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.

 

[NameMedia]

I’d like to thank everyone for taking part and being active in my thread and thank @GrantP for his continued support in answering everyone’s questions and responding to comments here.

here’s an update. I started 2020 with 273 premium listings at sh. I have been building my portfolio since and now have 407 premium listings.

in January I had no sales at squadhelp. It was being out performed by the other marketplaces I list at. Things changed in February and I had 3 sales totalling $5397. March I had 2 sales totalling $3198 and in April I had 3 sales totalling $6597. So far May has been good with one sale of $2499. I will continue to share updates here every so often.
QUOTE


That is encouraging. Thank you for sharing, JudgeMind. My own portfolio is now well over 300 names.
I have had 4 sales total. I have been with them more than a year. Quite a difference in results.

My sales have been slow, much slower than other platforms would be at the number of names. But I am still hopeful, and somehow, very confident, that sales will improve. Their customer service is great, they are always seeking to innovate and add new sales partnerships. So even though my sales have been slow, to date,I am continuing to increase my portfolio.

 

[Nametree]

So as you are all aware of, Squadhelp recently started accepting .app domains along with some other extensions to be listed at their marketplace.

However, they were not prepared for SSL secure landing pages, as all of the current listings (including mine) shows a privacy error/invalid certificate.

When I contacted support about this issue, they told me they only accepted .com domains. Wow.

Are you working on sorting this out @GrantP? And how about informing your staff about important updates?

+1 on this inquiry about .app, @GrantP - I've listed a handful of names and they're searchable and have even had logos made, but they are not resolving. I contacted support but they had no idea what to say.

Easy fix would be allowing names to be forwarded to the SH sales page as opposed to using nameservers, but if I do that I get emails warning me the names will be delisted because I'm not using the right nameservers.

 

[Ntmt]

That is encouraging. Thank you for sharing, JudgeMind. My own portfolio is now well over 300 names.
I have had 4 sales total. I have been with them more than a year. Quite a difference in results.

Thanks for sharing your results. Did you started from 300 names year ago? How many of domains in your portfolio are listed for 1 year or more? Or could you share your calculated sell thru rate from SH Dashboard?

 

[NameMedia]

I started early in 2019 with 0 names, and have been adding. At a rough guess, without checking, maybe a quarter of names are over 1 year total listed. My sell through average on dashboard shows at around 2%.

 

[Samer]

@GrantP my first SH negative experience. After buy $39 wholesale, i contacted buyer further details, and received this response;

“Samer I did not list this name wholesale. have not listed anything wholesale and I never will.”

This guy is top-3 seller on Squadhelp platform. take his word for it, legenhis own right.

I bought SH wholesale unknowingly listed

Customer support re-directed me to billing and feel wronged, lost faith in the process.

Notes:
Only buy Seller-listed SH-Premium names. Overhaul, streamline removal.
Sad part, get refund, will it happen again? SH wholesale market has been very kind to me, Grant; never problem; had two deals before.
Thank you again, @GrantP

Samer

 

[DomainBanana]

Two of Squadhelp's greatest strengths are innovation and speed of implementation.

Two of Squadhelp's greatest weaknesses are innovation and speed of implementation.

Sometimes, it feels like major changes are implemented with an "act first, think later" mentality, and sellers are left scrambling to deal with the fallout.

• This jolting shift happened with the sudden shift to "coins" for reviews (Squadhelp had previously said "never trust a marketplace that charges you for a review").
• The shakeup is still ongoing with the seller-reviewer policy.
• Now, we are guinea pigs for a new policy that allows basic plus listings with 3+ votes to have logos and be searchable in the marketplace alongside premium listings.

The line between premium and basic plus listings is now paper-thin, yet SH still takes higher commissions for premium listings.

If Squadhelp allows Basic Plus listings to be searchable with logos on the marketplace, I see no reason for any distinction between Basic Plus and Premium listings.

If any domain (correction: any domain with 3+ votes) can now be searchable on the marketplace with a logo, there's no longer much reason to review domains at all.

With the new policy, it seems Squadhelp has rendered its own curation process and the premium/basic+ distinctions obsolete.

Your thoughts?

 

[Samer]

Two of Squadhelp's greatest strengths are innovation and speed of implementation.

Two of Squadhelp's greatest weaknesses are innovation and speed of implementation.

Sometimes, it feels like major changes are implemented with an "act first, think later" mentality, and sellers are left scrambling to deal with the fallout.

• This jolting shift happened with the sudden shift to "coins" for reviews (Squadhelp had previously said "never trust a marketplace that charges you for a review").
• The shakeup is still ongoing with the seller-reviewer policy.
• Now, we are guinea pigs for a new policy that allows basic plus listings to have logos and be searchable in the marketplace alongside premium listings.

The line between premium and basic plus listings is now paper-thin, yet SH still takes higher commissions for premium listings and premiums go through a review process while Basic Plus don't.

If Squadhelp allows Basic Plus listings to be searchable with logos on the marketplace, I see no reason for any distinction between Basic Plus and Premium listings.

If any domain can now be searchable on the marketplace with a logo, there's no longer much reason to review domains at all.

With the new policy, it seems Squadhelp has rendered its own curation process and the premium/basic+ distinctions obsolete.

Your thoughts?

Basic Plus dont count towards benefit tiers.

 

[Samer]

@GrantP

My previous wholesale market buy was hastily aborted -- the owner top-5 SH seller-- said he never listed and never will. OK, i was refunded.

My 2nd subsequent wholesale purchase after; attempt contact seller push, in vain, still waiting

Vincent kind confirm sent to seller; still waiting

 

[DomainBanana]

Basic Plus listings dont count towards benefit tiers.

True, there are still some differences. In addition to benefit tiers, basic plus:

• are not included in any advertising or retargeting campaigns
• are not eligible for Boosting feature (or Super Boost).
• are not eligible for Installment payments
• do not receive a complimentary Logo Design
• "typically" rank below other comparable premium listing in the Marketplace.

Nevertheless, giving Basic Plus with 3+ votes and premium listings near parity in the marketplace is somewhat confusing and disappointing.

With recent actions, the distinctions between these two categories have been nearly eliminated.

I feel like there should either be a solid division (not searchable, no logo), or no division at all.

By listing basic plus and premium listings side by side with no distinction, SH has wiped away the significance of its own premium / review / curation process.

And with that, they have wiped away sellers' hard work in building a portfolio of premium listings that stand out from the crowd of junk in an already saturated market.

 

[Joakim]

In all honesty, they are asking for trouble with the fast pace they are implementing changes. Constant changes, without much thought - so it seems.

In the end, I have no doubt about this, they could start seeing a decline in quality inventory. Sure, they can continue selling garbage. But really, it's not very attractive spewing random names around to clueless endusers.

I as well as anyone, can decide to leave. At the moment, I feel like I'm taking the piss. Huge commissions, and they're having "fun" experimenting with garbage ideas.

 

[Rhinnnn]

The line between premium and basic plus listings is now paper-thin, yet SH still takes higher commissions for premium listings and premiums go through a review process while Basic Plus don't.

If Squadhelp allows Basic Plus listings to be searchable with logos on the marketplace, I see no reason for any distinction between Basic Plus and Premium listings.

If any domain can now be searchable on the marketplace with a logo, there's no longer much reason to review domains at all.

With the new policy, it seems Squadhelp has rendered its own curation process and the premium/basic+ distinctions obsolete.

Your thoughts?

Only Basic Plus names that have received at least 3 Expert votes are eligible to become searchable and get a logo. So they still have to go through the review process first.

https://helpdesk.squadhelp.com/en/articles/4001020-basic-plus-searchable-listings

 

[DomainBanana]

Only Basic Plus names that have received at least 3 Expert votes are eligible to become searchable and get a logo. So they still have to go through the review process first.

Thank you @Rhinnnn , I missed that and am glad to see there's still some minimum threshold.

Nevertheless, Basic Plus listings with 3+ up votes and a logo are now indistinguishable from premium domains on the marketplace.

 

[Veneris]

I thought squadhelp's recent Introduction of the Expert reviewers process was to curate the market and help seive quality over quantity...
Now with the introduction of this basic plus policy, what point are they trying to make exactly? @GrantP, kindly respond to this. I feel the basic plus policy is contradicting the earlier Expert Reviewers policy you guys introduced and hence not a step in the right direction.

 

[Atom.com]

Thanks for sharing the feedback regarding Basic Plus listings.

As a background, we've always had a small percentage of our Basic Plus listings searchable in the Premium Marketplace (if they received certain number of contest likes). The recent change allows for an additional vetting process for Basic Plus listings that may not have been submitted to contests.

As a context, we currently have about 7500 Basic Plus listings and only about 400 of such listings qualify to be searchable under this new rule (about 6%). The goal of this change is not to flood the marketplace with Basic plus listings, but allow a small number of listings that have gone through some vetting process to achieve a bit more visibility in the Marketplace.

Even when these listings are searchable, they do not receive several benefits that are only offered for premium listings - most importantly, these listings are not included in any of the Advertising campaigns (for new customer prospecting or retargeting). These listings also rank below premium listings, and they are not included in our AI based recommendation technology.

We believe this offers a reasonable compromise, and allows for some additional visibility for listings that have gone through a vetting process.

The change was done based upon the feedback received from several sellers. However if many people do not support this change, please share your thoughts here or in the discussion forum , and we would be glad to revisit it.

 

[Atom.com]

+1 on this inquiry about .app, @GrantP - I've listed a handful of names and they're searchable and have even had logos made, but they are not resolving. I contacted support but they had no idea what to say.

Easy fix would be allowing names to be forwarded to the SH sales page as opposed to using nameservers, but if I do that I get emails warning me the names will be delisted because I'm not using the right nameservers.

Our engineering team is working on the issues related to resolving .app domains. It turned out to be a bit more complex issue than earlier expected however we are working on this, and hope to have a solution in next few days.

 

[Atom.com]

@GrantP

My previous wholesale market buy was hastily aborted -- the owner top-5 SH seller-- said he never listed and never will. OK, i was refunded.

My 2nd subsequent wholesale purchase after; attempt contact seller push, in vain, still waiting

Vincent kind confirm sent to seller; still waiting

Thanks for your feedback, and sorry to hear about the cancellation of your first order. We are working on few more changes to further streamline the Wholesale order process, and I will share your feedback with the product team.

 

[Samer]

Thanks @GrantP, if any changes made, Pl consider bug bounty or inconvenience bounty.

I continue to buy from SH Wholesale market.
it’s my favorite. Thank you for your time.

Samer

 

[howudoin8]

@GrantP Please Answer this.

Portfolio Popularity of my Profile (33%) is way lower than site average of 50% even though my Shortlist rate is ALMOST DOUBLE of site Average & Approval rate is at 15% (Higher than site average of 10%), so how to improve Portfolio Popularity Percentage?

If I become more active on SH (Such as rating logos, participating in contests etc), then will that improve my Portfolio Popularity?

Not too long ago, my Portfolio Popularity was 70% when I used to do the above things. So will my Portfolio Popularity bounce back if I start doing them again?

 

[E-Thunder]

I wanted to share a new review and 2 week update on my Squadhelp experience. Hopefully sharing will give everyone some perspective on things.

I now have 20 domains listed. This is up from 16 just 2 weeks ago.

Approval rate has fallen slightly to 17.7%, but is still well above the 11.1% average.

Again, all approvals have been 2 word combinations. All made up words or plays on words were rejected, so it appears this is pretty consistent week over week. I would suggest sticking with real words and compounds, or know that they appear to have a better change for acceptance. *I would be curious if anyone has had an opposite experience too.

Average time from submission to acceptance or rejection has been 3 days or less. Time frame for logos has been longer than in the past, with most of these not done and taking a week or 2 after acceptance.

I am motivated by the new tier system and feel like there is something I am now working towards. I like the additional benefits when growing the portfolio there. The coins will be a plus for sure.

Time wise, I have spent hours scouring the contests. This has given me lots of inspiration of domains to register, not just for use at Squadhelp but in general. Just yesterday I registered a domain that I never would have come up with on my own, so that credit can be given all to Squadhelp.

I did receive some "likes" for contest entries, and it seems like I am in consideration for some of these which I now enjoy.

The whole atmosphere I like there, it seems like more of community than BB or BP, which I really like. I likely will solely use Squadhelp for brandable domains moving forward now.

As for domains that didn't make the cut, I continue to compile a list of these and plan to share soon. It will be interesting to see everyone's view of what I submitted that got rejected!

 

[DomainBanana]

Thanks for sharing your experience, @E-Thunder.

I don't think anyone should put much stock in approvals or rejections from a review process based on superficial polling. A process that, by virtue of the small number of seller-reviewers, is vulnerable to corruption. It's ingenious of Squadhelp to offload the serious business of reviews onto a few sellers and compensate them with fake currency (points). But, in my view, the process is a conflict of interest and doesn't give brands the comprehensive and objective analysis they deserve.

Squadhelp does polls, not reviews.

I recently sold a brand for 3x what Squadhelp would have listed it for. The "experts" rejected it with a 2/9 score. In this case, I should be thankful for the poor judgement of the seller-reviewer squad.

Regarding the Squadhelp community, I have found it to be cult-ish, with little tolerance for critical thinking and a great deal of under-the-table backstabbing.

In my experience the communities at other marketplaces are much more civil and intelligent.

Squadhelp has many wonderful aspects, though. Dan, Grant, and the team are top notch.

Good luck on your journey.