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.​

 

[Armageddon]

the search engine is not good. For ex, I put "poker" and in the first 10 or 15 pages appear unrelated domains like ribil, joiti, sonsic, orifund, skabble ... up to page 17 some domains related to Poker begin to appear. The same if I look for "crypto", "blockchain", "business", "money", etc ... Beyond the design, I think the most important thing about a Marketplace is the search-engine.

Maybe you need to clear your cookies ( i don't know ) for me work
First results for "poker" are first results - they are only 4 domains that have "poker" as simple search on advanced are more

 

[Isibor Imieka]

Thanks to the team at Alter, I managed to sell the only name I have listed there. I've had this name for 2 years tried to list it at SH but it was rejected, I knew the name had some sort of value so submitted the name at Alter in January 2021 and it was accepted.

Did not get the price it was listed for but I am happy the team managed to get the deal over the line, thanks to Jane and the team at Alter lift//crew,,,com found a new home. Will submit more names at Alter to see if my STR will improve.

 

[Lord Antares]

I was just wondering, do you have any stats like to average favorites-to-sale ratio or visits-through-marketplace to sale ratio etc.? Would be helpful in some calculations.

EDIT: Also, it would ne nice having an option to show number of favorites for domains which are favorited. Might add a sense of urgency in buyers.

 

[zomainhacks]

Just moved 1/3 of my portfolio to Alter. Domains already listed on SEDO and Arternic, does it make sense accepting this form?

 

[geekjojo]

Just moved 1/3 of my portfolio to Alter. Domains already listed on SEDO and Arternic, does it make sense accepting this form? Show attachment 199252

How do you get the syndication option?

 

[zomainhacks]

How do you get the syndication option?

https://alter.com/settings

 

[ddesigns]

How do you get the syndication option?

Login in your account and you will find Syndication under "setting" tab...

 

[Frand]

Maybe you need to clear your cookies ( i don't know ) for me work
First results for "poker" are first results - they are only 4 domains that have "poker" as simple search on advanced are more

Maybe you need to clear your cookies ( i don't know ) for me work
First results for "poker" are first results - they are only 4 domains that have "poker" as simple search on advanced are more

I don't think it's a cookies problem and there are more than 4 domains with the term "poker". Right now I’m looking for the term "investing" and "investingtopics" appears on page 21 behind names like yadica, enacio, highfolio...

 

[Handmade life]

Hello

From your Syndication

Automatically list my "Buy Now" domains at the marketplaces and registrars mentioned above

------------------

What about my " make offers " domains !!

My make offers Domains not appeared on Dan or Sedo

 

[ddesigns]

Hello

From your Syndication

Automatically list my "Buy Now" domains at the marketplaces and registrars mentioned above

------------------

What about my " make offers " domains !!

My make offers Domains not appeared on Dan or Sedo

Only the one with Buy now or Both are syndicated..

 

[Deven Patel]

What are the chances that a seller is going to buy a domain from your marketplace versus sellers who are experimenting with your Search and trying to see if their domains are showing up?

Please note that search results aren't counted in your stats. The "visitor" count you see in your account only includes people who actually viewed your listings/landers. I think that might solve your concern.

I see you are trying to promote non-keyword domains to interested buyers but it looks like you giving a very little boost to the domains that contain the search term. It's rare that a domain that contains the search term will show up on the first page.
Can you give a boost to domains that contain the search term a bit? I think it makes a lot of sense. I predict your CTR will increase if you did that. Just try an A/B test between search results that contain the term VS that don't contain the term.

Our algorithm works the same across the board. It doesn't distinguish between keyword vs non-keyword domains. However, it does consider how buyers interact with the names so you may be seeing an inadvertent effect across some specific search terms which could be due to a number of reasons like our inventory not having enough keyword based domains, the keyword based domains being too niche, etc.

Here's an example of the results that show keyword based domains at the top: https://alter.com/names?q=talent

Suggest:

- Bulk verify option after names are already submitted.
- Bulk category editor.
- 'Description refresh' button (set a new/correct description based on new categories assigned)

Thanks for the suggestions! We just released a feature that will automatically verify your domains after they've already been submitted. On that note, we also released the ability to add/edit thousands of listings at once through a CSV file.

Does Alter alert people who already favourited your names when you reduce prices like SH? @Deven Patel. It will be a great feature if not already in place.

No, because we don't require buyers to sign up for an account. Buyers seem to appreciate less friction and also the fact that they don't have to worry about endless spam.

the search engine is not good. For ex, I put "poker" and in the first 10 or 15 pages appear unrelated domains like ribil, joiti, sonsic, orifund, skabble ... up to page 17 some domains related to Poker begin to appear.

That's the point. By default, you're performing a "broad" match search which will only show you quality results at the top. I think what you're looking for is results that only contain the keyword "poker" which you can accomplish by choosing the "contains" filter.

Broad Match: https://alter.com/names?q=poker
Contains Match: https://alter.com/names?q=poker&placement=contains

Note how the top row of quality results appear in both sets.

I was just wondering, do you have any stats like to average favorites-to-sale ratio or visits-through-marketplace to sale ratio etc.? Would be helpful in some calculations.

EDIT: Also, it would ne nice having an option to show number of favorites for domains which are favorited. Might add a sense of urgency in buyers.

We do not track these because they don't accurately paint the picture.

Regarding favorites-to-sales, we've seen buyers who never favorited a name as well as buyers who have so it's not really a useful metric to track across the entire marketplace. However, you can do this for your own portfolio if you like.

Regarding sales-through-marketplace, again it's super hard to track because of buyers using multiple devices and marketing channels over a span of few days before actually pulling the trigger. What we do instead is try to survey the buyers if possible after the sale. This is how we discovered that around 80% of them come through landers (very rough estimate).

Regarding showing favorite counts to buyers, we already show "X buyers viewed this domain recently" on the landers. I think that accomplishes the same goal.

Just moved 1/3 of my portfolio to Alter. Domains already listed on SEDO and Arternic, does it make sense accepting this form?

If your names are already listed there and you don't care about the benefit of saving a ton of time dealing with different companies, updating prices across accounts, re-verifying domains, etc then you don't need to syndicate your domains. It's just an added convenience for busy sellers.

From your Syndication

Automatically list my "Buy Now" domains at the marketplaces and registrars mentioned above

------------------

What about my " make offers " domains !!

We can only syndicate domains with a BIN price because we don't have enough information to negotiate on your behalf on other platforms. If you have a lot of MO-only inventory then syndication may not make sense for you.

Sold my second name via Alter - icona.net $899 (non Premium listing)
Great experience, Thanks to Alter

Thanks to the team at Alter, I managed to sell the only name I have listed there. I've had this name for 2 years tried to list it at SH but it was rejected, I knew the name had some sort of value so submitted the name at Alter in January 2021 and it was accepted.

Awesome, congrats on the sales!! And thank you for using Alter.

 

[Lord Antares]

I saw one of my name has got 37 direct visitors today so far in 12 hours. It very few normally.

This mean I can confirm to you guys that it's being advertised. This is good.

However, I'd like to see some more detailed stats. IMO, stats could be something to give you an edge over DAN.
For example, it says what percentage of visitors are direct visitors and what percentage are marketplace visitors but it doesn't say for which name. Some names are botted and I have one which constantly receives the highest amount of visits, but it's all non-unique visits, i.e. bots.

Smart people will use data to their advantage. Marketplace visits are more important than direct visits, so you can conclude that names with higher marketplace visits are higher quality than names with lower visits, on average. Same goes, to an even greater extent, for favorites.

I understand you don't necessarily like favorites because sellers favorite their own names to try and get ahead in the site SEO. But practical people will use them to gain data, reevaluate their domains and prices etc. This is why I think knowing the average favorite-to-sale ratio (I assume only relevant for marketplace browsers) is useful for some calculations. Data is king.

DAN can't provide this kind of useful data so this might put you ahead in my book.

P.S. I notice that names with logos are prioritized both in the featured name section and category/keyword searches. So there are still, in fact, premium and non premium names

 

[Domain boy]

I find the marketplace really innovative, therefore I will definitely give it a try

 

[Reyginus]

I find the marketplace really innovative, therefore I will definitely give it a try

They actually know what they are doing and really innovative. I'm just waiting for them to add crypto payment and I'd move everything.

 

[Domain boy]

They actually know what they are doing and really innovative. I'm just waiting for them to add crypto payment and I'd move everything.

Yes, that's also something I would really wish that they would add

 

[Domain boy]

Also, does anyone know how to check if my alter listing is classified as premium or basic?

Thank you

 

[Lord Antares]

Also, does anyone know how to check if my alter listing is classified as premium or basic?

Thank you

There are no more premium and non premium domains. But if you pay for a logo (or make one yourself), your names will show up higher.

 

[zomainhacks]

If your names are already listed there and you don't care about the benefit of saving a ton of time dealing with different companies, updating prices across accounts, re-verifying domains, etc then you don't need to syndicate your domains. It's just an added convenience for busy sellers.

Yes it is surely a great plus point, but you give up fast-transfers and more control on listing prices.

Regarding the second point, would you like to share the Alter pricing policy on third party marketplaces?

 

[zomainhacks]

They actually know what they are doing and really innovative. I'm just waiting for them to add crypto payment and I'd move everything.

Buyer side they seem already accepting crypto

 

[zomainhacks]

So there are still, in fact, premium and non premium names

I'm curious to know if it is a predetermined priority given for certain characteristics (name lenght, TLD, logo or not etc etc) or if it is the "natural" outcome of an AI of such type (i.e people tend to prefer names with real logos) .