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]

can you include a discount menu as can be seen on other platforms like SH? Sellers can temporarily reduce the price of their names by a certain amount and buyers can see that it is just temporary. E.g Expary.com 3799 3499.

Thanks for the feedback! Noted. In the meantime, if you have any useful data around whether this actually works without much downside, please feel free to send it over. Our goal is to keep our platform as simple as possible because creating unnecessary friction for buyers normally reduces STR.

I think the featured names on the front page are NOT great names and would make me go to another platform if I was a buyer.

The names on our homepage are the top X% of our inventory. If there are better names on other platforms then buyers can go there. We can only control what's listed on our platform.

Regarding whether they're great names, that's pretty subjective. As a seller, wouldn't you be biased towards your own names? I mean the person who owns babys-clothings.com probably thinks they have a great name too. Does that mean we show that on the homepage just to please them?

This is exactly why we stopped curating names manually. A lot of sellers felt like the process was unfair when their names weren't chosen. Since there was no real consensus on what high quality actually meant, we couldn't make everyone happy. On the other hand, buyers didn't seem to care about this because we sold just as many curated names as non-curated back when we did curate by hand.

So after careful consideration, we built a smarter search algorithm that uses a number of factors to rank names based on buyer feedback rather than our or the seller's opinion. Everything from the domain's extension, length, price, brandability, popularity, and more is used to determine its rank. Just like the Google search algorithm, we continually adjust it over time based on buyer feedback to ensure an optimal experience and high STR.

When you click show more business names and are shown 5 and 6 figure names (some that suck there too) can be a turnoff for the average buyer.

Anything priced above $10 would be a turn off for most buyers. Since sellers price their own names, we can't really control that. However, there is a benefit to seeing higher priced names from the buyer's perspective which is that they'll start to realize good quality names come at a high cost. That's an important realization for buyers that know nothing about the aftermarket (i.e. it could help them lower their expectations and thus be more willing to spend their hard earned cash in the aftermarket).

The point is all names should be given fair and equal showcasing and chance to be sold.

That's exactly what we do. We treat all names equally and let our buyer-driven algorithm rank names to keep things fair. They have to be ranked anyway when showing them on a page so why not rank them in a way that benefits buyers? So that buyers stay on the marketplace longer and actually buy a name rather than seeing a list of random names and be turned off by it like on other marketplaces.

Regardless, higher quality names will always receive more exposure naturally on any marketplace. If you're expecting us to force exposure to low quality names just to make it "equal" then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. That doesn't benefit anybody unfortunately.

At the end of the day, you have to realize that owning quality names is the only way to succeed in this business. I do understand that it's hard to get your hands on quality names nowadays when you have so many sellers competing against each other, including those with high budgets. But that's just the way the game's played. No amount of criticism or forced exposure on a marketplace is going to help you sell low quality names I'm afraid.

If it was that easy, why wouldn't the marketplaces just do it themselves rather then relying on other sellers? I mean marketplaces generally have more resources and data at their disposal than any individual seller after all.

Your commish is low but there is 3 charging less ( SH WLM) and two charging 9% (Epik and DAN) as far as other similar options.

We've already gone through this so many times in this thread. Every time I see these posts, people selectively choose the information that helps them make their point. I urge you to look at the total value you're receiving from each marketplace and the total commission you're paying for it.

None of the marketplaces you mentioned provide any additional exposure to your names. Then there's one that charges an additional 5% cash out fee (14% total). And one that charges buyers a 2% processing fee (11% total). The ones that do get your names more exposure charge you 30% commission (brandable).

We actually market your domains and bring in more buyers for an industry low 10% commission compared to 11-30% elsewhere. We market your domains via PPC, SEO, social, retargeting, etc (here are some examples of ads we're running and the types of keywords we rank for on Google). For example, when a buyer searches for something like moon business names in Google, Alter shows up in the #1 spot among 147,000,000 results. And our landing pages use logos which are proven to improve STR too (no other non-brandable marketplace offers this).

Additionally, just like Google, our search algorithm uses a number of factors to rank names based on buyer feedback. So that when a buyer searches for a keyword like health on Alter, we show them all the potential names that they can use in that industry and not just the ones that contain the search keyword (e.g. Nursor, Feetz, CareDish, Curemont, etc).

Which other marketplace does all this for 10% commission? And you don't have to take my word for it. You can see exactly how much more traffic we're generating for your names on your Alter dashboard compared to direct/type-in traffic. Which other marketplace shows you that?

But that's not the homepage Deven is it? That's when they begin their search experience.

Actually, buyers enter our marketplace from many different entry points. The homepage is probably the least popular. Again, all of these things simply generate bonus exposure for quality names. Why is that a problem?

It's like saying we shouldn't do any additional marketing at all because it doesn't benefit low quality names just as much as it benefits high quality names. Maybe the focus should be on building a higher quality portfolio instead?

Can you active Sedo MLS premium for sellers? I think you are using Sedo MLS basic.

We cannot because it involves a lot of manual effort. However, the only difference between Sedo MLS basic and premium is that buyers receive their domains faster (fast transfer). It shouldn't impact sales as you would receive the same exposure either way (unlike on Afternic where enabling fast transfer gives you more exposure through additional partners).

 

[Reyginus]

@Deven Patel a check at SH sales suggests that temporary reducing price works. Any sale around 1499 or anything less than 1999 is a sale that happened after the price was reduced (as 1999 is the lowest they can list for).

And on the sales report thread here, so many persons have reported sales after just reducing the price. Twiki for example. In SH's case, the temporary reduction lasts for a week after which the price goes back to normal or if the seller wishes, restarts it.

If it doesn't work or have no impact on sales I doubt a company like SH will have such an option and even go ahead to have a menu where you can choose to allow them routinely offer temporary discount on your name.

 

[Future Sensors]

Hi @Deven Patel

A small feature request. When a buyer selects "Filter", preserve or prepopulate the current category or search term. Example:

A buyer searches for a moon domain name, and then decides to (further) filter the results. At that moment, the original 'moon' keyword is lost, because it's not prepopulated in the filter settings.

Thank you.

 

[JudgeMind]

My review of Alter.com after switching ALL of my nameservers to Alter!

Around 2 months ago I decided to test the new direction the alter marketplace is heading and at the end of September I moved all of my non Squadhelp listed domain names to alter (approximately 3000 names)

During October I was quite pleased to close 5 domain sales with alter. Each transaction was seamless and went through without any issues! I typically was selling at another marketplace that charged 20% commission and am happy to have saved close to $800 in commission by selling with alter for just 10% commission!

In November I also completed another 5 sales with alter and again no issues at all with transaction! Again I saved over $1000 in commission!

Also in November, I decided to leave squadhelp after being with them for 3 years. The reasoning here was primarily due to highest commission in the industry and reduced visibility of my portfolio of 800+ names. I may go deeper into my exit from Squadhelp in another post at a later date.

Since leaving squadhelp I had completed 2 sales of my previously listed sh names via alter! Combined savings from these two sales with alters 10% commission was over $1600!!. Funds that I am very happy to have!

I will follow up with an additional review that is more detailed after I’ve spent some more time with alter! Happy holidays!

Also a big thank you to @Deven Patel for your great support and communication!

 

[Samxui]

Hi @Deven Patel
You must have heard about the recent @DAN.COM Open Domain Distribution Network announcement.

Are you going to list the Alter names on DAN in the Open Domain Distribution Network?

 

[Future Sensors]

Hi @Deven Patel
You must have heard about the recent @DAN.COM Open Domain Distribution Network announcement.

Are you going to list the Alter names on DAN in the Open Domain Distribution Network?

Alter is already doing this, if you have Syndication 'On' in Settings.

The new announcement from DAN however, is about domains that are originally listed at DAN, and can now also be listed on DAN's partner sites (other direction). Compare this to what Afternic is doing with their Afternic Premium Network. Alter may, if they choose to do so, include domains listed at DAN on the Alter website this way.

 

[Samxui]

Alter is already doing this,

I do know about Alter's syndication.

I believe opting into the DAN open domain distribution network will provide additional visibility for domains listed on Alter.

Looking to see what Deven thinks about this.

Then how Alter would handle the 20% commission for names sold via the DAN open domain distribution network if they opt in for the integration.

 

[Dane]

My review of Alter.com after switching ALL of my nameservers to Alter!

Around 2 months ago I decided to test the new direction the alter marketplace is heading and at the end of September I moved all of my non Squadhelp listed domain names to alter (approximately 3000 names)

During October I was quite pleased to close 5 domain sales with alter. Each transaction was seamless and went through without any issues! I typically was selling at another marketplace that charged 20% commission and am happy to have saved close to $800 in commission by selling with alter for just 10% commission!

In November I also completed another 5 sales with alter and again no issues at all with transaction! Again I saved over $1000 in commission!

Also in November, I decided to leave squadhelp after being with them for 3 years. The reasoning here was primarily due to highest commission in the industry and reduced visibility of my portfolio of 800+ names. I may go deeper into my exit from Squadhelp in another post at a later date.

Since leaving squadhelp I had completed 2 sales of my previously listed sh names via alter! Combined savings from these two sales with alters 10% commission was over $1600!!. Funds that I am very happy to have!

I will follow up with an additional review that is more detailed after I’ve spent some more time with alter! Happy holidays!

Also a big thank you to @Deven Patel for your great support and communication!

Interesting results (alter vs squadhelp). Have you done a similar test with Dan?

 

[JudgeMind]

Interesting results (alter vs squadhelp). Have you done a similar test with Dan?

Dan for me wasn’t a pleasant experience. I used them for the first year when they started but got very annoyed by the number of cancelled transaction and fake offers. I may test again some day.

 

[Dane]

Dan for me wasn’t a pleasant experience. I used them for the first year when they started but got very annoyed by the number of cancelled transaction and fake offers. I may test again some day.

Thanks. I've been experimenting with different platforms lately so I was curious to hear your thoughts.

 

[Dane]

@Deven Patel I prefer to point the DNS of many of my names to a parking page (like bodis, for example) then use their "This domain may be for sale" area to link to the actual For Sale page. Will you allow us to do this with Alter? (Currently if the DNS is not pointing to Alter the name gets de-listed from Alter.)

 

[NameWell]

@Deven Patel I prefer to point the DNS of many of my names to a parking page (like bodis, for example) then use their "This domain may be for sale" area to link to the actual For Sale page. Will you allow us to do this with Alter? (Currently if the DNS is not pointing to Alter the name gets de-listed from Alter.)

I would love more flexibility on name servers too. I prefer to point the DNS of many of my names to my own WLM. I would appreciate it if I could prove my ownership by changing TXT records and have my domain names listed on Alter.com that way, without pointing name servers to Alter.

 

[NameWell]

My review of Alter.com after switching ALL of my nameservers to Alter!

Around 2 months ago I decided to test the new direction the alter marketplace is heading and at the end of September I moved all of my non Squadhelp listed domain names to alter (approximately 3000 names)

During October I was quite pleased to close 5 domain sales with alter. Each transaction was seamless and went through without any issues! I typically was selling at another marketplace that charged 20% commission and am happy to have saved close to $800 in commission by selling with alter for just 10% commission!

In November I also completed another 5 sales with alter and again no issues at all with transaction! Again I saved over $1000 in commission!

Also in November, I decided to leave squadhelp after being with them for 3 years. The reasoning here was primarily due to highest commission in the industry and reduced visibility of my portfolio of 800+ names. I may go deeper into my exit from Squadhelp in another post at a later date.

Since leaving squadhelp I had completed 2 sales of my previously listed sh names via alter! Combined savings from these two sales with alters 10% commission was over $1600!!. Funds that I am very happy to have!

I will follow up with an additional review that is more detailed after I’ve spent some more time with alter! Happy holidays!

Also a big thank you to @Deven Patel for your great support and communication!

Thank you for sharing! That's very interesting and useful!

Fun fact: I sold Boomblebee dot com via SH in 2018, you sold it again last month via Alter

 

[Ostrados]

@Deven Patel which is better BIN only or BIN + Make offer in Alter landers?
Do you have data backed analysis on this?

 

[Charybdis]

@Deven Patel which is better BIN only or BIN + Make offer in Alter landers?
Do you have data backed analysis on this?

I think the best setup is BIN + installment payments, and no "make offer" button. The buyer can contact Alter and make an offer anyway. If you set BIN and installment payments only, then the buyer has to choose only from two options: buy the domain now and pay it in full, or buy the domain and pay it in installments. But then your BIN price should be realistic, it is also important.

 

[Dane]

I would love more flexibility on name servers too. I prefer to point the DNS of many of my names to my own WLM. I would appreciate it if I could prove my ownership by changing TXT records and have my domain names listed on Alter.com that way, without pointing name servers to Alter.

Me too. Let's see if @Deven Patel will allow it.

 

[Ostrados]

I think the best setup is BIN + installment payments, and no "make offer" button. The buyer can contact Alter and make an offer anyway. If you set BIN and installment payments only, then the buyer has to choose only from two options: buy the domain now and pay it in full, or buy the domain and pay it in installments. But then your BIN price should be realistic, it is also important.

I am not interested in installments option, I had bad experience with it and I only use BIN or Make Offer.

 

[JudgeMind]

My review of Alter.com after switching ALL of my nameservers to Alter!

Around 2 months ago I decided to test the new direction the alter marketplace is heading and at the end of September I moved all of my non Squadhelp listed domain names to alter (approximately 3000 names)

During October I was quite pleased to close 5 domain sales with alter. Each transaction was seamless and went through without any issues! I typically was selling at another marketplace that charged 20% commission and am happy to have saved close to $800 in commission by selling with alter for just 10% commission!

In November I also completed another 5 sales with alter and again no issues at all with transaction! Again I saved over $1000 in commission!

Also in November, I decided to leave squadhelp after being with them for 3 years. The reasoning here was primarily due to highest commission in the industry and reduced visibility of my portfolio of 800+ names. I may go deeper into my exit from Squadhelp in another post at a later date.

Since leaving squadhelp I had completed 2 sales of my previously listed sh names via alter! Combined savings from these two sales with alters 10% commission was over $1600!!. Funds that I am very happy to have!

I will follow up with an additional review that is more detailed after I’ve spent some more time with alter! Happy holidays!

Also a big thank you to @Deven Patel for your great support and communication!

I will be sharing monthly reports here with you about my alter experience. Happy holidays

 

[Brands]

My review of Alter.com after switching ALL of my nameservers to Alter!

Around 2 months ago I decided to test the new direction the alter marketplace is heading and at the end of September I moved all of my non Squadhelp listed domain names to alter (approximately 3000 names)

During October I was quite pleased to close 5 domain sales with alter. Each transaction was seamless and went through without any issues! I typically was selling at another marketplace that charged 20% commission and am happy to have saved close to $800 in commission by selling with alter for just 10% commission!

In November I also completed another 5 sales with alter and again no issues at all with transaction! Again I saved over $1000 in commission!

Also in November, I decided to leave squadhelp after being with them for 3 years. The reasoning here was primarily due to highest commission in the industry and reduced visibility of my portfolio of 800+ names. I may go deeper into my exit from Squadhelp in another post at a later date.

Since leaving squadhelp I had completed 2 sales of my previously listed sh names via alter! Combined savings from these two sales with alters 10% commission was over $1600!!. Funds that I am very happy to have!

I will follow up with an additional review that is more detailed after I’ve spent some more time with alter! Happy holidays!

Also a big thank you to @Deven Patel for your great support and communication!

Just moved 800+ names to Alter.com .


Thank you.

 

[JudgeMind]

Just moved 800+ names to Alter.com . Thank you.

Good luck!

 

[capybara]

Two weeks ago I had a sale on Alter, first received a payment email and in a few hours transfer request, the domain was pushed to Alter account promptly and then that was it. Asked in a few days and Alter told me they are unable to contact the buyer. Likely the emails went to spam so there is very little chance it gets better, who knows how long is it gonna be before the buyer wakes up and decides to do something about their purchase... It was not a big sale, less than 2K, and we all know the stories of much more expensive domains which go to the expired auctions the next year after having been purchased, its not unusual when buyers forget about their freshly acquired domains and is likely what happened to my sale as well.

In the buy it now window it is stated "All payments will be final and non-refundable once the domain is in escrow.". I think it means Alter has it covered within their ToS legally, and since its like that, does it make sense not to pay the seller? The domain is in Alter possession so whenever the buyer is back to claim it Alter has been enabled to complete the transfer...

 

[Charybdis]

Two weeks ago I had a sale on Alter, first received a payment email and in a few hours transfer request, the domain was pushed to Alter account promptly and then that was it. Asked in a few days and Alter told me they are unable to contact the buyer. Likely the emails went to spam so there is very little chance it gets better, who knows how long is it gonna be before the buyer wakes up and decides to do something about their purchase... It was not a big sale, less than 2K, and we all know the stories of much more expensive domains which go to the expired auctions the next year after having been purchased, its not unusual when buyers forget about their freshly acquired domains and is likely what happened to my sale as well.

In the buy it now window it is stated "All payments will be final and non-refundable once the domain is in escrow.". I think it means Alter has it covered within their ToS legally, and since its like that, does it make sense not to pay the seller? The domain is in Alter possession so whenever the buyer is back to claim it Alter has been enabled to complete the transfer...

Alter should collect the phone numbers of both buyers and sellers, and in these cases they could send a text message or make a phone call. If email is the only contact option, and the emails go to spam or the email is not working, then without the phone number it is impossible to contact the buyer or the seller.

It can happen also in the case of a seller: a seller sells a domain, and then Alter cannot contact the seller via email, and there is no phone number.

 

[Charybdis]

@Deven Patel please don't forget to automatically renew the SSL certificates of the domain names. A lot of certificates expired on Nov 24, 2021 and now these domains return the ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID error when you try to access them via https.

Example: https://gigapen.com/

Your connection is not private​

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from gigapen.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards).

NET::ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID
Subject: gigapen.com
Issuer: R3
Expires on: Nov 24, 2021
Current date: Dec 9, 2021

 

[NameWell]

Alter should collect the phone numbers of both buyers and sellers, and in these cases they could send a text message or make a phone call. If email is the only contact option, and the emails go to spam or the email is not working, then without the phone number it is impossible to contact the buyer or the seller.

It can happen also in the case of a seller: a seller sells a domain, and then Alter cannot contact the seller via email, and there is no phone number.

Definitely! Also, I believe that Alter should have a very clear policy in place for such cases (the buyer makes the payment, the seller transfers the domain name to Alter, the buyer then disappears.) Preferrable option: if the buyer is not responsive for 10 days, the payment is then automatically sent to the seller and the buyer is not eligible for any refunds. Alternatively, it could be that the domain name is transferred back to the seller and put back on the marketplace until things are resolved with the buyer. If Alter ends up refunding the buyer, they should only make a partial refund and use the rest to compensate the seller for the off-market time.

Keeping the seller's domain name as a hostage at Alter's escrow for unlimited time and making the seller cover for all of the time that it was off-market is very unprofessional and not fair. The seller did all they could on their end. It's not their responsibility that Alter can't do their part.

 

[Future Sensors]

@Deven Patel please don't forget to automatically renew the SSL certificates of the domain names. A lot of certificates expired on Nov 24, 2021 and now these domains return the ERR_CERT_DATE_INVALID error when you try to access them via https.

Example: https://gigapen.com/

Good catch @Charybdis - I can confirm that this is the case for several domains I tested at Alter.