Atom / Atom.com - Marketplace (formerly Squadhelp)

[JudgeMind]

Hey Folks,

I've just started using squadhelp.com to list some of my brandable. So far I have 76 domains listed, there is no fee to list. I've had some decent action so far in the way of interested buyers but no sales as of yet. I've only been with them for 1 week now.

A bit of a summary review of SquadHelp:

PROS

• No Listing fee
• No Logo design fee
• Ability to submit your names to end users holding naming contests
• Ability to chat directly or send a message directly to end users.
• Stats of your marketplace domains are shown in the marketplace dashboard.
• Their customer service and support has been great, 24hr a day chat.
• Ability to increase or decrease the list price of your domains or to show a discount. You can decrease or increase the price yourself by $200. If you want to lower more, you can contact support.
• End users can shortlist your domains before they make a decision on which they want to purchase. The number of shortlists is shown in you marketplace dashboard.
• When you submit your names you get to set the price you wish to get. Because their commissions are high I recommend listing at a higher price to offset the commission costs.
• Their landing pages are fairly basic but they work. Because the marketplace is fairly new, I'm sure we will see style improvements in the future.
• One thing I really like is they accept multiple extensions. I have listed .co and .io along with .com
• Each seller gets a direct link to their marketplace portfolio, HERES MY PORTFOLIO. It is handy if your trying to p[promote your portfolio through social media.
• I like that their marketplace doesn't have tens of thousands domain listings like BB. They are fairly strict on the domains they accept to list and so this helps keep the number of domains in the marketplace down and gets your listings more exposure.

CONS

• Their commissions are very high, depending on the domain name they are usually between 30% and 35%. However, there are no listing fees, no logo design fees, so in the end their commission is very similar to brand buckets.
• Their logos are not top quality, in fact I requested to have some of my logos remade.
• I think they have a big backlog of logos to design, the wait time for logo design has been around 1 week, but your names are still listed while the logos are being designed.
• After your names are accepted you need to agree to their commission rate, at this point you also need to apply your own keywords, descriptions etc. I found this was very time consuming.

 

[BRANDERX]

Why not use the resources to upgrade the efficiency of other parts on your system?

For instance you need "premium" listings to access your wholesale marketplace, then it can take many days or weeks to review a domain listing as "premium", even when using coins.

It's kind of a massive bottleneck in your system.

Brad

Plenty of domains, especially .coms, can now be auto-approved for Premium through their AI appraisal. I have a feeling you've got quite a few names in your portfolio that would be approved instantly without having to wait for a manual review.

 

[bmugford]

Plenty of domains, especially .coms, can now be auto-approved for Premium through their AI appraisal. I have a feeling you've got quite a few names in your portfolio that would be approved instantly without having to wait for a manual review.

Probably.

I tested out their AI appraisal system, and submitted (10) domains that had strong grades several days ago (with coins). They were mainly short domains.

9 of them are still listed as "pending review".

I did test a few of my obvious premium domains, and those were listed as instant approval.

However, I don't necessarily want to list them on the premium market with those commissions and exclusivity terms.

Brad

 

[draco]

Why not use the resources to upgrade the efficiency of other parts on your system?

For instance you need "premium" listings to access your wholesale marketplace, then it can take many days or weeks to review a domain listing as "premium", even when using coins.

It's kind of a massive bottleneck in your system.

Brad

I can see the point of restricting access. Let's say you listed a domain in the wholesale marketplace and a retail buyer comes along. If anyone can access it, they're not going to buy at retail.

However, I do wish they would hire more people for premium reviews and appeals. My oldest review request is over 2 weeks old now. My oldest appeal is over 2 months old now.

 

[bmugford]

I can see the point of restricting access. Let's say you listed a domain in the wholesale marketplace and a retail buyer comes along. If anyone can access it, they're not going to buy at retail.

However, I do wish they would hire more people for premium reviews and appeals. My oldest review request is over 2 weeks old now. My oldest appeal is over 2 months old now.

Yeah, the problem is even if the logic is sound the process still stinks.

It could take months to get 10 premium domains at the snail pace of review, even with "strong" domains and using coins.

It it happened faster, it would not be nearly as frustrating.

Brad

 

[Embrand]

@Atom.com It doesn't seem possible to bulk add tags to domains in the domain manager.

Apart from that, transferring a large number of domains to Atom was a smooth process, and my account was instantly upgraded to AtomEdge after my portfolio reached 100 domains.

So far the registrar is looking pretty good - especially with the lower commission and at-cost pricing.

 

[love4ever]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2063276312068792348

.

 

[DomainRecap]

And what you need for sales are really -

Decent domains + lander + distribution path.

Outside that, I doubt the extra fluff is yielding much in the way of more sales.

Although I would add '+ Luck' to that equation, I agree with the gist.

So many people believe there is some type of "secret sauce" to create domain marketplace sales and waste innumerable hours trying to "unlock" it. It's really quite simple. The potential buyer initiates the negotiation or sale and if they really want the domain you're selling and you have it listed for sale, they'll find it. Guaranteed.

Otherwise, you have to wait for a buyer to come around, but you can increase your odds by acquiring quality domains and listing them at multiple marketplaces with wide distribution.

But once you buy the domain and list it through the proper channels, your job is done.

 

[DomainRecap]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2063276312068792348

.

Lead quality is very bad at Atom.

 

[King]

@Atom.com It doesn't seem possible to bulk add tags to domains in the domain manager.

Apart from that, transferring a large number of domains to Atom was a smooth process, and my account was instantly upgraded to AtomEdge after my portfolio reached 100 domains.

So far the registrar is looking pretty good - especially with the lower commission and at-cost pricing.

No point in lower commissions if sales are low.

Lead quality is very bad at Atom.

Now this isn't exclusive to Atom. I'm guessing you've never tried Afternic?

 

[DomainRecap]

Now this isn't exclusive to Atom. I'm guessing you've never tried Afternic?

Come on, my offer-to-response, offer-to-counter and offer-to-sale ratios are exponentially higher at Afternic compared to Atom. Most of the time, I never ever hear back anything in an Atom negotiation. Even when I do, tons of accepted offers go dead and most of the other negotiations just sit there like turds in the toilet.

While I'm pretty sure there is an interested customer behind most Afternic offers, I feel the exact opposite when I get an Atom email offer. Hell, even getting any response from an Atom (cough) buyer is a big surprise, and one of my latest responses was:

"$5 CAD and a Tim's double double, and you've got a deal."

It's like these pea-brained nitwits feel they can openly abuse the impersonal Atom AI-based system, while most are hesitant to do the same thing with a huge entity like GoDaddy, where there might be some repercussions for coming across as a drooling idiot to an actual broker.

It's got to the point at Atom, that if I see any potential red flags (hidden geo, standard email, hidden name/email fields, a line of N/A's, etc.) then I don't even respond to offers anymore and send them to the "hidden" junk file. If someone wants to anonymously harass me or go on a fishing expedition, then they came to the wrong place.

 

[hamadyesorno]

I just changed all my 550 name to Atom from Afternic, last sale was 3 months ago, so I thought I give Atom a try.

 

[DomainRecap]

I just changed all my 550 name to Atom from Afternic, last sale was 3 months ago, so I thought I give Atom a try.

Not sure what you expect to find, as sales are entirely random and determined by buyer interest, and are not decided by the marketplace you set your nameservers to.

And I assume that's what you're talking about, and not a) deleting your names from Afternic and then b) adding them to Atom, which is not a good decision. Your for sale domains should be listed across all the main domain marketplaces and only the nameservers should ever change.