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.

 

[OnlineDomainShop]

I have around 350 premium domains at squadhelp, Last month i sold a name after 9 days of hand reg for 2499$ , exposure is less but sometimes it worked for me. I paid 35% commission to squadhelp for the sale but still happy due to quick turnover.

SH seems slow but i think worth it. Patience is the key.

 

[br1ll1on]

I have around 350 premium domains at squadhelp, Last month i sold a name after 9 days of hand reg for 2499$ , exposure is less but sometimes it worked for me. I paid 35% commission to squadhelp for the sale but still happy due to quick turnover.

SH seems slow but i think worth it. Patience is the key.

is that the only sale you've had on SH this year?

 

[OnlineDomainShop]

is that the only sale you've had on SH this year?

2 sales in last 3 months.

 

[Recons.Com]

I have around 350 premium domains at squadhelp, Last month i sold a name after 9 days of hand reg for 2499$ , exposure is less but sometimes it worked for me. I paid 35% commission to squadhelp for the sale but still happy due to quick turnover.

SH seems slow but i think worth it. Patience is the key.

With 350 names and 3-5% str everyone was hoping to get at least, you should be getting 1-2 sales every month from them.

Time to state the obvious: bb, bp, sh are dying out.

It is the business model where growth leads to death and scaling up doesn't work beyond 20k-40k names.

 

[br1ll1on]

2 sales in last 3 months.

out of 350 I have 60 premium as of now (started domaining late November) with 0 sale on SH but strangely enough I've had 6 sales on DAN and Afternic this year (out of 236)... maybe SH isn't all that top tier or maybe I just need bigger portfolio

 

[OnlineDomainShop]

out of 350 I have 60 premium as of now (started domaining late November) with 0 sale on SH but strangely enough I've had 6 sales on DAN and Afternic this year (out of 236)... maybe SH isn't all that top tier or maybe I just need bigger portfolio

Yes overall ctr is very low , As far as i know there are sellers with even 8k names and unlimited boosting options at squadhelp which is a night mare for small portfolio owners like me. I've never seen my any domain on first page of squadhelp results.

 

[br1ll1on]

Yes overall ctr is very low , As far as i know there are sellers with even 8k names and unlimited boosting options at squadhelp which is a night mare for small portfolio owners like me. I have never saw my any domain on first page of squadhelp results.

me neither, never on first page even when I tried super boost ... I think I'll just hold at 60 and divert new listings to DAN and afternic

 

[karmaco]

Maybe the SH consultant can see all the previous sales data on the Squadhelp platform and maybe the consultant could suggest to lower the prices, I don't know. If the consultant has access to a larger dataset then he could offer unique insights.

Anyway, if the service is free, then it shouldn't hurt to try it.

Aren’t marketplaces charging astronomical commish supposed to help you get higher prices not lower prices? You go any lower you might as well sell on your own imo.

 

[JudgeMind]

Not sure how much an impact this change will have, considering that names are already on Afternic and SEDO

I don’t think it would have much impact on STR. Point is, they are saving 10%~15% on commission and achieving 2-3% STR just by using afternic. The similar STR they had when they were using sh.

for me, the current STR I have is above what I would achieve by strictly using afternic landers.

 

[Recons.Com]

for me, the current STR I have is above what I would achieve by strictly using afternic landers.

For now, probably. As, even for you, I believe it has been trending downwards considerably.

 

[NameWell]

Yes overall ctr is very low , As far as i know there are sellers with even 8k names and unlimited boosting options at squadhelp which is a night mare for small portfolio owners like me. I've never seen my any domain on first page of squadhelp results.

@OnlineDomainShop what do you mean by unlimited boosting options at squadhelp?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It is the business model where growth leads to death and scaling up doesn't work beyond 20k-40k names.

This is an interesting hypothesis. Do you think that with better search/filtering, or better promotion of some kind, that limit could be overcome? Or do we need a model that the brandable places specialize so that the overall number is less, and type of domain name better geared to certain searchers.

It seems surprising that with most saying overall last 10 months have been very strong for domain names, but in several brandable not so much, it appears.

I have one premium name at SH, and it has been there 1 day, so not a lot to add personally to the discussion, but like reading the views of others. No it did not sell my first day. There my contribution to the data.

Interesting and active thread. Thanks to all who have contributed to the discussion.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Overnight I wondered if it is possibly a change in branding style, rather than a change in marketplace performance per se. That is, is it possible that there is a swing (back?) away from made up brandable names that dominate most brandable marketplaces, towards real word or two word names? I have no evidence for this, but something I thought of that could explain if it is true that brandable marketplaces have not had the same boost that overall domain market has the past 10 months.
Bob

 

[Charybdis]

Isn't the search function broken on Squadhelp? I opened a new incognito browser window and I searched for "money" (as a potential customer looking for money-related domains). By default, without using any filters or changing the default "relevance" sort option, the search results aren't directly related to money. I would expect when searching for "money" that Squadhelp would list those domains first which contain the word "money" in the domain name itself. But this isn't the case. I have to choose to sort the results by "most popular" in order to get those domains which contain the word "money". The default sort option is "relevance". But the the "relevance" sort option won't give me the most relevant domains.

I think it's a big problem, it will make it hard for customers to find the most relevant domains for their search query! By the way I tested the search function a few weeks ago and I experienced the same problem, so this issue is not new.

 

[NameWell]

I had an idea today How about if Squadhelp launched a small "Outlet" section? It could be located under the Listing Type filter. It could contain a relatively small number (several hundred or up to 1000) of domain names priced at a very affordable price range (say $499 - $799) There could be placed some of SH registered names that were added to the marketplace in 2017, have not been purchased since and have not been performing very well. Sellers could relocate 1% of their portfolio (with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 20) that they want to liquidate faster and/or plan to drop or remove from SH and try to sell cheaper elsewhere. Some of the abstract names that are more difficult to sell in general, but at the same time are suitable for a wide range of business categories could also be a good fit for the Outlet. All of those names should be automatically added to SEDO, Flippa and Afternic (seller's responsibility).

1. This could cater to the needs of buyers with low budgets.
2. This could at least partially contribute to solving the diluted premium marketplace problem by relocating a fraction of names elsewhere.
3. Sellers could liquidate some of the names they are not planning to renew for a higher price than what they would get in the wholesale marketplace.

Currently, buyers with low budgets have only one option on SH - to launch a naming contest and then to launch a logo contest. This is both risky and time-consuming. If they have a tight budget they might not want to risk launching a contest and ending up with no name and no money. Also, there's those who just don't want the hassle of launching and managing a contest or don't have time for that, but at the same time can't afford to hire SH staff to launch and manage their contest for them. The outlet could be a safe, quick and easy option for these types of buyers.

In order to at least partially prevent buyers with higher budgets from buying at Outlet instead of the premium marketplace, the outlet filter could not be visible for new visitors on their first visit. Only after they explored premium marketplace and are leaving SH without shortlisting anything a pop-up box could appear asking "Before you leave, would you like to check out our Outlet and explore names discounted up to 70%" or something like that. Also, contest holders that canceled their contest could get a special invitation to the Outlet as compensation for not finding a perfect name through a contest.

What do others think?

 

[NameWell]

Same here... actually not the same, worse Currently, I have 431 premium domain name on SH. I don't know what happened, but I'm not getting ANY sales for the last three months. Usually, I would have 1 - 3 sales a month. Sometimes I would have one month with 0 sales, but three months with 0 sales is ... WEIRD. All my domain names are priced below $3000. Many at $1999. So I don't think I'm overpricing. And my Portfolio Optimization Score is 93%.

Sometimes all it takes is to bitch out loud and the universe hears you Quite soon after I posted this, I got two sales on SH within just one week! Yay

 

[loredan]

Sometimes all it takes is to bitch out loud and the universe hears you Quite soon after I posted this, I got two sales on SH within just one week! Yay

True that... there is another guy here who bitches around when in need and the SH Gods always deliver

Maybe an itsy bitsy tiny connection?

 

[tomcarl]

edit. Posting elsewhere

 

[NameWell]

True that... there is another guy here who bitches around when in need and the SH Gods always deliver

Maybe an itsy bitsy tiny connection?

I guess we both know how to manifest things

 

[gina ferrano]

I don't mean to gripe, I just started listing on SH (98% are on BB) I noticed quite a few names have 1k random keywords stuffed in. I understand why, but for those of us who keep it short, it's easy to see why it's harder to be found in the search results. Also, I have a name with a specific keyword, and nada, nothing, zilch. Just random words with no association. Only when I add a 'Y' to the word, does it pop up? On BB, whatever you type in, Ly, frog, zo, there are results. I get having 50/100/100k names there are benefits, but I hesitate to list more names.