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.

 

[Coindoji]

The information shared is unfortunately not accurate. We welcome constructive criticism, but if the information is not factual, it is unproductive for everyone involved.

• "Eteria" was approved by SH on September 16 but was rejected by you because you did not agree to the approved price.
• "Secria" was approved on Aug 18 and is currently live.
• "Bewey" - looks like this domain was submitted by a different seller account. It seems you are claiming you submitted this domain. Maintaining multiple accounts is a direct violation of SH policy because it is unfair to other sellers who are following rules for submission limits, appeal process limits etc. Our team will follow up with you regarding this issue separately.

True, I have a ton of names with only 100 on SH, but since you responded I decide to dig this issue.


Centes - $951 GD auction - rejected (aruzy youko lexaca and other below average (I would say trash, but that's imo) handregs are accepted) - at least DO SOME BASIC RESEARCH before making a final decision.

Eteria - $850 DC auction - 3800 accepted (I requested a review of the price, it's been 3 weeks, I consider this a rejection)

Secria - accepted, that was my mistake..

IVBF, PWPE and similar - rejected, I get it - rules changed - but you still have a ton of worse names listed - if you changed rules - remove all names in that category (i.e. UXYA and similar), it makes no sense that you stopped accepting avg or worse LLLLs, but keep those accepted before active.

This is not just me speaking of your 'Experts' - read the thread, there is NOT A SINGLE PRAISE - ALL COMPLAINTS about your evaluation process. Are we all wrong here?

And if a community manager of my project responds 'You can go to another marketplace if you don't like ours' - I'm firing him right away and find a better one. This attitude is unacceptable.

 

[Kazama San]

Perfect example of how the approval process still needs to be improved:

Eteria - rejected
Lexaca, Elivor, Aruzy, Yuoko - accepted

The reviewers aren't using any data to make their decisions- just eyeballing it, apparently. To be fair, they aren't incentivized enough to take the time to do so.

I reckon they aren't even eyeballing names properly let alone passing them through radio tests. To be honest, some of these accepted names are not even worthy of being handregged for free. IMO

 

[gblasting]

IVBF, PWPE and similar - rejected, I get it - rules changed - but you still have a ton of worse names listed - if you changed rules - remove all names in that category (i.e. UXYA and similar), it makes no sense that you stopped accepting avg or worse LLLLs, but keep those accepted before active.

It actually makes all the sense in the world to keep names accepted before a rule change. If SH had accepted your own IVBF (that you submitted with a coin) before the rule change, you are saying it is okay for them to delist the name because they changed their rule for such names?

 

[Coindoji]

Absolutely. The rule stands for entire marketplace and when a new user joins and reads them - for example, ‘ we don’t accept names like A, B and Z ‘ and this new user opens the marketplace and sees A, B and Z names listed all across - this is confusing to say the least.
So yes, it makes sense to apply rules to the marketplace in full extent. Coins can be refunded and used for boosts or designs.

 

[DomainBanana]

Regarding the "Request Review" delays, we agree that the current timeline is not acceptable. We are working on improving this timeline.

@GrantP Please update on the status of "Request Review" times. It takes longer than ever for these to be processed and you said in June that SH would improve this timeline.

I'm also wondering what's happening to SH support lately. I used to be able to get an answer within minutes. Now, it can take days or weeks.

Thanks for your continued efforts to perfect the marketplace.

 

[JudgeMind]

I reckon they aren't even eyeballing names properly let alone passing them through radio tests. To be honest, some of these accepted names are not even worthy of being handregged for free. IMO

When the reviewer has to choose between a name like above and a 4L pronounceable, they will pick the ladder every time. So the system is flawed. I think it should be a straight up yes or no for the review, not a grouping of names to choose from @GrantP

 

[bowskie]

@GrantP

Are there any plans for more transparency in the negotiations of white label domains?

At the moment as a seller I feel that SH is in complete control over negotiations and I have no idea what communication there is between SH and interested parties.

Within the last few days I had a promising lead on a domain with an initial offer of $2000. I used the conversation window to contact the interested party and replied. I did not counter the offer with a fixed price, but decided to try to engage the buyer and asked them to submit an increased offer.
I never heard anything back from the interested party via the conversation history and left it to SH to follow up (as domain owners are not privy to their emails).
A couple of days pass and SH assures me that they will follow up and let me know once they contact the potential buyer.
This morning I check my SH dashboard and the offer has now changed from active to "closed - buyer no longer interested".
I follow up with SH via chat to see if there is any feedback on this deal only to be told that the buyer decided to move forward with a different domain.
This raises concerns for me due to the fact that I do not get to see what SH is saying to the customer.

1) I feel that if SH is going to withhold potential buyers email addresses, you should allow the domain owner to see all communication that occurs between the interested party and SH. It shouldn't matter that interested parties contacted SH directly via chat or email directly. Whatever was discussed should be made available in some form to the domain owner.
2) Why do I have to follow up with SH in order to find out this information? This should all be made available within the dashboard in real time.

 

[JimJammy]

@GrantP

Are there any plans for more transparency in the negotiations of white label domains?

At the moment as a seller I feel that SH is in complete control over negotiations and I have no idea what communication there is between SH and interested parties.

Within the last few days I had a promising lead on a domain with an initial offer of $2000. I used the conversation window to contact the interested party and replied. I did not counter the offer with a fixed price, but decided to try to engage the buyer and asked them to submit an increased offer.
I never heard anything back from the interested party via the conversation history and left it to SH to follow up (as domain owners are not privy to their emails).
A couple of days pass and SH assures me that they will follow up and let me know once they contact the potential buyer.
This morning I check my SH dashboard and the offer has now changed from active to "closed - buyer no longer interested".
I follow up with SH via chat to see if there is any feedback on this deal only to be told that the buyer decided to move forward with a different domain.
This raises concerns for me due to the fact that I do not get to see what SH is saying to the customer.

1) I feel that if SH is going to withhold potential buyers email addresses, you should allow the domain owner to see all communication that occurs between the interested party and SH. It shouldn't matter that interested parties contacted SH directly via chat or email directly. Whatever was discussed should be made available in some form to the domain owner.
2) Why do I have to follow up with SH in order to find out this information? This should all be made available within the dashboard in real time.

So the purchaser came in via your WLM? Then after negotiations with SH bought a different SH domain? Did I understand that correctly?

 

[bowskie]

So the purchaser came in via your WLM? Then after negotiations with SH bought a different SH domain? Did I understand that correctly?

I am not trying to insinuate that this is what happened as there is no way for me to know.

The only information that I was given by SH was "Sorry for the confusion here. We were in contact with this buyer and they let us know that they decided to move forward with a different domain."

While the thought did cross my mind that this could have happened, on further consideration it seems unlikely.

Edit: For clarification the interested party went directly to my domains lander and submitted an offer that was a 1/3 of the buy it now price.
I replied via the inquiry chat window shortly after receiving notification of this.
Nothing back from the buyer.
According to SH there were no further negotiations between themselves and the buyer until their final follow up email which resulted in the buyer saying that they were going with another domain.

 

[Atom.com]

@bowskie

The Offer Center for White Label domains now supports direct communication between buyers and sellers. When you send a message in offer center, it goes straight to the buyer, and when the buyer responds via offer center, it comes straight to your offer center and you are also notified via email and in-app alerts.

You can also now see the buyer's email and phone number if they have agreed to share it with the sellers while making an offer.

In addition, you also have the option to list your own contact information (email and phone number) on your landing pages in case you prefer the buyers to contact you directly.

If the buyers do not respond to messages sent by sellers, the SH team follows up with the buyers on seller's behalf in order to help move the negotiation process forward.

I looked into this situation, and it looks like the buyer did not respond to your messages via offer center. The SH team also sent them multiple followups which they did not respond to as well. Late last night, after our final follow up message to the buyer, they finally responded that they are no longer interested and that they had decided to move forward with a different domain (not listed on SH). This update was provided to you in the morning by our Marketplace team even though the offer status was updated few hours earlier. Unfortunately if a buyer responds directly to SH via email (and not via offer center), that email is not automatically visible in your offer center, and it can take few hours for our team to provide that update to you.

We will continue to look for ways to make this process even more efficient so that any updates for manual email correspondence are as real time as possible.

 

[DomainBanana]

@GrantP Please update on the status of "Request Review" times. It takes longer than ever for these to be processed and you said in June that SH would improve this timeline.

I'm also wondering what's happening to SH support lately. I used to be able to get an answer within minutes. Now, it can take days or weeks.

Thanks for your continued efforts to perfect the marketplace.

@GrantP maybe you missed this post? Please respond

 

[LUP]

I only have 2 names here and squadhelp just says "Strong Buyer Interest: At least 6 potential buyers viewed or shortlisted this domain recently."

I don't know what this means, No sales happened

 

[etruscan]

I agree as someone recently posted that the gold standard for brandable names reviews/evaluation is still BB, SH expert review process is not optimized and with new tech trends emerging faster than in the past you cannot assume as a rule that recently registered domains cannot be worth in any case more than 2K. Having said that SH is faster than BB once the domain is approved, BB really need to improve in terms of speed, it takes them 2 weeks if not more to evaluate your domain and after that is parked for more than a week in editorial status, their delivery time is not competitive at all.

 

[Coindoji]

These freaking 'experts' is total trash these days...


1. Submit name using coin
2. After it gets accepted - pay $2 for a review.
3. Get this.

Highlighted text is word by word text that I submitted with this domain as a note, they add 1 sentence and call it a day!!! 'expert classification completed.


LET ALONE THE FACT THAT THIS IS NOT EVEN A '4 letter...' brand name.. This is ridiculous, went downhill quickly..

They really do innovative stuff but their experts are ruining everything and every experience on the other side of the floor..

 

[loredan]

These freaking 'experts' is total trash these days...


1. Submit name using coin
2. After it gets accepted - pay $2 for a review.
3. Get this.

Show attachment 170816



Highlighted text is word by word text that I submitted with this domain as a note, they add 1 sentence and call it a day!!! 'expert classification completed.


LET ALONE THE FACT THAT THIS IS NOT EVEN A '4 letter...' brand name.. This is ridiculous, went downhill quickly..

They really do innovative stuff but their experts are ruining everything and every experience on the other side of the floor..

Oh God, your "expert" cannot count to five! H-O-D-L-Y This beautiful 4 letter name what an idiot!

Edit: "evikes" = evokes in your text

 

[ALDaisy1]

They should offer you a new classification for free. That particular writer obviously needs to be removed from the service.

 

[rafaelo0]

Is anyone having trouble with domains submited for premium review?

I submited 5 domains on 30 of September and they are still pending review from squadhelp team. In 6 days it will have been 30 days to review 5 names.

I contacted support about 3 or 4 times about this the answer is almost always the same:

"Our team is somewhat behind on those review requests—but we will complete them in the order they're received." I'm not quite sure about this one since i think i submited other domains in the same day has this 5 and they were reviewed and one accepted.

"Thanks for the feedback. I checked on this and see that the domains are in queue for a second round of review. This is for the team to see if the domains are a good fit for the marketplace. Rest assured, this will be completed soon. Thank you." In a couple of days it will have been 2 weeks since this response.

"Thanks for the feedback. As I've mentioned the other day, your domains are for a second round of review - for the team to check if it's really a good fit for the marketplace. Now, the team's doing all the best they can to review as much as they can to complete those submissions in queue for second review. Thanks for the feedback though. I'll share this with the team." 6 days ago.

@GrantP didn't you mention in the past that squadhelp was resolving this problem and reducing the time for names reviewed.

Also what is the max time for a domain to be reviewed on squadhelp 1 month?

 

[etruscan]

Not even one of the several reviews I have asked after rejections due to lack of sufficient votes has been performed in 6 weeks time, I am not even pushing them anymore. Bu that's not all, I cannot list on Afternic a domain currently for sale on SH because at the moment I do not have a coin on my balance, they just replied to me that domainers do not need to use a coin to list approved domains on Afternic if they already used a coin to have their domains reviewed and accepted by SH, but in any case if you have your coin balance at 0 no listing on Afternic is allowed for your domains. Do you think is fair?

 

[justlife]

Is anyone having trouble with domains submited for premium review?

I submited 5 domains on 30 of September and they are still pending review from squadhelp team. In 6 days it will have been 30 days to review 5 names.

I contacted support about 3 or 4 times about this the answer is almost always the same:

"Our team is somewhat behind on those review requests—but we will complete them in the order they're received." I'm not quite sure about this one since i think i submited other domains in the same day has this 5 and they were reviewed and one accepted.

"Thanks for the feedback. I checked on this and see that the domains are in queue for a second round of review. This is for the team to see if the domains are a good fit for the marketplace. Rest assured, this will be completed soon. Thank you." In a couple of days it will have been 2 weeks since this response.

"Thanks for the feedback. As I've mentioned the other day, your domains are for a second round of review - for the team to check if it's really a good fit for the marketplace. Now, the team's doing all the best they can to review as much as they can to complete those submissions in queue for second review. Thanks for the feedback though. I'll share this with the team." 6 days ago.

@GrantP didn't you mention in the past that squadhelp was resolving this problem and reducing the time for names reviewed.

Also what is the max time for a domain to be reviewed on squadhelp 1 month?

yes, mine too. Looks like they are stuck there forever. I removed one of them and listed at Afternic instead.

 

[OnlineDomainShop]

With 225 premium listings ( 60+ are 4L's ) , I have only 3 sales on SH so far. First sale for 1799$ bin price , second sale for 1099$ and third one for 4349$ ( inclusive of SH commissions ). No sale from last 7 months. I might have worst performing portfolio , @GrantP can you please appoint any expert to review my portfolio , I just want to know why my portfolio is not performing , is the high prices causing buyers to deviate to another name.