, we're solely focused on brandables.

It could be more filtering options for buyers: by length, price, category, starts/ends with, contains.

Oh yes, that would be great!

Yup, we have that on our radar. Though at the moment our inventory is too small for this to actually be useful. Our smart search already takes care of this in a much simpler way (i.e. when you search for "tech" you'll see results that start with the keyword first, followed by results that contain the keyword, followed by the rest). The results can also be sorted by popularity, length, price, and filtered by category.

 

[clickcents]

Hi Deven,i recently came to know about Alter.com and looks fantastic and promising..

I just want to know one of the criteria for selection is age of the domain? I mean the recent hand regs are likely to get rejected eventhough the name is good and brandable?

I submitted some names which were part of BP,SH earlier and re-registered..i submitted these brandables ,but seems mainly because of its recent regs,got rejected..If age of the domain is a major concern in selection,many can avoid trying recent brandable selections..

I have no offence to your site's selection criteria,but just to check is it one of the reasons sothat i/we can avoid any recent brandable regs..

Good luck and keep growing..

 

[Reyginus]

Hi Deven,i recently came to know about Alter.com and looks fantastic and promising..

I just want to know one of the criteria for selection is age of the domain? I mean the recent hand regs are likely to get rejected eventhough the name is good and brandable?

I submitted some names which were part of BP,SH earlier and re-registered..i submitted these brandables ,but seems mainly because of its recent regs,got rejected..If age of the domain is a major concern in selection,many can avoid trying recent brandable selections..

I have no offence to your site's selection criteria,but just to check is it one of the reasons sothat i/we can avoid any recent brandable regs..

Good luck and keep growing..

Not at all. They review everything from recent handreg to old names. If they don't accept it, it is because it doesn't fit their marketplace at the time and not because it is new. Speaking from experience.

 

[cillx]

How often sellers can change the price? Can we change the price right after publishing?

I suggest allowing description when submitting brandable for consideration.

 

[Reyginus]

How often sellers can change the price? Can we change the price right after publishing?

I suggest allowing description when submitting brandable for consideration.

I think you can change as often as possible but I prefer to change price before listing. That is, once accepted, I point NS to Alter, then change if I think it deserves adjustment. That way, I don't mess up buyer's perception.

Changing after listing could harm a sale. Changing too much will harm a sale.

And for description, I prefer the way it is now. A description can spoil a good name. Say you were asked to describe Apple (the company) what will your description be like? And there are many unregistered/registered good names like that.

 

[cillx]

.

And for description, I prefer the way it is now. A description can spoil a good name. Say you were asked to describe Apple (the company) what will your description be like? And there are many unregistered/registered good names like that.

A description is not for all names, but some names need to be described. As you pointed out how I describe apple may be completely different from how you describe it.

So seller might have a completely different and fresh perspective. Maybe they need to mention previous offers, potential buyers, etc. When you submit 100 names you might need to describe only one or two names. To describe this very unique one or two names you can't email them, simply it is not practical

 

[Deven Patel]

Hi Deven,i recently came to know about Alter.com and looks fantastic and promising..

I just want to know one of the criteria for selection is age of the domain? I mean the recent hand regs are likely to get rejected eventhough the name is good and brandable?

I submitted some names which were part of BP,SH earlier and re-registered..i submitted these brandables ,but seems mainly because of its recent regs,got rejected..If age of the domain is a major concern in selection,many can avoid trying recent brandable selections..

I have no offence to your site's selection criteria,but just to check is it one of the reasons sothat i/we can avoid any recent brandable regs..

Good luck and keep growing..

Thanks for the compliment!

As @Reyginus mentioned, we treat all names equally when we review them. However, keep in mind that new names have a natural bias against them since quality names are generally already registered.

How often sellers can change the price? Can we change the price right after publishing?

You can change prices +/-20% at any time. But we recommend not to overdo it because if there's a potential buyer eyeing your name, it could have a negative impact on them.

I suggest allowing description when submitting brandable for consideration.

I appreciate the feedback! I think this was discussed before. We'll certainly consider it if enough sellers want this and it's beneficial for buyers. Right now though, the risks 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.

Like in the "apple" example above, a seller might describe it as a "great name for a farming business" based on their own vision even though the name could have many other potential uses.

We also try to keep the logos as generic as possible so they can be used across various industries and take into account current trends, etc. Ultimately, we want to simplify the sales process for sellers instead of complicating it.

That said, if there is a name you think needs special attention, just shoot us an email.

 

[smarti]

Deven - can't await the 15th Feb to see the names propagated!

Question - technically, what will happen, if names listed on Alter and pushed to DAN conflict with a name already listed on DAN? ( or Sedo) which one will "win"? I suppose local listing on DAN, SEDO etc will keep precedence and will not be cascaded by Alter?

Will Alter users be somehow notified, in case the names could not be listed on either platforms? Or is there some indication for that in the Alter UI?

The issue with DAN ( and especially Afternic - but OK, I read that Afternic is currently out of the game ) is that they do not force-validate a name, it means anyone can list a name without ownership approval ( only in case of a conflict, such as two names are listed by different users, DAN will enforce ownership approval via DNS )

 

[tiletalk]

Someone has listed some of my names for way less on sedo lol

 

[Reyginus]

Someone has listed some of my names for way less on sedo lol

Send a mail to Sedo.

 

[karmaco]

Send a mail to Sedo.

Not just an email.DAN or Sedo will require proof of ownership to remove or push into another account if the name is allready on the platform. Same for Afternic. Deven will probably find out alot of names are listed and never removed by previous owners.

 

[smarti]

either not removed by previous owners or those listed by frontrunners, on sedo its usually not that big issue, as whenever you list a domain, the approval process is re-triggered automatically, you dont have to do anything but set your TXT records right. Same for DAN. However, on Afternic that gets really annoyning, as you have to prove ownership manually by sending them emails with screenshots...feels like back in 90ies...

 

[Deven Patel]

Question - technically, what will happen, if names listed on Alter and pushed to DAN conflict with a name already listed on DAN? ( or Sedo) which one will "win"? I suppose local listing on DAN, SEDO etc will keep precedence and will not be cascaded by Alter?

Every marketplace has its own process. In DAN's case, I believe the domain will be automatically moved to the new account upon verification through a TXT record. In Sedo's case, I believe it's a manual process and the seller must remove the domain from their existing account first.

These potential conflicts are one of the reasons we decided to make our listings exclusive. So domains listed with Alter cannot be listed with our partners while on our marketplace. We're hoping this will help eliminate or at least dramatically reduce the manual effort involved with sorting out these issues for both us and our partners.

Will Alter users be somehow notified, in case the names could not be listed on either platforms? Or is there some indication for that in the Alter UI?

If we find that domains listed on our marketplace still exist in another account on partner sites, we may reach out to the seller to rectify the issue. But we're hoping that sellers will be understanding and take care of the removals themselves before listing their domains on Alter.

However, if we discover that sellers aren't and it's creating a lot of effort to sort it out on our end then I'm afraid we'll have to consider banning accounts and/or adding more rules to our marketplace like our competitors. Alternatively, we would have to raise our commission in the future to compensate for it (being super efficient is what allows us to offer the low commission rate right now).

DAN or Sedo will require proof of ownership to remove or push into another account if the name is allready on the platform.

Correct. Since all Alter domains are required to point to our nameservers, we can verify their ownership.

 

[Samxui]

This Crazy

Submitted 25 unregistered names. 4 got accepted.
including Smileta/com on 14th February (around 10pm). Saw the accept mail this morning.
Tried to register all four accepted names and I see Smileta already registered (on the same14th) and pointed to Alter.

Coincidence???

I've quickly registered the other names

 

[Reyginus]

This Crazy

Submitted 25 unregistered names. 4 got accepted.
including Smileta/com on 14th February (around 10pm). Saw the accept mail this morning.
Tried to register all four accepted names and I see Smileta already registered (on the same14th) and pointed to Alter.

Coincidence???

I've quickly registered the other names

Lolol. People are thinking what you are thinking. Never happened to me though. Even though a part of me yearns for the experience. Lol.

 

[Samxui]

People are thinking what you are thinking

True.
However, I still wonder how 2 users ended up submitting same names to Alter at most likely same time and the system didn't react.
Like there should have been a notification that someone else already submitted the name.

 

[xeroox]

@Deven Patel will the wait time of approval and listing improve in the future? I'm at 12 days now http://prntscr.com/zlknv1

 

[clickcents]

This Crazy

Submitted 25 unregistered names. 4 got accepted.
including Smileta/com on 14th February (around 10pm). Saw the accept mail this morning.
Tried to register all four accepted names and I see Smileta already registered (on the same14th) and pointed to Alter.

Coincidence???

I've quickly registered the other names

Wow..it is really surprise to see unregistered domains are also submitted for review..but as you know it is risky in this competitive domaining..even seconds are important for some names especially in expired names..you have submitted these names because these are good in your thinking with your domaining experience..but same way thousands of people are thinking in different domain combinations..Normally I register a name if i really like while on hand reg search..but i am sure we are on 50/50 toss only if we submit any unregsitered domains for any market place review..

But anyway 3 out of 4 domains you were able to regsiter which is nice and happy selling..