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.​

 

[ecomslice]

Im confused, how can I tell the difference between my Premium and standard now ? there are no stars beside any in " domains " section.

 

[ddesigns]

Appreciate the compliments, thanks! No matter the tool you use, you will always have to use your personal judgement to make the final call with automated appraisals. That said, we did test a lot of our existing listings against the tool and majority of them were appraised very well. There was a bug when we first launched so you may not have gotten the right appraisals yesterday. Can you please try now? Also, feel free to DM that domain to me. Now I'm curious.

Thanks for the reply and feels good to see that Alter is upgrading the features. I will surely DM you the name so you can see

 

[Future Sensors]

Hi @Deven Patel

Congratulations on the new features, much appreciated

My Alter portfolio is now 720 domains - or 17% of all my names.

I noticed that some fonts don't support numbers. Alter is provisioning fonts randomly to newly added domains, so some logos show the wrong info for such domains containing a number. Incomplete fonts are: Budget, Christopher Done, Daddy Rewind, Elektra (this one is particularly interesting, as it replaces the number with info about the maker of the font), First Man, Gecko Lunch, Golden Ranger, Happy Sunday, Humble Cafe, Kashie Mercy, Kestoy Rock, Nadia Sofia, Rhyanie Lane, Richie Brusher, Ruth Calligraph, Wild Black, Wild Black Italic.

In the keywords field, I'm unable to enter a number, so I'm unable to enter technical terms like e.g. "5G".

I've started ordering Alter logos for 15 domains. Is it possible to keep track of the domains I've made these logo requests for? Like a short message that a request has been made on the details page. And a graphical indication in the portfolio overview (status: Logo Active/Logo Requested/No Custom Logo).

While editing and saving, I'm experiencing a lot of really short Alter "Under Maintenance" messages, which immediately disappear when I reload the page (or resubmit my edits). Are you aware of this?

Thanks for fixing the business card mockup for longer domain names.

Keep up the good work, you're innovating fast.

 

[Keith DeBoer]

Syndication means that your domain will be automatically listed on Sedo (without Sedo MLS) and on Dan.
And then Sedo will list your domain automatically at the partner domain name registrars.

But Afternic doesn't support this, so then you have to manually list your domain on Afternic Fast Transfer.

Deven, Is this accurate? Can you confirm this, please? Thanks!

 

[xeroox]

@Deven Patel following the question above, how is calculated the markup? my domain on alter with 2499 price, on sedo is 3199

 

[wwwulff]

SmartShop for $5,265 - I would like to bye it for that price and I`m not an enduser

 

[Deven Patel]

I tested the free AI-powered domain appraisal tool by Alter, and it is pretty good! In fact I have never seen an automated appraisal tool before which is as accurate as Alter's. Try it out with a few domains, it can appraise domains pretty accurately.

But it is an automated tool, so it is not perfect of course, but it is a good, free tool to give you a baseline for an appraisal.

It would be useful to list the appraisal values automatically next to each domain name in our portfolio on the "Domains" tab.

Could you offer bulk appraisals? So a textarea where I can enter multiple domains at a time and then the tool would appraise them in bulk with one click.

Thanks for testing! We'll certainly consider those ideas.

Yes, the tool. They actually limit the number of searches you can do.

Correct, as with any other automated tool, you still have to use your personal judgement.

Regarding the limit, how many domains are you trying to appraise? We have a daily limit to prevent abuse. Though the limit for logged in users is much higher than for visitors.

Im confused, how can I tell the difference between my Premium and standard now ? there are no stars beside any in " domains " section.

That's kind of the point. Please see the "Rethinking Premium" section of the last announcement for details.

I noticed that some fonts don't support numbers. Alter is provisioning fonts randomly to newly added domains, so some logos show the wrong info for such domains containing a number. Incomplete fonts are: Budget, Christopher Done, Daddy Rewind, Elektra (this one is particularly interesting, as it replaces the number with info about the maker of the font), First Man, Gecko Lunch, Golden Ranger, Happy Sunday, Humble Cafe, Kashie Mercy, Kestoy Rock, Nadia Sofia, Rhyanie Lane, Richie Brusher, Ruth Calligraph, Wild Black, Wild Black Italic.

Thanks so much for investing your time into this! Great catch. We just removed those fonts.

Is it possible to keep track of the domains I've made these logo requests for? Like a short message that a request has been made on the details page. And a graphical indication in the portfolio overview (status: Logo Active/Logo Requested/No Custom Logo).

That's an interesting request. Is there something specific you're trying to accomplish? If you're worried about repeat orders, you should see a note about the previous order when you try to order again.

While editing and saving, I'm experiencing a lot of really short Alter "Under Maintenance" messages, which immediately disappear when I reload the page (or resubmit my edits). Are you aware of this?

Thanks for reporting this. It should now be fixed.

Does this mean Alter auto-propagates listings to the Afternic network or is it some other network.? Or ??? Can you give us more details please?

following the question above, how is calculated the markup? my domain on alter with 2499 price, on sedo is 3199

Afternic isn't our partner at the moment but Sedo and DAN are. The rest of the registrars are part of Sedo's MLS network. So all domains listed on Alter will automatically be syndicated across their network.

The partner's commission is added on top of our price so your net is the same as if you sold the domain through Alter. It's no different than how MLS partners markup their prices.

The benefit here is that this helps you save a ton of time because you don't have to worry about dealing with different companies, updating prices across accounts, re-verifying domains, etc. However, if you prefer you can choose not to syndicate your domains by heading over to your account "Settings" page and then clicking on the "Syndication" button.

The way it stands now, listing your domains on Alter and Afternic would give you the broadest coverage for the least amount of effort.

SmartShop for $5,265 - I would like to bye it for that price and I`m not an enduser

Automated tools are never 100% on the mark, even humans aren't.

As I mentioned before, you still have to use your personal judgement when it comes to automated tools especially because appraisals aren't a science and everyone has their own opinion on what a domain is worth. For example, look at EstiBot's appraisal for this domain ($2,300).

 

[davidc1]

I currently use dan for my domains (20k+), is it possible to sell all over alter ?
Why would it better to use alter ?
Do you have a csv import/export and/or API for bulk sellers ?

 

[ecomslice]

I think we would need to know their commitment and amount of ad expenses to know the true value.
I am curious if it will be a good thing, or a massive cesspool of poop with any quality floating with random success.

I currently use dan for my domains (20k+), is it possible to sell all over alter ?
Why would it better to use alter ?
Do you have a csv import/export and/or API for bulk sellers ?

 

[davidc1]

I think we would need to know their commitment and amount of ad expenses to know the true value.
I am curious if it will be a good thing, or a massive cesspool of poop with any quality floating with random success.

I dont need any marketing on my domains, except sedo mls automatically added.
I have some cons about dan and it seems alter take care of what says their customers to improve their product...

 

[ecomslice]

I respect your strategy. But I've sold 30+ domains on squadhelp that had no chance ever selling. So I'm super confident ads work.

Maybe it's a two heads are better then one thing. Sedo MLS. Plus ads. Might make magic

In my humble opinion the more people in a mall. The more each store will sell.

 

[Future Sensors]

That's an interesting request. Is there something specific you're trying to accomplish? If you're worried about repeat orders, you should see a note about the previous order when you try to order again.

Hi @Deven Patel. It's because it's difficult to keep track of which domains currently have logos. I'd like to order more logos, but it's not easy to see which domains already have (custom) logos in my portfolio. With larger portfolios like mine (737 domains at Alter, atm) this really is an issue. I'd like to spend more, but miss the overview.

 

[BrandableDomain]

Congrats to Deven and the Alter team for the fast and positive development of the platform.

I agree with @Future Sensors that a logo indicator would be useful in the domain manager. It would be even better if Alter logos could be distinguished from Seller logos too. For example:

Maybe some more metrics would also be good on the Dashboard page like total domains listed, as well as domains with logos listed.

I did notice that the total domains listed is displayed on the domain manager page, but the Dashboard is great as an overview.

 

[ddesigns]

@Deven Patel What I notice after the update is, the domains listed at Alter are not seen on Dan or Sedo. Though the traffic stats shows visits from partner, still they are not seen on those platforms. It was showing earlier..

 

[BrandableDomain]

Stars are now displaying in the domain manager to denote the addition of logos. If you hover over a star, a hint tells you whether it is a professional Alter logo or one uploaded by the seller.

Thanks @Deven Patel.

I have just uploaded a new logo for review, and noticed that that domain now displays a very pale star and the hint message says "Uploaded logo is pending".

These innovations are very good.

 

[Future Sensors]

Stars are now displaying in the domain manager to denote the addition of logos. If you hover over a star, a hint tells you whether it is a professional Alter logo or one uploaded by the seller.

Thanks @Deven Patel.

I have just uploaded a new logo for review, and noticed that that domain now displays a very pale star and the hint message says "Uploaded logo is pending".

These innovations are very good.

Good to see indeed - thanks @Deven Patel !

 

[Lord Antares]

Some questions.

If there is no manual curation, what stops people from submitting a bunch of non-brandable, subpar domains on the marketplace? Is your automatic tool really going to be able to differentiate them from domains which should be on a brandable domain marketplace?

What differentiates your marketplace from any other at this point? It's more like DAN or Afternic with added logos.

And most importantly, hear me out:

Why would somebody list their domains for syndication on your marketplace? You list on DAN, for example, so that sellers don't need to do that themselves. HOWEVER, you mark up the domains thereby reducing the sellers' STR. Why on earth wouldn't a seller list their domains on DAN themselves with the original price?

You're essentially just taking a cut in return for saving us a little bit of time. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Charybdis]

Why would somebody list their domains for syndication on your marketplace?

You can disable that if you want, visit the settings page. Syndication is optional.

 

[ecomslice]

Some questions.

If there is no manual curation, what stops people from submitting a bunch of non-brandable, subpar domains on the marketplace? Is your automatic tool really going to be able to differentiate them from domains which should be on a brandable domain marketplace?

What differentiates your marketplace from any other at this point? It's more like DAN or Afternic with added logos.

And most importantly, hear me out:

Why would somebody list their domains for syndication on your marketplace? You list on DAN, for example, so that sellers don't need to do that themselves. HOWEVER, you mark up the domains thereby reducing the sellers' STR. Why on earth wouldn't a seller list their domains on DAN themselves with the original price?

You're essentially just taking a cut in return for saving us a little bit of time. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In my view, all he did was decide to be like dan, there is now zero advantage to listing on alter vrs dan aside from 1% commission saved, UNLESS we know ad expenses.

Regardless, Alter is a decent option, but it is no longer a " special " option, it is a " value " option. and soon it will hold a million domains in the pile of their search engine.

please note: I still think its a positive strategy. but do not compare this to the next big thing.

 

[Lord Antares]

In my view, all he did was decide to be like dan, there is now zero advantage to listing on alter vrs dan aside from 1% commission saved, UNLESS we know ad expenses.

Regardless, Alter is a decent option, but it is no longer a " special " option, it is a " value " option. and soon it will hold a million domains in the pile of their search engine.

please note: I still think its a positive strategy. but do not compare this to the next big thing.

I agree with everything you said. I think he just saw that most of the traffic was coming in from domain type ins therefore more domains = more sales. And since they are no longer reviewing domains, more domains just linearly brings them more profit as they're not wasting time and resources.

All in all, if you intend to keep a brandable market very high quality with hand picked domains, you simply need a lot of marketing and therefore STR would skyrocket between a smaller pool of domains. In that case, I think they needed to charge more commission and charge for listings.

Otherwise, the marketplace inevitably becomes another DAN. As such, I don't quite see the benefits.
I'm not saying it's bad. They have beautiful landing pages IMO and clearly there's something going on with their AI domain selection and filtering but as of now, I don't see it as anything unique.