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.

 

[RozasMD]

It would come as no surprise that probably the majority of those successful domainers on SH are also on this site.

Suffice to say that if they are here on NamePros, they have read this string and for the same reasons people are accusing them, many would never reveal if they are reviewers so as not to be independently influenced by anyone. As it should be. I trust they all know and understand this and will not respond to your question.

However, they will know what people have falsely accused them of...

Your white knighting of SH is embarrassing.

Nobody has accused anyone of anything. We are merely ponting our legitimate concerns about the new system. We are commenting some flaws and we are commenting how there is a huge potential conflict of interest, a huge imbalance between big and small sellers, and how this is worrying to us.

Apparently you consider we are not entitled to have a negative opinion about any change SH decides to make. Even if we have placed some of our -big or small- investments in their marketplace. We cannot differ, we cannot disagree. If we do, we are accusing people and we are in bad faith.

We are warning about the possible outcome of all of this, which is Big Sellers-'Experts' owning all and every top results for virtually every search.

But first of all we are SH sellers and we want both SH and our portfolio to have an excellent performance.

Not sure what your point is. Is SH staff infallible? Is it bad to disagree with their decisions? Do you want us to just shut the f*** up whatever our opinion is? Should SH small or medium sellers be free to give an opinion or should they not?

It's ridiculous.

 

[ecomslice]

You guys are all on acid tripping down a rabbit hole. trying to come up with the equation of quality abstract brandables is impossible. just let it rest.

#unwatching thread

 

[Crypto2020]

Thanks @SuperBrander for your post.

I thought @GrantP already did a good job with regards to concern#1. And I think your explanation makes it sufficiently clear concern#2 even if genuine won't be a wide-spread phenomenon to be problematic (kinda embarrassed as I was guilty of herd psychology too and ended up giving way more importance to my submissions then what they deserve. Thanks for bring me back to earth )

Now all that's left is to address concern#3. Hopefully this can be addressed decisively too.

Best regards and Best luck to all and lets keep discussing and constructively criticizing and progressing without getting personal. We all want to progress and grow. Lets do it together.

Cheers!

 

[SuperBrander]

@boker I can't speak on her behalf (I just saw that she answered you herself). I'm not saying that handregged domains don't sell. They sell all the time. But any specific handregged domain is almost always replaceable and treating them like gold is something that impacts ROI significantly. SH rejects a lot of domains that I submit that I'm pretty confident should be approved and can sell. If I like something enough, I reg it regardless. But either way- no specific domain I can buy for $8 really matters. It's a lottery ticket in a numbers' game. Such a domain getting rejected means nothing. Something gets rejected. Something else gets approved. These low end domains should be taken into perspective. You're a creative guy so you know. There are always more options to handreg. Treating handregged domains like they're some sort of treasure can very easily lead a domainer to sitting on a pile of garbage they feel compelled to renew each year. Even if some sell and they make a decent profit, they would have made way more if they didn't have to cover all those renewals.

 

[SuperBrander]

p.s. Gotta add regarding @JimJammy- she's one of the smartest domain investors out there. She's doing things almost no one else does in order to get to the amount of sales that she's getting and she's been very generous publicly with information about how she does it. She also works harder than anybody else in order to get to those numbers. Hard work and thinking outside the box are less interesting than wild theories so as she just shared (and I can confirm that she also shared it privately before), she was harassed. I was harassed too a few years ago at SH by people who decided that I've won too many contests and that I must be a SH employee, so I understand how she felt. Let's not make wild assumptions because often the truth is much different.

 

[boker]

@boker I can't speak on her behalf (I just saw that she answered you herself). I'm not saying that handregged domains don't sell. They sell all the time. But any specific handregged domain is almost always replaceable and treating them like gold is something that impacts ROI significantly. SH rejects a lot of domains that I submit that I'm pretty confident should be approved and can sell. If I like something enough, I reg it regardless. But either way- no specific domain I can buy for $8 really matters. It's a lottery ticket in a numbers' game. Such a domain getting rejected means nothing. Something gets rejected. Something else gets approved. These low end domains should be taken into perspective. You're a creative guy so you know. There are always more options to handreg. Treating handregged domains like they're some sort of treasure can very easily lead a domainer to sitting on a pile of garbage they feel compelled to renew each year. Even if some sell and they make a decent profit, they would have made way more if they didn't have to cover all those renewals.

We agree that if a domain is accepted or rejected, doesn't mean to much. In the same time, we don't agree on the handregged/aftermarket domains. We are not talking about somebody like you, who has experience with brandables, but I can point out some old domainers who are dealing just with aftermarket domains and loose money or start making a profit after years and in the same time I can point out some domainers who deal only with handregged and make xxxxx profit a year. So, for one domainer who knows what he is doing, every domain he is regging could be gold( even more if you count the ROI, acquisition price and selling price). I had several domains who were handregged that were in the 10-20 most popular domains for some time, so they could have enough value.

 

[boker]

p.s. Gotta add regarding @JimJammy- she's one of the smartest domain investors out there. She's doing things almost no one else does in order to get to the amount of sales that she's getting and she's been very generous publicly with information about how she does it. She also works harder than anybody else in order to get to those numbers. Hard work and thinking outside the box are less interesting than wild theories so as she just shared (and I can confirm that she also shared it privately before), she was harassed. I was harassed too a few years ago at SH by people who decided that I've won too many contests and that I must be a SH employee, so I understand how she felt. Let's not make wild assumptions because often the truth is much different.

We are not talking about how smart she is or how hard she works. We all know her opinion about namepros members, we are good just when we sell LLLLL.com's cheap, otherwise we are the full of sh*t. All the old members know the well know threads about how well she is doing at BB and then all of the sudden she left BB, because they were so good, leaving everybody who believed her behind. Now, SH forum is the best, everybody should avoid namepros members...they are good only when they sell cheap. The same I can say about @Commulinks, she is one of the most active on SH forum, checking namepros just if she needs to defend them. She should be requested to wear a SH representative badge, at least members here will know something about her.

 

[karmaco]

p.s. Gotta add regarding @JimJammy- she's one of the smartest domain investors out there. She's doing things almost no one else does in order to get to the amount of sales that she's getting and she's been very generous publicly with information about how she does it. She also works harder than anybody else in order to get to those numbers. Hard work and thinking outside the box are less interesting than wild theories so as she just shared (and I can confirm that she also shared it privately before), she was harassed. I was harassed too a few years ago at SH by people who decided that I've won too many contests and that I must be a SH employee, so I understand how she felt. Let's not make wild assumptions because often the truth is much different.

We all work hard. She, like many others, likes to get domains in com that have sites developed on other extensions. No magical brilliance there. She was BB biggest supporter until she wasn’t and now is the queen bee over at SH.

Nobody is better than anyone else and putting fellow sellers in a position of power over other sellers is a recipe for disaster.

 

[SuperBrander]

@boker Sure, Some domains may have more potential than others and some can be received very well. But still... we're talking about domains that were already registered by the owner who submitted them so they're safe from theft. The only possible "harm" is that someone will change a letter or submit a slight variation. But do you really think reviewers look at domains and think- hmmm... what a great idea. Let's change one letter, handreg and submit it? Most of the time as a reviewer you see very low quality stuff. You just try to quickly pick the best name based on what you think fits SH best and get it over with. The occasional gems are usually aftermarket domains. Plus, let's say that a reviewer really needs to be inspired by submissions and thinks something they got to review is brilliant- what's the difference between seeing a random submission and getting inspired to getting inspired while browsing the newly published domains, handregging a similar domain and submitting? What advantage do reviewers get by seeing a mix of submitted domains that are already registered and that mostly won't get accepted? At least if you browse the already published domains, you know that a slighly different version was accepted. I see no advantage here for Reviewers.

As for @JimJammy Again, I can't speak on her behalf. But she's a good person who's been harassed. When you get harassed, you tend to become more defensive and less engaging. @karmaco Nobody else I'm familiar with who's dealing with brandable domains has been doing what she's been doing and to that extent using research, social media & SEO. Her sales speak volumes and if I weren't focusing mostly on higher end domains- I'd be trying to follow her footsteps as much as possible. But let's stick to the matter at hand. The sellers- I'm in the same position as you and my submissions are in the hands of reviewers. Personally, from my perspective, it's working fine up till now and most importantly, reviews are lightning fast. Compare that to BB's review system... and well... I know which one I prefer. But SH is monitoring it and they will change things if they're wrong. I've seen it in the past many times, sometimes even direct changes based on feedback I gave them.

 

[karmaco]

I don’t see anyone but the select few reviewers and SH benefiting from this new system. You all get back with us a year from now when the same folks are at the top of the leaderboard.

That happened at BB too but at least we know those top sellers weren’t deciding our fate and getting benefits others don’t.

 

[SuperBrander]

Another p.s. regarding @Commulinks - first of all, she's also a good person. She's indeed very active in the forums but most of the time she criticizes SH and tries to cause them to add features or change something existing. She is often very vocal about it and doesn't let them off easily. I don't think she'll be getting a SH badge anytime soon.

Also, @karmaco- you should keep in mind that some of the people with the most sales have been using the marketplace way before most other sellers have discovered it. Less sellers=more sales. I guess I'm one of them even though I ignored the marketplace when it first started. Took me quite a long time to realize it was worthwhile using. But I still started listing domains quite a while before NamePros discovered it- so I got a bunch of sales I probably wouldn't have gotten now that there are way more domains there. The seller in second place by the way shot up there recently. I don't know who it is. Ultimately, sales are about numbers, relative quality and also luck. I really don't think this system of Reviewers is problematic for me as a seller. Otherwise I wouldn't have quit it.

 

[boker]

Another p.s. regarding @Commulinks - first of all, she's also a good person. She's indeed very active in the forums but most of the time she criticizes SH and tries to cause them to add features or change something existing. She is often very vocal about it and doesn't let them off easily. I don't think she'll be getting a SH badge anytime soon.

Also, @karmaco- you should keep in mind that some of the people with the most sales have been using the marketplace way before most other sellers have discovered it. Less sellers=more sales. I guess I'm one of them even though I ignored the marketplace when it first started. Took me quite a long time to realize it was worthwhile using. But I still started listing domains quite a while before NamePros discovered it- so I got a bunch of sales I probably wouldn't have gotten now that there are way more domains there. The seller in second place by the way shot up there recently. I don't know who it is. Ultimately, sales are about numbers, relative quality and also luck. I really don't think this system of Reviewers is problematic for me as a seller. Otherwise I wouldn't have quit it.

I'm not criticizing the new system, I'm even better with the new system, I think I have around 20% acceptance rate, so I can't complain.

 

[Commulinks]

Apparently you consider we are not entitled to have a negative opinion about any change SH decides to make.

I would say the same about your comments. Is it not OK to say anything positive here, or is this just a place to complain? I have a great experience with SH, and since other domainers here may want to know the other side of the story, too, then why should I not say what I think, too?

I also try to go directly to SH with any issues I have with them. Not here.

And yes, as others have said about me here, I am vocal with SH, too. And guess what? They listen - but they do not and cannot always make decisions for their company to suit everyone. The reason this discussion never ends is because people are not getting what they want. So the conversation ended in the SH platform and moved over here!

SH has more than adequately answered all of these questions that have been asked over and over both here and in the forum-for weeks now. It's actually been a minority of people complaining, too.
They will make changes if they feel it necessary.

Anyway, this has all become an "attack anyone who supports SH forum".......... not only that, but "Make false allegations" about SH AND certain domainers that are being NAMED!

 

[Commulinks]

@gblasting - can you tell me where in your dashboard you were able to get that data? I don't see that in mine so I was wondering how to get it. Thanks.

Never mind, I figured out why I can't see mine. They were resubs.

 

[Commulinks]

Another p.s. regarding @Commulinks - first of all, she's also a good person. She's indeed very active in the forums but most of the time she criticizes SH and tries to cause them to add features or change something existing. She is often very vocal about it and doesn't let them off easily. I don't think she'll be getting a SH badge anytime soon.

Thanks very much @SuperBrander
SH has been very proactive at listening, too.

 

[Commulinks]

I believe cooler heads will prevail on this subject. I invite people to ask themselves:
What if my accusations really are unfounded/false?
What if my suspicions are completely off-base?
What if I just aliened a whole bunch of people who could have been allies?

Accusations don't set policy - Sound decision-making does
Suspicions said many times are not truth - Facts reveal themselves
The few don't necessarily represent the many

If your names are being rejected, try subbing them at BB or Brandpa and see what happens. If you want your names approved on SH, be sure they are brandable and follow the basic naming conventions.

And most of all, follow that old adage that goes:
Don't sh, I mean defecate, where you eat.

Thanks to so many of you who have made positive points.

 

[DomainBanana]

Is it not OK to say anything positive here, or is this just a place to complain?

Communlinks,

Please read this thread carefully. Most of us who are critical of the new review policy have been careful to focus our comments on the policy itself and have said many positive things about Squadhelp and the reviewer team. For example, I recently called Squadhelp the "premiere brandable marketplace". I also recently thanked the reviewer team for improving the quality of domains on the marketplace.

You seem to be ready to take these comments and twist them into something they are not without carefully reading what we're saying.

I also try to go directly to SH with any issues I have with them. Not here.

I tried to share my perspective on Squadhelp and was threatened with "action against my account" for communicating on the forum there. When Squadhelp represses constructive criticism on its forum, these things inevitably come out elsewhere.

SH has more than adequately answered all of these questions that have been asked over and over both here and in the forum-for weeks now.

Many sellers do not feel Squadhelp's responses on these issues have been adequate. That is why our questions have persisted. Grant selectively addressed some criticisms above. He has not addressed my comments.

This has all become an "attack anyone who supports SH forum".......... not only that, but "Make false allegations" about SH AND certain domainers that are being NAMED!

Once again, you are misreading and misinterpreting the comments. Once again, I know and respect many SH reviewers. And I support and value Squadhelp and would like to continue to list with them. If I didn't, it would be much easier to just walk away.

 

[boker]

@boker Sure, Some domains may have more potential than others and some can be received very well. But still... we're talking about domains that were already registered by the owner who submitted them so they're safe from theft. The only possible "harm" is that someone will change a letter or submit a slight variation. But do you really think reviewers look at domains and think- hmmm... what a great idea. Let's change one letter, handreg and submit it? Most of the time as a reviewer you see very low quality stuff. You just try to quickly pick the best name based on what you think fits SH best and get it over with. The occasional gems are usually aftermarket domains. Plus, let's say that a reviewer really needs to be inspired by submissions and thinks something they got to review is brilliant- what's the difference between seeing a random submission and getting inspired to getting inspired while browsing the newly published domains, handregging a similar domain and submitting? What advantage do reviewers get by seeing a mix of submitted domains that are already registered and that mostly won't get accepted? At least if you browse the already published domains, you know that a slighly different version was accepted. I see no advantage here for Reviewers.

As for @JimJammy Again, I can't speak on her behalf. But she's a good person who's been harassed. When you get harassed, you tend to become more defensive and less engaging. @karmaco Nobody else I'm familiar with who's dealing with brandable domains has been doing what she's been doing and to that extent using research, social media & SEO. Her sales speak volumes and if I weren't focusing mostly on higher end domains- I'd be trying to follow her footsteps as much as possible. But let's stick to the matter at hand. The sellers- I'm in the same position as you and my submissions are in the hands of reviewers. Personally, from my perspective, it's working fine up till now and most importantly, reviews are lightning fast. Compare that to BB's review system... and well... I know which one I prefer. But SH is monitoring it and they will change things if they're wrong. I've seen it in the past many times, sometimes even direct changes based on feedback I gave them.

Actually, I like the new system better than the old one. My acceptance rate is higher, the process is smoother and most of the times in 24-48 hours has a logo as well. I like the system, because even for the rejected one's, I can learn something. I mean, I value the opinion of everybody, even without being a domainer, because his opinion could be as good as an average person opinion, who could be an end user. I also have domains, that have received 0 votes, but I will still value them, for some reason or another. Regarding the reviewers, it's normal to have them 'payed' for they efforts, but I think that it will work better a system where they get a % of the sale, than points and coins, because with the actual system, they are pushed to use the coins and points to push their names in front. So, it's hard for somebody to compete with others, when some of them have their names in front all the times. So, for somebody who has over 500 names and is a reviewer as well, he can keep his name in front every time, so it will be hard to compete with that.

 

[Footprint789]

Error

 

[Footprint789]

Here's my two cents' worth as an ex-reviewer who was doing it for about a week:


2. Inspiration- no offense, but if you or me or anyone else handregged a domain lately or submitted an unregistered one for consideration- it's not the best domain out there by a long shot (unless it's a brand new trend that just emerged and you managed to catch a relevant domain early). Domains that people are so scared will be ripped off have been available for anyone to register for awhile and sometimes were never registered before. In 99.9% of the cases these domains aren't registered in any other extension. People who have been domaining for a long time don't need to be inspired by submissions- they can see which names sold and which names were recently added to the marketplace if they're really into getting relevant data and/or inspiration from others. Everybody has access to that data. And being inspired by submissions that haven't even been approved yet doesn't make much sense to me. If they're aftermarket domains- you can't tweak them and get something equivalent. If they're low end domains- it's very likely nobody with exeperience in domaining cares about them. Similar domains get submitted/registered all the time due to the limited amount of meaningful keywords and prefixes/suffixes. Even while submitting, I'm sure most if not everybody can see that many times other people already submitted their idea. People who have been in the industry for awhile can likely find better handregged domains than less experienced domainers and don't need to get inspired by them- so again, don't fall in love with your low end domains and accept them for what they are- lottery tickets that can be easily replaced.

Anyway... this post is waaaay too long so I'll wrap it up!

I would like to present different perspective about some of the points here. While names that are still available to register seems insignificant to you with all due respect please check the sales that have taken place at SH, 90% of the names I have checked are all handregged recently that were once might have been thought of as insignificant by someone too.

And your point about it is not possible to tweak variations of a name idea as they are aftermarket names etc does not hold much water here. Because I feel these are brandables, the whole point of them is to tweak variations of name or actual keyword and make it brandable/good enough for end users. So your argument is great for keyword names or those names which we can find in marketplace like Sedo, Afternic but it does not seem a strong enough point for brandable Marketplace.

And your point telling not to treat hand reg domains as "treasure". Guess what SH sales are dominated by these "treasures". Infact for some of us, handregs are the only thing we can work with as not everyone is privileged enough to go after auction or Premium names most of the times for various reasons. Infact my first sale at SH(and 2 other outside) was a handreg that I thought after lot of effort in brainstorming and coming up with the idea. Surprising thing is it is not even a variation of actual word, was a made up name. I felt it was my best name and I was really happy when it finally got sold. So, it really was my "treasure" literally.

May be you having progressed from beginner to intermediate to expert in domaining, these handregs seems insignificant now but it's pretty clear that it is not the case for others, all including experts are submitting unregistered names which means they are looking for good ideas too.


Finally for some, handregs may seem trash. And they may calculate investment based on how much they acquired the name for, I completely understand your perspective my friend. But for others their creativity, time and ideas might be there investment.

And about some of the other comments by others, people who think they are the sole supporters of SH seem to forget one thing. We all are genuine supporters of SH and everyone made clear it's only about the obvious potential conflict of interest and nothing against SH and that we wish them all the best.

So, not sure why few users are downvoting others view points. NP is a neutral venue and it is encouraged here to talk or discuss about issues. Infact if you go back, you will see grant himself appreciated and thanked a NP member for a great idea/insight they shared a few months ago.
Ideally Expert reviewers can come up with a logical response on it if they disagree with non-experts views. TBH IMO "downvoting" gives an impression that they are actually trying to suppress the issue which actually solidifies all other non-expert sellers views.

Finally, some are actually mistaking that this is about "rejection rates". No, it isn't. With the growth of SH or any platform for that matter, it's only natural they try to control things.

This is all about scope for potential conflict of interest, and the early access of names to experts before they are even approved and most importantly the "visibility".

And everyone will agree that they love the faster review times because of expert review system, I love it personally.

But Just take a step back and imagine if Expert review system = sales for all ?
What will happen a couple of months down the line and even 6 months down the line ?

With all the large accumulated points during this period, they will have a virtual "forever" superboost button at their disposal.

Few months down the line if you search for a keyword of your name in the marketplace, do you really like if your name is some "873" position even though your name is a close match to the keyword ?

There are about 20 reviewers and they all have 100s of names each at the least and guess whose names will occupy in the top positions. With this, the visibility of non-experts sellers names seems pretty much dead.


So,

1. Expert review system = Fast review times = Awesome
2. Expert review system = drastic reduction of visibility for non-experts = Not ok.

So, does it really matter if your name is reviewed fast if it's not visible to end users. Ultimately that's what is important I feel.

I would greatly appreciate if someone who is not an expert reviewer and not have previous experience as expert to educate us how this expert review system is beneficial to non-expert sellers.

I am very open to listen to counter-responses of others as long as they make sense or logical. Personally, if I accidentally make a mistake, I also don't mind apologizing. So, feel free to share your logical responses.

Thanks all.