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.​

 

[Deven Patel]

How are you currently acquiring new visits?

From what we're seeing, most buyers are coming in through direct/type-in traffic. All the redirected traffic is pooled together creating a win-win scenario for both buyers and sellers. It gives buyers more options and sellers more leads (i.e. a buyer that landed on domain A may end up buying domain B and vice versa). Though this doesn't mean we're not going to utilize other marketing channels. We still plan to but just more efficiently (i.e. use them to enhance our inbound marketing efforts instead). Remember, we don't succeed unless we actually sell the names so sales are ultimately our top priority.

Once we have a decent number of listings, we'll also begin building a community of entrepreneurs who are looking to start new businesses through various marketing channels.

 

[Deven Patel]

Oh, those are premium names I see on the homepage ... also love the logos, they're quality unlike most others at other marketplaces.

Edit: Signed up and submitted a few names, they've been reviewed within half an hour, this is quite impressive!

Thanks! I appreciate your honest review.

 

[Votumejero]

Only one got accepted of 26 submitted. Any hope for review in the nearest future?

 

[Igor Mironyuk]

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

Why are you rule only domain must have your marketplace's landing page all the time the domain listed at your marketplace?

 

[Deven Patel]

Previously after signing up about 2 months ago, I had a plan to create a Thread Alter.com in NamePros but that hasn't happened
(May be waiting for the first sale)

Glad to see you on NP @Deven Patel

I submit 106 names gradually..
19 Accepted, the rest Rejected.

Currently 13 listed that I decided to stick with Alter.

Thanks a lot for chiming in! Looks like I beat you to it.

Just a word of caution to everyone... when comparing accept/reject rates please keep in mind that it all depends on the quality of the domains. This is a vanity metric that shouldn't be used to determine success. Each seller will have a completely different outcome based on the quality of their portfolio. The same holds true for sales/conversion rates. It all depends on the quality of the domains. No two sellers are the same.

For example, if a seller submitted 100 domains and 99 were low quality then the success rate would only be 1%. On the other hand, if a seller submitted 10 domains and 9 were high quality then the success rate would be a whopping 90%!

 

[SuperBrander]

@Deven Patel The site looks good, the domain is phenomenal and the logos are great. At the moment, I couldn't see a FAQ section anywhere so I am wondering about a few things. For example:

What methods of payment are accepted and how can funds be withdrawn? Is the sale process done using an escrow service or in house? What process do you have in place in order to make sure a buyer won't use a fake credit card or try to steal the domain in another way? Do domains get transfered to Alter.com's team and from there to the buyer or are they transfered directly to the buyer? Do you plan on adding chat support? Installment plans? Marketing domains on Google/Facebook/etc.? How many people are currently working at Alter?

10% commission isn't too bad, but it seems like it's mostly for a landing page and a logo at this point in time. I don't think type in traffic for a domain someone else owns would help other sellers get sales at the moment since the marketplace isn't established yet, isn't marketed to potential buyers and probably has very few sales. SH's White Label Marketplace offers a 7.5% commission for a personalized marketplace with 24/7 support, installments, ability to upload logos and control the prices, the description and the way the domains are presented. Efty doesn't charge a commission at all, also gives a lot of flexibility regarding appearance, text and pricing plus has Dan.com integration if needed and also allows sellers to handle leads on their own. So I'm not sure if your site currently offers a better alter(native) than those options or BrandBucket/BrandPa, which might be the real competitors you're trying to be an alternative for but at the moment have a big advantage since they're already established and attract potential buyers not just based on direct traffic.

I'm open to be convinced though because I like the potential and the buyer oriented mindset (if it can result in more eyeballs/buyers).

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel

Questions :

1. Every new marketplace must at a certain point in time, contend with choosing between keeping a low number of domain names (of say higher quality) or expanding , which can turn the marketplace quickly into a crowded shed. what are your plans when you reach this very point, as your marketplace becomes more popular and expands.

2. Can you add payonneer ,

Thanks for asking! Agreed, every marketplace faces that challenge at one point. I'm personally not a big fan of compromising quality for quantity. We're essentially looking for brand names that entrepreneurs can build great companies on and we're not going to stray away from that goal. If we do need to expand in the future, we'll do it through other means that doesn't impact our premium listings. That's all I can say publicly I'm afraid but we definitely have plans to solve that problem.

And yes, we'll certainly look into supporting Payoneer if there's enough demand. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Deven Patel]

are you expect a new domain? or this market only for the old domain?

Not sure I understand exactly what you're asking but we're looking for sellers who want to sell the domains they already own. Does that answer your question?

 

[Deven Patel]

Only one got accepted of 26 submitted. Any hope for review in the nearest future?

Sorry about that! As I mentioned above, when comparing accept/reject rates please keep in mind that it all depends on the quality of the domains. This is a vanity metric that shouldn't be used to determine success. Each seller will have a completely different outcome based on the quality of their portfolio. The same holds true for sales/conversion rates. It all depends on the quality of the domains. No two sellers are the same.

 

[Lord Antares]

I for one fully agree with the concept of accepting only good names. I criticize some other marketplaces because they accept all kinds of trash, which will clutter the market and will put off some buyers.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if a normal acceptance rate turned out to be 1-2%

 

[Nametree]

I signed up and added a few names because the branding, look, feel and 10% commission are attractive - especially when you say, like in your original post, that you are buyer-focused. In my mind, that sounded like you'd be stepping up to invest in outreach and bring buyers to the marketplace.

But then...

From what we're seeing, most buyers are coming in through direct/type-in traffic. All the redirected traffic is pooled together creating a win-win scenario for both buyers and sellers. It gives buyers more options and sellers more leads (i.e. a buyer that landed on domain A may end up buying domain B and vice versa). This is why we're able to offer such a low commission.

That's not promising at all. Basically, you're not doing anything new from any other marketplace, which is, building your own brand value on the back of traffic domainers bring to you. There's nothing innovative about that. If your main differentiator, as you say, is the lower commission, well, you're late to the party - Squadhelp WLM is 7.5%, and Efty+Dan integration is I believe 5%.

If you're here to build something new and different, the only way I see for you to carve yourself a niche is to figure out a way to bring traffic in, and bring more sales. Squadhelp is also ahead of the game on that, as they advertise domains quite well. When you say you're building a community of entrepreneurs, sharing business ideas, etc, that all sounds promising but also quite vague and it all takes investment and time.

I don't mean to be grilling you and I think competition and innovation is always welcome in domaining, but I do want to hear more about your vision and how you intend to differentiate Alter (beyond competing on price/commission, where, already, you are losing.) Specifically, when you say buyer-focused, do you just mean good customer service (vague), or do you mean you'll be working on bringing in more buyers (and how?)

 

[Deven Patel]

Why are you rule only domain must have your marketplace's landing page all the time the domain listed at your marketplace?

Are you asking why you must forward your domain to our landing page? This allows potential buyers who visit your domain to know that it's for sale. Also, traffic from across all domains is pooled together creating a win-win scenario for both buyers and sellers. It gives buyers more options and sellers more leads (i.e. a buyer that landed on domain A may end up buying domain B and vice versa). It's standard practice with all brandable marketplaces.

 

[Deven Patel]

@Deven Patel The site looks good, the domain is phenomenal and the logos are great. At the moment, I couldn't see a FAQ section anywhere so I am wondering about a few things.

Thanks for the compliments and the questions! We just launched a couple months ago in June of this year so still working on a lot of stuff. Please bear with us.

What methods of payment are accepted and how can funds be withdrawn?

For buyers, we accept all major credit cards and bank wires. For sellers, we support PayPal and wire transfers.

Is the sale process done using an escrow service or in house?

Sales are processed in-house but we do use Escrow.com if the buyer specifically requests it.

What process do you have in place in order to make sure a buyer won't use a fake credit card or try to steal the domain in another way?

We only transfer the domain over to the buyer once payment is successfully received.

Do domains get transfered to Alter.com's team and from there to the buyer or are they transfered directly to the buyer?

When sold, we ask sellers to transfer the domains to us first and then we transfer them to the buyer to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Do you plan on adding chat support?

Eventually, once we determine how effective it is compared to our existing support options (e.g. online, phone, email).

Installment plans?

This is a tough one. We considered adding the option but didn't have enough data to justify it. There's a major downside to installment payments which is that once one buyer starts the payments the domain is locked for a considerable amount of time where another buyer can't purchase it even if they're willing to pay full price. That's a huge opportunity cost. Also, if the buyer isn't willing to pay full price upfront then there's a chance they may default on the payments all while future buyers are locked out. So we'll have to wait and see if there's enough demand for it on the buyer side before we add the option.

Marketing domains on Google/Facebook/etc.?

Absolutely, we're just getting started!

How many people are currently working at Alter?

I'm afraid I can't answer that question publicly in order to keep competitors at bay.

10% commission isn't too bad, but it seems like it's mostly for a landing page and a logo at this point in time. I don't think type in traffic for a domain someone else owns would help other sellers get sales at the moment since the marketplace isn't established yet, isn't marketed to potential buyers and probably has very few sales. SH's White Label Marketplace offers a 7.5% commission for a personalized marketplace with 24/7 support, installments, ability to upload logos and control the prices, the description and the way the domains are presented. Efty doesn't charge a commission at all, also gives a lot of flexibility regarding appearance, text and pricing plus has Dan.com integration if needed and also allows sellers to handle leads on their own. So I'm not sure if your site currently offers a better alter(native) than those options or BrandBucket/BrandPa, which might be the real competitors you're trying to be an alternative for but at the moment have a big advantage since they're already established and attract potential buyers not just based on direct traffic.

Think of it this way, we're going to do everything our competitors are doing and more all while being 3X cheaper than them (i.e. 10% commission with us vs 30-35% with competitors). We're going to accomplish this by operating much more efficiently than them (i.e. low overhead, more automation, better allocation of marketing budget, etc). But first we need to increase our listings which means marketing to sellers. That's why I'm here talking to you! Unless we have a decent inventory, most of the buyer-focused marketing would be wasted.

The 7.5% commission you mentioned is really for a Sedo/Afternic/DAN-like experience that offers no curation whatsoever. You're basically asking buyers to find a needle in a haystack of low quality domains. No buyer is going to put that much effort searching through them. I know I never did when I was a buyer.

And I understand why sellers get excited about white label options but I haven't seen any solid data that supports the theory that white label is better than a well-trusted brand like the marketplace itself (i.e. if you were a buyer would you rather buy a domain on GoDaddy or KoolBizNames.com?). I mean I understand white label makes us feel better and we think that buyers will only see our domains vs the others on the marketplace but on the contrary I think buyers are much smarter than that especially when it comes to buying high end domains. They're not going to spend thousands of dollars without thoroughly considering the available alternatives.

By the way, do you have any concrete data that shows what percentage of sales are coming through direct vs other marketing channels on those other marketplaces? We have tried some of those other marketing channels briefly and direct/type-in won hands down. It actually makes sense when you think about it. How many entrepreneurs you know find domains for their business on social media or through PPC or through banner ads? I have started countless projects in the past and have always found domains directly by visiting their landing pages (type-in). Anyway, we still plan on utilizing the other marketing channels but just more efficiently (i.e. use them to enhance our inbound marketing efforts instead).

One last thing, more listings doesn't necessarily mean more sales. I would argue the opposite. Less listings means more sales because buyers have limited options. When it comes to quality vs quantity, I believe quality always wins hands down.

Like other brandable marketplaces, our team actually spends a ton of time curating all the domain listings in addition to the logos. Then there's a ton of marketing work we're doing behind the scenes to grow sales. Remember, we don't succeed unless we actually sell the names so believe it or not sales are ultimately our top priority. So I hope you do give us a chance because without sellers like you, we're screwed!

 

[Deven Patel]

I signed up and added a few names because the branding, look, feel and 10% commission are attractive - especially when you say, like in your original post, that you are buyer-focused. In my mind, that sounded like you'd be stepping up to invest in outreach and bring buyers to the marketplace.

But then...

That's not promising at all. Basically, you're not doing anything new from any other marketplace, which is, building your own brand value on the back of traffic domainers bring to you. There's nothing innovative about that. If your main differentiator, as you say, is the lower commission, well, you're late to the party - Squadhelp WLM is 7.5%, and Efty+Dan integration is I believe 5%.

If you're here to build something new and different, the only way I see for you to carve yourself a niche is to figure out a way to bring traffic in, and bring more sales. Squadhelp is also ahead of the game on that, as they advertise domains quite well. When you say you're building a community of entrepreneurs, sharing business ideas, etc, that all sounds promising but also quite vague and it all takes investment and time.

I don't mean to be grilling you and I think competition and innovation is always welcome in domaining, but I do want to hear more about your vision and how you intend to differentiate Alter (beyond competing on price/commission, where, already, you are losing.) Specifically, when you say buyer-focused, do you just mean good customer service (vague), or do you mean you'll be working on bringing in more buyers (and how?)

I really appreciate your thoughts and thanks for signing up! Sorry, I didn't do such a great job answering that question.

Think of it this way, we're going to do everything our competitors are doing and more all while being 3X cheaper than them (i.e. 10% commission with us vs 30-35% with competitors). We're going to accomplish this by operating much more efficiently than them (i.e. low overhead, more automation, better allocation of marketing budget, etc). But first we need to increase our listings which means marketing to sellers. That's why I'm here talking to you! Unless we have a decent inventory, most of the buyer-focused marketing would be wasted.

The 7.5% commission you mentioned is really for a Sedo/Afternic/DAN-like experience that offers no curation whatsoever. You're basically asking buyers to find a needle in a haystack of low quality domains. No buyer is going to put that much effort searching through them. I know I never did when I was a buyer.

And I understand why sellers get excited about white label options but I haven't seen any solid data that supports the theory that white label is better than a well-trusted brand like the marketplace itself (i.e. if you were a buyer would you rather buy a domain on GoDaddy or KoolBizNames.com?). I mean I understand white label makes us feel better and we think that buyers will only see our domains vs the others on the marketplace but on the contrary I think buyers are much smarter than that especially when it comes to buying high end domains. They're not going to spend thousands of dollars without thoroughly considering the available alternatives.

By the way, do you have any concrete data that shows what percentage of sales are coming through direct vs other marketing channels on those other marketplaces? We have tried some of those other marketing channels briefly and direct/type-in won hands down. It actually makes sense when you think about it. How many entrepreneurs you know find domains for their business on social media or through PPC or through banner ads? I have started countless projects in the past and have always found domains directly by visiting their landing pages (type-in). Anyway, we still plan on utilizing the other marketing channels but just more efficiently (i.e. use them to enhance our inbound marketing efforts instead).

I know a lot of this sounds pretty vague right now but it's very difficult to describe our roadmap in detail because as you know competition is always lurking around.

Like other brandable marketplaces though, rest assured that our team actually spends a ton of time curating all the domain listings in addition to the logos. Then there's a ton of marketing work we're doing behind the scenes to grow sales. Remember, we don't succeed unless we actually sell the names so believe it or not sales are ultimately our top priority. So I hope you do give us a chance because without sellers like you, we're screwed!

 

[SuperBrander]

@Deven Patel Thanks for the detailed response.

Regarding installment plans- while you're right and some buyers default, the ability to pay with installments can enable sales that would otherwise not happen and installments are becoming a must in any brandable marketplace these days and also at registrars and marketplaces such as Dan.com, Epik.com, NameSilo.com etc. (I think eventually installments will get to Godaddy/Sedo as well). I'm pro installments since I both sell domains using installments and buy domains using installments. Sometimes I buy domains that I would have skipped if the option to pay for them conveniently didn't exist and for startups this is even more relevant and can allow purchases they wouldn't have otherwise made. As for sales- I've only had one buyer default so far. Also, please keep in mind that there's the option of offering installments with a big down payment- so that way the buyer is more invested from the get go and the seller gets more money upfront so even if the buyer defaults- there's a significant upside. It's an option to consider.

As for the sales- I think you're contradicting yourself somewhat. You say that on the one hand most buyers arrive directly to the landing page of the domain they want and on the other hand- that you expect this direct traffic to generate sales for other people. If people have tons of direct traffic for certain domains- they can use Efty + Escrow.com or Efty + Dan.com and pay much less than 10%. Potential buyers from direct traffic that eventually buy a different domain account for some sales in brandable marketplaces of course, but you need to prove that it works at Alter and that the 10% comission is worth pointing the landing page to you. The marketing spend to get potential buyers should be significant (which might be problematic when you take 1/3 of the commission other marketplaces take and don't have that extra money to invest in marketing) and sales shouldn't be mostly based on the direct traffic the domains bring. BB and especially SH invest a whole lot of money into marketing. BB has very strong connections and repeat customers who buy many domains. SH also has potential buyers attracted by their contests. You guys have the potential to get there, but it's a leap of faith using you at the moment. I'm not against making that leap or at least trying it out with a few domains- but at the moment, it's more likely that you'll get 10% for sales that sellers could have gotten elsewhere with a simple landing page and a lesser commission since you're just getting started with advertising and Alter is still an unproven and unknown entity. Great name, great logos and this seems serious- but it might take time until this concept proves itself (or not), with your reps closing sales and the platform proving to be 100% trustworthy. I'm all for you guys succeeding but time will tell.

As for: "We only transfer the domain over to the buyer once payment is successfully received."

What happens if the domain is transferred to the buyer and then it turns out that the credit card that they used was stolen or some other mischief happened. Will you still send sellers the money at your own loss, since they lost their domain?

I think you guys should prioritize having a FAQ section that will cover all these questions I asked and countless others (here's one: can domains be removed at any time, even though you spent money on logos and advertising or is there a notice involved etc. etc.) so every aspect of the platform will be covered and clear, both to buyers and sellers. That's an important step in making both buyers and sellers know what they're stepping into when they trust you with their domains/money.

Thanks again for your time addressing these issues.

 

[aheiven]

Unfortunately, I cannot receive email verification when registering an account with HotMail. Is there the same situation?

 

[capybara]

I am all for more competition in the industry and wish you the best of luck but it seems to me you are a bit out of touch with reality with that declaration about 10% being the advantage. As already noted above by SuperBrander et al. people can get lower fees than that with their own names with other platforms and until you gain great traffic/brand recognition on your own the comparison with the 30% is inappropriate.

 

[Votumejero]

Thanks for asking! Agreed, every marketplace faces that challenge at one point. I'm personally not a big fan of compromising quality for quantity. We're essentially looking for brand names that entrepreneurs can build great companies on and we're not going to stray away from that goal. If we do need to expand in the future, we'll do it through other means that doesn't impact our premium listings. That's all I can say publicly I'm afraid but we definitely have plans to solve that problem.

And yes, we'll certainly look into supporting Payoneer if there's enough demand. Thanks for the suggestion!

Payoneer in demand please ☺

 

[Votumejero]

Sorry about that! As I mentioned above, when comparing accept/reject rates please keep in mind that it all depends on the quality of the domains. This is a vanity metric that shouldn't be used to determine success. Each seller will have a completely different outcome based on the quality of their portfolio. The same holds true for sales/conversion rates. It all depends on the quality of the domains. No two sellers are the same.

Well said

 

[Kazi]

Please share some sold history/data from the marketplace if it made