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.

 

[okaydomains]

I totally disagree with this one suggestion. Sometimes AI written descriptions miss key points, or simply write meaningless, but grammatically correct, filler.

The current state of SH is AI descriptions just like you described. Its terrible. 99% of the descriptions are grammatically correct but boring filler.

If someone cares enough about a name they think it is worth $2500+ they should care enough to be willing to edit the AI-generated descriptions and keywords.

This doesn't work at scale. But its moot anyway because..

The problem is that its left in the hands of the sellers (who you should expect will game the system).

I can change my decriptions at SH to be thousands of words long and packed with every potential use case and keyword I can think of. And it *will* improve my rankings in their search engine.

(Sidebar: I don't think killer descriptions are selling any more names at the margin. Maybe you do?)

SH's search engine has all the spam detection capabilities of Yahoo in 1998. It can be easily manipulated and all the sellers have a motivation to do so. So this power should be removed from the hands of sellers, at least until they can handle spam (keep in mind Google is still struggling with this problem in 2024).

I'd flip this around on you - if SH thinks a name is good enough to sell for $2500, can't they spend 5 minutes writing a description and categorizing it properly? (like BrandBucket does)

AI can do much of the categorization/description work, but I want human intervention possible when it fails.

Its about *who* is doing that intervention. Is it someone who can be trusted? (i.e., a SH staff member). Or is it someone who has motiviation to game the system? (a seller)

Any effective search system depends critically on the quality of descriptions and keywords/categories.

That's why letting sellers spam these is such a problem.

Consider, what if the person writing the descriptions and choosing the keywords/categories can't trusted? Houston, we have a problem...

I know you are a trustworthy person and would never unfairly manipulate the system, but reality is that SH (and all marketplaces) are overrun with people who will. So it feels like SH, unlike other domain marketplaces, has an SEO piece that is required of the seller. I don't like that because it incentivizes bad behavior and makes the buyer experience worse.

Great discussion! Have to run for a bit but would love to continue this conversation.

(Edited to be less aggro - sorry about that! Hadn't had lunch)

 

[okaydomains]

One other cue SH could take from Brandbucket is limiting the *frequency* that a buyer can change the prices. I’ve seen domains on the wholesale market where the seller has made dramatic swings in the Retail price multiple times in a month. I’ve avoided buying otherwise viable names just because the current seller has undermined the validity of their pricing signals in the eyes of any potential buyers who are looking at the name. Going with the Brandbucket model where prices changes are more regulated might help restore some authority to the pricing.

Good point.

If I recall correctly, SH did used to have a limit. You could adjust prices only up to a fixed percentage (25%?), only once every six months, and it wouldn't take effect right away - it would be scheduled.

I'm not sure if its changed for everyone or just because I have a Platinum account now, but I can change the prices as much as I want, as frequently as I want, and the price will update instantly on the landing page. I repriced my entire portfolio yesterday, incidentally.

I think there also used to be a limit on how many of your names you could discount at once - that seems to be gone too. (I might be misremembering this. Regardless, you can discount your entire portfolio now. Still limited to 15% though.)

I also think giving special priviliges to larger sellers hurts the marketplace overall. Why should I be able to change prices more than someone else with fewer names? How does that help the buyers?

 

[Recons.Com]

Even if every name on SH had a 2% STR that would still mean 90% of them won't sell in 5 years. So we can't fault them too much. Its a hard problem they are working on.

Huh???

What does 90% thing have to do with this?

If each name has 2% chance to sell, then the chance not to sell for each is 98%.

The chance that 0 out of 2 will sell in a year is 98%*98% = 96.04%
0 out of 3 names 98%^3=94.12%
...
0 out of 100 names in one year 98%^100=13.26%. So there is only 13% chance that nothing would be sold for 100 names in one year. For 700 names? The chance of no sale happening is 0.00007%. That is less than 1 chance in 1 million.

 

[Recons.Com]

You have many excellent points in your post, some of which I will comment more later, but re name, SquadHelp comes from their start as a crowd sourced naming service, which still continues through their contests. I would say their name is appropriate with that focus, of course less obvious if the main focus is to be a curated marketplace.

You are correct, Bob, as always. But, with that focus, the correct brand for them would have been HelpSquad, not SquadHelp. SquadHelp is an appropriate brand for, let's say, a consulting business helping teams (squads) to improve by bringing shrinks, technology, analytics etc.

 

[karmaco]

The name is not good for a curated domain marketplace and if they are changing it that would be a positive.

 

[Recons.Com]

The name is not good for a curated domain marketplace and if they are changing it that would be a positive.

This is why paying attention at choosing a name that is a good fit for not only what you are doing but what it might grow into is essential at the very beginning of the endeavor.

Rebranding is not easy and is not painless. Even if they choose a six figure name, they will lose a lot of the brand's goodwill that will not transfer into the new name. Twitter is a good example with one difference that the original name was a way better fit for what they are doing (which SH isn't for the platform) and had a good story behind, differing from X.

But if we purely focus on the value of twitter.com vs x.com from domain perspective, the former is 4 figure name, the latter is a seven figure name. Yet, moving from twitter to x, has hurt their brand tremendously.

In short, currently the name is not their biggest problem and the linguistic problem is not so obvious to most. Basically, if Bestbuy's GeekSquad was named SquadGeek, most would feel a little subconscious "pain" from the lack of direct sense, but not enough to kill it, and, with time, they'd get used to it if enough is invested into promoting the name. SH has invested millions into ads with its name.

Their biggest problem is the quality of an average name on the platform. Honestly, I see daily lists of SH names for sale here and elsewhere and it is dreadful to read through them. Lots of them just don't make any sense and would hurt an enterprise that would start with any of those and its chances of survival. Many remind the names of Ikea products. This amazes me given how analytical Darpan is and all the tools they have under their hands. This could be a true testament how complex branding is and it goes way deeper than an eye can meet.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Sidebar: I don't think killer descriptions are selling any more names at the margin. Maybe you do?

No, I agree that most of the time a description probably has little impact on a sale. Still, I like the descriptions for my names to sound good and realistically cover the strengths of the name. That is why I really like having the ability to do final edit.

I can change my decriptions at SH to be thousands of words long and packed with every potential use case and keyword I can think of. And it *will* improve my rankings in their search engine.

Do they have a length limit? I have no idea, but I would totally support one. I think most AI generated ones are needlessly wordy. Your concern could partly be addressed by that, perhaps.

Honestly, I had never thought about gaming the system, nor do I recall, from few names I have looked at, ever feeling that happened. At first, I was convinced this could be a problem. But then I thought a bit more. So I will accept that I could probably increase number of people looking if I make a description that covers a lot of hot areas even though not really related to the domain. But what do I gain from that? The buyer will not buy an unrelated name just because they got sent there. I don't see any incentive, certainly none that would make up for the huge effort to accomplish it.

-Bob

 

[NameWell]

Sidebar: has anyone on this forum *ever* sold a Premium name at SH via a naming contest? I doubt it.

I did. Last year two of my premium domain names were sold via SH contests. One was submitted by me, rated "love it" and bought a few days after by that contst holder and another one was submitted by another creative, rated "love it", won the contest, and was purchased shortly after. It may seem unlikely, but it happens.

 

[GoKaizen]

Great idea!

Actually, imo, SH should guarantee minimum revenue for 50+ name folios that at least covers renewals. Basically, if at the close of year, the revenue was not enough, SH pays the difference.

 

[silentg]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1746175568754708588

 

[Alex270]

Hello all,

When it comes to domaining, 2023 wasn't a good year for me, because with such a small portfolio [55 standard listings and 100 premium listings (some registered by Sh and some by me)] I'm down like $700 in renewals.

This was the first time since I've started domaining in 2018 when I had to pay for renewals from my pocket.

I've received some offers for my domains: biggest offer here on NamePros was $200 and I considered it beeing too low, and biggest offer for a Squadhelp premium domain was $1700 and came from an Afternic broker, but being a Sh premium domain I couldn't negociate and the customer didn't want to buy it at BIN price ($2500).

Last year I sold only one domain, in October, at Squadhelp, in 24 installments. I'm not getting too much monthly, but it's better than nothing.

I saw some people here leaving Sh saying that they only sold domains at Afternic in the last period. I also sold a domain there this mounth, a Squadhelp standard listing. Knowing that most of the domains are selling where the lander is (Squadhelp in this case) and that my domain also had a 10% discount at Squadhelp, but the customer decided to buy it at full-price from Af, maybe that's happening because of Fast-Transfer or maybe because GoDaddy is a bigger, better known brand.

So there is a chance that the customer saw my domain at Squadhelp (Google/direct type-in etc) and bought it from Af, for whatever reason.

I still feel that I have an advantage having all my domains with Squadhelp: on-page & off-page SEO, advertisments etc.

That's why I will continue with them and we'll see what will happen in 2024.

I wish good luck to all of us to sell more domains this year

 

[KingBilly]

being a Sh premium domain I couldn't negociate

Hey man, actually you can negotiate prices for SH premium names outside of the platform, as long as they're seller-owned. I confirmed this with a chat rep, and it's mentioned and provided for in the documentation/help too. You negotiate the price, then "Import Lead" for that domain, inputting the negotiated price and the buyer details. And then I believe they get a link to their email to buy it at that price. AND you pay lower commission to SH, just 15%. https://helpdesk.squadhelp.com/en/articles/6403189-import-a-lead-for-premium-listings

 

[Alex270]

Hey man, actually you can negotiate prices for SH premium names outside of the platform, as long as they're seller-owned. I confirmed this with a chat rep, and it's mentioned and provided for in the documentation/help too. You negotiate the price, then "Import Lead" for that domain, inputting the negotiated price and the buyer details. And then I believe they get a link to their email to buy it at that price. AND you pay lower commission to SH, just 15%. https://helpdesk.squadhelp.com/en/articles/6403189-import-a-lead-for-premium-listings

We're talking about two different situations: Sh ToS "You are not allowed to engage in any negotiations with buyers or brokers outside Squadhelp platform. Any price requests or offers must be referred to Squadhelp. As a reminder, if you receive a direct inbound inquiry on your domains, you can import the lead to SH for a reduced commission."

It wasn't a direct inquiry, it was through an Afternic broker, so I couldn't import any lead and I could not negociate anything. The customer had to buy that domain at BIN price.

Sh's answer at that time:

 

[KingBilly]

We're talking about two different situations: Sh ToS "You are not allowed to engage in any negotiations with buyers or brokers outside Squadhelp platform. Any price requests or offers must be referred to Squadhelp. As a reminder, if you receive a direct inbound inquiry on your domains, you can import the lead to SH for a reduced commission."

It wasn't a direct inquiry, it was through an Afternic broker, so I couldn't import any lead and I could not negociate anything. The customer had to buy that domain at BIN price.

Sh's answer at that time:

Ah okay, I can see the difference, thanks for explaining.

Separately, I do see a discrepancy between the ToS you linked, and this screenshot from the page that I linked. In the latter, it says "Negotiating a sale outside SH?" which implies that it's permitted. (And Deni confirmed the same to me, specifically).

But yes agreed that if the lead came from Afternic, then you can't negotiate.

 

[Alex270]

@KingBilly from the beginning of Squadhelp Marketplace I knew that you are not allowed to negociate directly with a buyer or broker for a premium domain. All the negociation for a premium domain has to be done through Squadhelp...

... but you are right: there is a discrepancy between your "Import Lead" page print screen "Negociating a sale outside SH?" and their ToS "You are not allowed to engage in any negotiations with buyers or brokers outside Squadhelp platform." They should address that.

 

[silentg]

4 days and counting no names were approved for premium. Submitted using coin. Anyone else face the same issue?

 

[Optixgroup]

They said around the new year that they were going to be tightening up their approval process. I’ve personally noticed that my acceptance rate has gone down, which I’m completely fine with if it means that the marketplace isn’t getting diluted.

 

[silentg]

When buyers search for a keyword or a domain name on Squadhelp.com, the matching Standard Listings as well as WLM (White Label Marketplace) listings are now included in the search results.

https://helpdesk.squadhelp.com/en/a...rd-wlm-listings-discovered-in-the-marketplace

 

[Sperry8]

Was thinking it'd be a nice feature if they gave us our coins back after being run through their AI Domain Grader and showing as "Strong" but are rejected. They do give back coins if a domain listed in their AI Curated Expired Domains section isn't approved. Seems a similar thing to extend it a bit further (in both cases, AI says it's good).

 

[Sperry8]

Some interesting stats in squadhelp marketing compared to other brandable marketplaces

Show attachment 109216

Would be great to see this updated. I wonder if there have been any changes 4 years later

 

[silentg]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1761382963760017613

 

[silentg]

Show attachment 253415

First sale via SH platform.
Been listing names for Premium since October 2023
H/T: 6 months

Stats
Show attachment 253416

 

[Sperry8]

Nice LLLLL.com sale. I just submitted a bunch of LLLLLs to their website. Waiting to see if they're accepted.

How many names do you have on their platform @silentg ?

 

[KingBilly]

Dang, nice. Hand reg?
How many premium names do you have at SH?

 

[silentg]

91 domains there now.

Domain was a dropcatch.