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Alter.com Marketplace

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Deven Patel

Founder, Alter.comEstablished Member
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1,075
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.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I don't see any reasons: why marketplace can't be highly configurable...
So you can opt-in/out: what you want for your needs/vision and based on your experience.
 
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I don't see any reasons: why marketplace can't be highly configurable...
So you can opt-in/out: what you want for your needs/vision and based on your experience.
Yes! Do any of them have this capability?
 
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Technically Epik is very configurable, but their reputation nowadays is at the lowest point.
 
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Would you please consider adding TransferWise as one of the payment methods?

Interesting

But, if they pay through bank transfer, I think bank transfer to transferwise would be possible. I don't think It's a must transferwise to transferwise

Not sure though
 
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Wire payments are only over $5K? Is that right? (if so, why??)
 
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Sedo/DAN send even $xx IBAN wires using Commerzbank or AMRO...
 
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Sedo/DAN sends even $xx IBAN wires using Commerzbank or AMRO...
Right. Makes no sense to require a $5K minimum for a wire transfer. I don't like it.
 
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Can you please DM me an example of a domain where you see this behavior so we can troubleshoot? It could certainly be some random bot that our system hasn't caught yet.

(enormous amount of times favorited in a short period)

I can only see the amount in the Dashboard, not whether they are humans or bots.

You are able to view more in my account. The abnormal amount of Favorites was e.g. on October 16, and October 18, 2021.
 
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Wire payments are only over $5K? Is that right? (if so, why??)

No. Wire payments are available for every domain name, no price restriction. You have to click on the Buy Now button to see the wire transfer option.

But it is only possible to send the money to a US bank account, it would be better to offer local bank accounts as well.
 
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(enormous amount of times favorited in a short period)

I can only see the amount in the Dashboard, not whether they are humans or bots.

You are able to view more in my account. The abnormal amount of Favorites was e.g. on October 16, and October 18, 2021.

I also had an abnormal amount of favourites on October 16th.
 
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No. Wire payments are available for every domain name, no price restriction. You have to click on the Buy Now button to see the wire transfer option.

But it is only possible to send the money to a US bank account, it would be better to offer local bank accounts as well.
I think what he is trying to say is that after selling a domain name, you can only withdraw through wire when the amount is $5k or more.
 
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Mine I never get favorites until the ones I got in the previous month(shows up mostly the same day) expires. Looks automated.

All my favorites comes in a day, it then takes a month to get another set of favorites. This has been my dashboard pattern.
 

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All my favorites comes in a day, it then takes a month to get another set of favorites. This has been my dashboard pattern.

By saying it's automated (in your other posting), you're implying that Alter is making up these numbers itself. That will not be the case. What is probably going on is that Google, Bing or some other bots (web spiders) that index the Alter website also create Favorites during their visits to our landers. Alter is usually doing a good job filtering these bots from the stats, since these are not human visitors, but it is very difficult to filter all bots this way. That's why Deven asked for more details, so that he will be able to filter out non-human visitors from the statistics.
 
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No. Wire payments are available for every domain name, no price restriction. You have to click on the Buy Now button to see the wire transfer option.

But it is only possible to send the money to a US bank account, it would be better to offer local bank accounts as well.
We are talking about PAYOUTS...
 
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I think what he is trying to say is that after selling a domain name, you can only withdraw through wire when the amount is $5k or more.
Yes, exactly. I think it's ridiculous. I could maybe see having a minimum of a few hundred dollars. But $5,000? That's just crazy. Truth is it makes me think twice about giving Alter a try.
 
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Yes, exactly. I think it's ridiculous. I could maybe see having a minimum of a few hundred dollars. But $5,000? That's just crazy. Truth is it makes me think twice about giving Alter a try.

I think Deven has just indicated that he is going to look to offer more options. You are apparently very impatient and do not give Alter the chance to implement things.
 
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I guess, it is a mistake from the beginning...
$500 was right minimum for wires, but they coded $5000.
 
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I think Deven has just indicated that he is going to look to offer more options. You are apparently very impatient and do not give Alter the chance to implement things.
1) I don't know Devan. Perhaps he is different. But when we are told that something is being worked on, or being considered, or is being "sent to the team," it almost always means we won't see any changes for months or years... or ever. It's not about having patience. If they don't offer it now, I can't count on it happening.

2) More options? I don't want more "options." I just want a (much) lower threshold for seller payouts. Not hard to do.
 
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I guess, it is a mistake from the beginning...
$500 was right minimum for wires, but they coded $5000.
I saw $5,000 when I looked at Alter. (That's why I said what I said.) Is it $500? Or $5,000?
 
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I guess, it is a mistake from the beginning...
$500 was right minimum for wires, but they coded $5K.

Processing small amounts is relatively expensive. Especially in the first year, Alter had a focus on low overhead (combined with low fees for Sellers). As a consequence, not all payout options were possible from te start. Now that Alter has more inventory and more sales, it may be possible to expand the available payout options. That's what I think :)
 
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1) I don't know Devan. Perhaps he is different. But when we are told that something is being worked on, or being considered, or is being "sent to the team," it almost always means we won't see any changes for months or years... or ever. It's not about having patience. If they don't offer it now, I can't count on it happening.

2) More options? I don't want more "options." I just want a (much) lower threshold for seller payouts. Not hard to do.

Deven is really different. If I had to name 1 marketplace representative on NamePros who silently just executes many suggestions, it would be him. At the other marketplaces, you often don't hear anything anymore, and that is indeed frustrating. I often have these frustrations elsewhere myself, and I recognize the feeling.
 
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Nothing expensive with IBAN wires, see Rob's reply from archive:
Juergen - We do IBAN transfers now for 0.63 Euro. It is pretty close to free and almost instant. Transferwise has been a game-changer there. Waiting for Revolut to be legal in USA.

Also I don't lose anything with DAN, no any additional fees from their AMRO/Commerzbank.
I receive to my bank exactly amount after DAN commission.

So change your bank-sender or payment gateway.
 
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Recently Sedo sent via IBAN even 15 EUR per my request.
And I received 15 EUR.
 
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We could write a lot more posts about this, but maybe it's good to just wait for Deven's answer. He is well aware of what is possible, it is now a matter of implementation.
 
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