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.​

 

[Future Sensors]

@Deven Patel, my sincere thanks for your boundless energy and involvement with the users. You have created something very beautiful, and it's sad that it has to disappear. I wish you and your employees every success with new activities.

 

[cabotower]

lots of places to list. i'm just worried about my installments.

 

[capybara]

This is sad. Alter looked so promising. Best of luck Deven Patel with your future endeavours. Hope for a comeback someday.

 

[Charybdis]

Hoping @Deven Patel will reconsider.

Good point, why not transform Alter to something like Efty?

I understand that it was unprofitable to run this marketplace for 10% commission, I think the marketing was too expensive.

However they could eliminate the marketing budget, reduce the commission a bit and create a service like Efty, the backend system is already done.

 

[Samxui]

Sad news. Good luck in your future projects.

 

[keywordrichdomains]

Very sad news, but at times some things are not preventable in our life! I hope you have some good ideas to turn the existing platform into a profitable one. Thank you so much for the transparent and innovative support you have given so far! Good luck on your future endeavours!

 

[November]

Sad news! Alter is shutting down! ((

Where will you list your Alter domains now? Maybe Dan?

I had 320 domains on Alter, I really liked the professional logos and the low commission.

Give us more info, are the going to delete all domains?

 

[karmaco]

Give us more info, are the going to delete all domains?

The email says April 2nd.

 

[silentg]

Hi there,

First and foremost, I would like to thank each and every one of you for using Alter to sell your domain names. We couldn't have come this far without your invaluable support.

Over the last couple years we've been on a mission to transform the domain industry. However, despite all our attempts we weren't able to find a sustainable business model. So it is with a heavy heart I write to you today to say farewell.

On April 2nd, all third-party domain listings will be removed from our marketplace. Seller accounts will remain active for the foreseeable future so those with a positive balance or pending installments can continue to cash out.

Lastly, we realize this decision wouldn't be fair to sellers who spent money to have professional logos designed on our platform. So we have refunded all relevant payments back to your account balance which can be cashed out at any time.

We truly wish you all the best in your future endeavors. It’s unfortunate that this wasn’t the outcome we wanted but we’re thankful to everyone that came with us on the journey.

Sincerely,
Deven Patel
Founder & CEO

@Deven Patel Thank You for the service so far. Good luck in your future projects.

 

[sellian]

Sad news!! I really liked Alter.

I wish you the best Deven, you have been an outstanding CEO!

I'm sure you'll do well in whatever endeavor you pursue.

 

[Tom_Collins]

Not Sad news....Alter depreciated in quality recently. Glad the owner decided to put it down.

 

[Mister Funsky]

@Deven Patel , thank you for the professional email giving notification of things to come.

It is/was a classy thing to do in an often too classless industry. If you choose not to continue, maybe you will have an opportunity to find an interested party for your efforts. The site is/was a welcome breath of fresh air with some nice and modern features.

Best of luck to you in the future.

 

[Charybdis]

So the most important question now, where will you list your Alter domains now?

I have brandable com names at both Squadhelp and Alter. I sold more domains on Squadhelp from a smaller portfolio.

Squadhelp displays that 95% of the traffic to my domain names is Squadhelp-influenced, meaning that this traffic is the result of the Squadhelp marketing. Only 5% is type-in traffic.

At Alter, 16% is the marketplace traffic, 3% is from the partners (Dan/Sedo), and 81% is type-in traffic. But I sold less domains at Alter from a larger portfolio. These are mainly two-word brandable .com names. My Alter names were manually appraised and approved by Alter before, so these are good names.

Squadhelp charges 30% commission (there is less commission if the name is expensive), Alter charged 10%.

I think the conclusion here is that you need a lot of traffic and eyeballs to these brandable names to sell them. 10% commission is not enough to drive enough traffic.

So my idea is that I will transfer my Alter portfolio to Squadhelp and from now on I won't complain about the 30% commission Looks like the high commission is mandatory to drive enough traffic.

I also considered Brandbucket, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that they don't allow listing my domains at Afternic. But the Afternic Fast Transfer network is the largest, and Squadhelp allows me to list my domains there. So for this reason I don't like Brandbucket from a seller's perspective, but their website is very good from a buyer's perspective.

 

[sellian]

So my idea is that I will transfer my Alter portfolio to Squadhelp and from now on I won't complain about the 30% commission Looks like the high commission is mandatory to drive enough traffic.

I don't know if you are aware of this but SH's approval rate (premium marketplace) is VERY low (10-11%). What are you going to do with the rejected 90%?

 

[Charybdis]

I don't know if you are aware of this but SH's approval rate (premium marketplace) is VERY low (10-11%). What are you going to do with the rejected 90%?

I submitted around 3500 domains to Alter, and they accepted around 300 of them, this portfolio was manually appraised and approved by Alter, they are good domains. I think SH will accept 70-90% of them, then I will list the rest at Dan and/or I will drop the rest.

 

[sellian]

I submitted around 3500 domains to Alter, and they accepted around 300 of them, this portfolio was manually appraised and approved by Alter, they are good domains. I think SH will accept 70-90% of them, then I will list the rest at Dan and/or I will drop the rest.

I have submitted a few Alter “premiums“ to SH and the acceptance rate has been the same at around 10%. Also, why drop when you can try to sell them here for at least reg fee price? If Alter found them valuable some other domainer may too. Good luck anyway!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I am very sad to receive this news. I liked Alter landers, site features like their TM search, their commissions, great professional logos, the information they include about branding, and much more.

@Deven Patel is a smart classy guy and set a model for seeking input from the community through NamePros.

I wish Deven the best in his future endeavours.

Bob

 

[Samxui]

I also considered Brandbucket, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that they don't allow listing my domains at Afternic.

You CAN now list you Brandbucket domains at Afternic.
This is a recent development.

 

[etruscan]

Was not expecting it, the started well but in my view a wrong move was when they decided to turn into a not curated marketplace in Brandpa style accepting almost any name. Rooted is still selecting names even if they are not as picky as SH and BB and is the only way to manage a brandable marketplace in my view.

 

[alop]

Thanks for all the services provided!

Best wishes