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.

 

[Charybdis]

sh search algorithm isn't normal. I have Gaming.xyz listed on there and when searching the term "gaming" my listing didn't show up until the 7th page until i complained and they changed something.

As far as the slowness... i too have been with sh since the start, i left to test another marketplace just once but now am back trying sh again. I had 24% STR at one point, now it seems sh has grown so large that sellers are starting to see a 2-3% str.. the question a seller needs to ask themselves is.. "is it still worth paying an extra 15% commission when i can get close to the same str elsewhere"?

Where can you get the same STR elsewhere for less commission? I am interested in that. Have you tested other options which give you the same STR but for less commission?

 

[Recons.Com]

sh search algorithm isn't normal. I have Gaming.xyz listed on there and when searching the term "gaming" my listing didn't show up until the 7th page until i complained and they changed something.

As far as the slowness... i too have been with sh since the start, i left to test another marketplace just once but now am back trying sh again. I had 24% STR at one point, now it seems sh has grown so large that sellers are starting to see a 2-3% str.. the question a seller needs to ask themselves is.. "is it still worth paying an extra 15% commission when i can get close to the same str elsewhere"?

How did you imply 2-3% str with just 1 sale in 2 month on 800+ names? That is more like 0.75% str.

 

[tomcarl]

Slow reviews lately? I have names sitting idle at 10 reviews 2 weeks now, still looking at names from batch submitted 20+ days ago. Must be busy / backed up over there, I know they don't slack

 

[tomcarl]

I've tried to remove visual images on standard listings landing pages but they don't get removed

I want to test a clean for sale page

Does anyone know how to remove the visual images?

Same here. I clicked 'Do Not Automatically Add Visual Images' to my listings yet they're still being added on any domain that I accept a suggested category on which is annoying because the photo usually doesn't go with the name and it can be comical what gets displayed sometimes for a particular name.

The new color gradient box looks cool. SH please correct this to stock images are not automatically added when accepting suggested categories and a quick way to wipe them all out.

 

[JudgeMind]

Where can you get the same STR elsewhere for less commission? I am interested in that. Have you tested other options which give you the same STR but for less commission?

I had the same STR (actually a bit better) when I was with alter.com January - June. their commission was just 10%.

 

[JudgeMind]

How did you imply 2-3% str with just 1 sale in 2 month on 800+ names? That is more like 0.75% str.

I mean as a whole on squadhelp. My STR is def lower right now on sh. 9 weeks now with no sale.

 

[Recons.Com]

I mean as a whole on squadhelp. My STR is def lower right now on sh. 9 weeks now with no sale.

I highly doubt SH has an STR anywhere near that now, unless some creative STR calculations.

Their true STR (i.e. total sales for the year divided by the weighted average portfolio size for the year) is probably in 1%-1.5% range. Adjusted for the higher commission, you are better off with afternic/dan/other similar landers.

 

[Charybdis]

I had the same STR (actually a bit better) when I was with alter.com January - June. their commission was just 10%.

I was also with Alter but they ceased operations because their model was unsustainable! You cannot list your domains on Alter anymore.

My question was that where would you list your domains if not on Squadhelp which offers you the same STR? I mean on a platform which is actually a live, operating platform, where you can actually list your domains.

 

[Charybdis]

I highly doubt SH has an STR anywhere near that now, unless some creative STR calculations.

Their true STR (i.e. total sales for the year divided by the weighted average portfolio size for the year) is probably in 1%-1.5% range. Adjusted for the higher commission, you are better off with afternic/dan/other similar landers.

LOL have you A/B tested this? Show me the cold hard data! It can be true actually, but show me the data.

You are just mindlessly bashing a platform without any proof.

If you submit with coins, the commission is 30% below $5000 in the first 2 years, then it drops to 25% commission below $5000. Afternic charges 20% below $5000. So after 2 years the difference is only 5%.

Dan offers lower commission but they don't advertise your domain, they just provide a landing page.

You can list your domain as a standard listing on SH if you are after the low commission, for just 7.5%.

You forgot to mention that you are not forced to list a domain as a premium domain, you can always list it as a standard listing for just 7.5% commission.

 

[Recons.Com]

LOL have you A/B tested this? Show me the cold hard data! It can be true actually, but show me the data.

You are just mindlessly bashing a platform without any proof.

If you submit with coins, the commission is 30% below $5000 in the first 2 years, then it drops to 25% commission below $5000. Afternic charges 20% below $5000. So after 2 years the difference is only 5%.

Dan offers lower commission but they don't advertise your domain, they just provide a landing page.

You can list your domain as a standard listing on SH if you are after the low commission, for just 7.5%.

You forgot to mention that you are not forced to list a domain as a premium domain, you can always list it as a standard listing for just 7.5% commission.

Ah, I was expecting this!

Ol' good times, when SH cared enough to be represented here by knowledgeable official rep, Grant P, if not misstaken.

Now, though they have this proxy that will mindlessly attack anyone for sharing their experience and opinion.

Allow me just to ignore you. I don't have time to waste on proxies. Or I can hire my own personal proxy to engage with you.

 

[Charybdis]

Ah, I was expecting this!

Ol' good times, when SH cared enough to be represented here by knowledgeable official rep, Grant P, if not misstaken.

Now, though they have this proxy that will mindlessly attack anyone for sharing their experience and opinion.

Allow me just to ignore you. I don't have time to waste on proxies. Or I can hire my own personal proxy to engage with you.

Instead of providing cold hard data, you keep falsely saying that I work for SH, LOL. I have already told you that I don't work for SH and and I am not their ambassador or something similar. Please show me a platform with similar features, lower commission and higher STR, and I can move my domains there. Of course I am also after lower commissions and higher STR.

In your previous post you used words like "highly doubt", "probably". But these are just assumptions, not a real test.

The problem is that you get the facts wrong, you thought that the commission is 35%, when in reality it is lower than that, as I described it in my previous post.

So have you moved your potfolio to another platform? Do you have the same or better STR there for a lower commission? And why is that other platform is better than for example the SH standard listings for 7.5% commission? I am all ears.

 

[Atom.com]

We typically do not participate in this thread because we believe it is important for sellers to be able to freely discuss their opinions (good or bad) with each other without any interference from the Marketplace.

However, given some of the recent discussions, I would like to chime in here with a few comments.

First of all, we do not have any "proxies" on Namepros or anywhere else to speak on our behalf. If there is something being discussed on Namepros by anyone other than an official Squadhelp member, rest assured that they have no affiliation whatsoever with Squadhelp other than possibly being a user of our platform. We do believe it is important to keep the discussions focused on real issues, rather than attacking others, because that is the only productive way to influence improvements in any platform.

Regarding the STR and sales in general, there are several macro level conditions that are impacting sales (e.g. Economic uncertainty, war, summer holidays). This situation is not unique to one specific platform, it applies to the entire industry. The good news is that over the last couple of weeks, there has been a clear uptick in sales and end user demand however there is still quite a bit of uncertainty.

During the times of these uncertainty, we are doubling down on our Marketing and platform investment to continue to ensure that we are attracting a large number of buyers to our platform. As an example, due to our increased Marketing, July was the highest month ever in terms of traffic with over 3 Million unique visitors who visited our platform during the month. What we are seeing is that many startups are deferring some of their purchase decisions and investments until there is better clarity around the direction the economy takes. As a result, there is quite a bit of pent up demand which we believe will materialize in the coming months.

Regarding the STR and sales, it is smart to continue to analyze your own portfolio performance, and determine which platform is able to provide the best combination of STR, and overall revenue for your domains (minus the marketplace commissions).

Brandable platforms such as SH (or BB) offer incremental exposure to those buyers who do not have an exact name in mind but are looking to discover good options that might fit their brand vision. Therefore, we believe listing the brandable domains on both the registrar path as well as a brandable marketplace can help maximize that exposure (both to the buyers who have the exact name in mind, and to those buyers who are still exploring options). However if you are finding that most of your sales are coming from an alternative lower commission platform, it certainly makes sense to consider if you are better off only listing the names on the lower commission platform.

Our standard listings offer one of the lowest commissions in the industry (7.5%), and we are continuing to add features that provide significant value even at that level. At the risk of making this post too promotional, I believe it is important to recap what you receive for that 7.5% commission:

• Full Payment/Escrow service with chargeback protection
• 24x7 chat with potential buyers including phone call follow ups to negotiate sales on your behalf
• Contextual visual Images for landers to improve the discovery of the domains
• Automatic descriptions via AI to improve the SEO as well as well content for your landers.
• Payment Plans and Flexible Financing
• Full, 2-way Google Sheets integration to synchronize your listings and any changes
• Import a lead at 4.5% commission
• Automatic syndication to Sedo and 650+ Registrars and other Sedo MLS Partners
• Retargeting Ads and Marketing exposure for 12 months ($3)
• Automatic email alerts when other TLDs are registered on your domains
• Automatic email alerts when someone develops a website on other TLDs for your domain (this requires a significant level of ongoing scan of all websites being developed)
• Full Offer/ Negotiation capabilities via Offer Center
• Setup your own custom branded White label marketplace
• Schedule Future Price Increases on your domains
• Auto Pilot Discounts to offer weekly incentives and promotions automatically managed by our platform
• Full Google Analytics integration for WLM
• Ability to see screen recordings of end users via WLM
• Exit intent popups with custom offers to buyers who are leaving your landing pages without purchase
• Ability to list your domains in the private Wholesale Marketplace
• Earn commission when a buyer purchases another domain after directly visiting your lander
• Ability to force a buyer to share their contact information via WLM so you have full visibility and direct contact with buyers
• Significant SEO Boost to landers (with a high % of landers indexed and visible on first page of Google)
• Early Payoff Incentives to Buyers if they payoff the remaining payment plan in full

In addition, we continue to building additional tools and aggregated insights for sellers that can help you make better decisions when investing in new domains. As an example, we recently added a Domain Insights tool which provides comprehensive insights on any domain even if it is not listed on SH.

The premium marketplace provides a significantly higher level of exposure in comparison to standard listings, which is why the commissions are significantly higher. However, if your domains tend to be easily discoverable via registrar path or direct type in traffic, you may decide that it is not worth paying the extra commissions to receive that additional exposure in the premium marketplace.

Ultimately, as an owner of these assets, you need to decide which platform (or combination of platforms) offers the best opportunity for your domains. Our commitment is that we will continue to reinvest all our marketplace commissions back into platform improvements as well as additional marketing to maximize domain exposure. Our core philosophy is that there is a significant room for innovation in the domain industry and we will continue to do our part to introduce new features that we believe can create direct value for our sellers.

 

[Atom.com]

Slow reviews lately? I have names sitting idle at 10 reviews 2 weeks now, still looking at names from batch submitted 20+ days ago. Must be busy / backed up over there, I know they don't slack

Sorry about the recent delays in reviews. We do have a larger than usual backlog of pending domain reviews due to high volume of submissions, but we are working as fast as possible to bring the review times back to the standard 3-5 days.

 

[Atom.com]

Same here. I clicked 'Do Not Automatically Add Visual Images' to my listings yet they're still being added on any domain that I accept a suggested category on which is annoying because the photo usually doesn't go with the name and it can be comical what gets displayed sometimes for a particular name.

The new color gradient box looks cool. SH please correct this to stock images are not automatically added when accepting suggested categories and a quick way to wipe them all out.

Thanks for the feedback. We are working on a completely revamped dashboard and listing management tool which will make it a lot easier to add and update listings via bulk or individually. I will share your feedback regarding the creation and removal of visual images to our product team so that it can be included in one of the upcoming releases.

 

[ArielT]

Thanks for the feedback. We are working on a completely revamped dashboard and listing management tool which will make it a lot easier to add and update listings via bulk or individually. I will share your feedback regarding the creation and removal of visual images to our product team so that it can be included in one of the upcoming releases.

Hi,

Try to add the option for a simple, clean for sale landing page (optional image)

Also without domain search bar at top or optional

Thanks

 

[Embrand]

We typically do not participate in this thread because we believe it is important for sellers to be able to freely discuss their opinions (good or bad) with each other without any interference from the Marketplace.

However, given some of the recent discussions, I would like to chime in here with a few comments.

First of all, we do not have any "proxies" on Namepros or anywhere else to speak on our behalf. If there is something being discussed on Namepros by anyone other than an official Squadhelp member, rest assured that they have no affiliation whatsoever with Squadhelp other than possibly being a user of our platform. We do believe it is important to keep the discussions focused on real issues, rather than attacking others, because that is the only productive way to influence improvements in any platform.

Regarding the STR and sales in general, there are several macro level conditions that are impacting sales (e.g. Economic uncertainty, war, summer holidays). This situation is not unique to one specific platform, it applies to the entire industry. The good news is that over the last couple of weeks, there has been a clear uptick in sales and end user demand however there is still quite a bit of uncertainty.

During the times of these uncertainty, we are doubling down on our Marketing and platform investment to continue to ensure that we are attracting a large number of buyers to our platform. As an example, due to our increased Marketing, July was the highest month ever in terms of traffic with over 3 Million unique visitors who visited our platform during the month. What we are seeing is that many startups are deferring some of their purchase decisions and investments until there is better clarity around the direction the economy takes. As a result, there is quite a bit of pent up demand which we believe will materialize in the coming months.

Regarding the STR and sales, it is smart to continue to analyze your own portfolio performance, and determine which platform is able to provide the best combination of STR, and overall revenue for your domains (minus the marketplace commissions).

Brandable platforms such as SH (or BB) offer incremental exposure to those buyers who do not have an exact name in mind but are looking to discover good options that might fit their brand vision. Therefore, we believe listing the brandable domains on both the registrar path as well as a brandable marketplace can help maximize that exposure (both to the buyers who have the exact name in mind, and to those buyers who are still exploring options). However if you are finding that most of your sales are coming from an alternative lower commission platform, it certainly makes sense to consider if you are better off only listing the names on the lower commission platform.

Our standard listings offer one of the lowest commissions in the industry (7.5%), and we are continuing to add features that provide significant value even at that level. At the risk of making this post too promotional, I believe it is important to recap what you receive for that 7.5% commission:

• Full Payment/Escrow service with chargeback protection
• 24x7 chat with potential buyers including phone call follow ups to negotiate sales on your behalf
• Contextual visual Images for landers to improve the discovery of the domains
• Automatic descriptions via AI to improve the SEO as well as well content for your landers.
• Payment Plans and Flexible Financing
• Full, 2-way Google Sheets integration to synchronize your listings and any changes
• Import a lead at 4.5% commission
• Automatic syndication to Sedo and 650+ Registrars and other Sedo MLS Partners
• Retargeting Ads and Marketing exposure for 12 months ($3)
• Automatic email alerts when other TLDs are registered on your domains
• Automatic email alerts when someone develops a website on other TLDs for your domain (this requires a significant level of ongoing scan of all websites being developed)
• Full Offer/ Negotiation capabilities via Offer Center
• Setup your own custom branded White label marketplace
• Schedule Future Price Increases on your domains
• Auto Pilot Discounts to offer weekly incentives and promotions automatically managed by our platform
• Full Google Analytics integration for WLM
• Ability to see screen recordings of end users via WLM
• Exit intent popups with custom offers to buyers who are leaving your landing pages without purchase
• Ability to list your domains in the private Wholesale Marketplace
• Earn commission when a buyer purchases another domain after directly visiting your lander
• Ability to force a buyer to share their contact information via WLM so you have full visibility and direct contact with buyers
• Significant SEO Boost to landers (with a high % of landers indexed and visible on first page of Google)
• Early Payoff Incentives to Buyers if they payoff the remaining payment plan in full

In addition, we continue to building additional tools and aggregated insights for sellers that can help you make better decisions when investing in new domains. As an example, we recently added a Domain Insights tool which provides comprehensive insights on any domain even if it is not listed on SH.

The premium marketplace provides a significantly higher level of exposure in comparison to standard listings, which is why the commissions are significantly higher. However, if your domains tend to be easily discoverable via registrar path or direct type in traffic, you may decide that it is not worth paying the extra commissions to receive that additional exposure in the premium marketplace.

Ultimately, as an owner of these assets, you need to decide which platform (or combination of platforms) offers the best opportunity for your domains. Our commitment is that we will continue to reinvest all our marketplace commissions back into platform improvements as well as additional marketing to maximize domain exposure. Our core philosophy is that there is a significant room for innovation in the domain industry and we will continue to do our part to introduce new features that we believe can create direct value for our sellers.

Thanks for the update. It would also be good to be able to purchase wholesale listings in bulk.

 

[Charybdis]

@GrantP please consider these feature suggestions, these are my biggest issues with Squadhelp:

- There is no system at all to handle the EU VAT. Other marketplaces get this right, but unfortunately SH doesn't handle this at all. This is a big problem for EU sellers who are VAT registered. Because if the seller is VAT registered, and let's say the domain price is $2499, then the VAT registered seller must sell this domain for $2499 + VAT. The VAT rate might be zero or more, depending on the buyer's billing address. Whether VAT is payable by the buyer or not, it depends on multiple things: 1) what is the billing address of the buyer, 2) if the buyer is from the EU, then does the buyer have a valid EU VAT number?

You can only properly handle the EU VAT situation by asking for and validating EU VAT numbers on the checkout page before the payment and then you should dynamically calculate the VAT rate based on the buyer's billing address. See for example on BrandBucket, BrandPa or GoDaddy how it works. Even US-based businesses must collect and pay VAT! If you don't want to pay VAT on behalf of the sellers, then please still allow the EU sellers to calculate and collect the VAT upon checkout, so that then the seller can collect and pay the extra VAT on top of the price. It is very important for EU sellers, please implement it.

- I think you don't offer a full escrow service, since when I sold domains, I had to unlock the domain and send the auth code directly to the buyer. Or push the domain directly to the buyer's account. But if the buyer is fraudulent then this might lead to fraud. This is not the safest method to handle the transaction. Please create escrow accounts at each domain name registrar, and then first all sellers should push or transfer the sold domain directly to the Squadhelp escrow account (not directly to the buyer!), and then Squadhelp should push the domain from the SH escrow account to the buyer's account. This will eliminate any fraud attempts. I think this is actually a critical issue which should be fixed as soon as possible.

 

[JimJammy]

I mean as a whole on squadhelp. My STR is def lower right now on sh. 9 weeks now with no sale.

This is probably why

 

[NameWell]

Hi @Grant, nice to have you back on the platform! While I do understand your approach of letting sellers discuss Squadhelp freely without the interference of SH staff, your informative input and valuable insights are highly appreciated and very useful. So thank you for that.

Now I'd love to share an idea. I thought that the next step in the further development of Squadhelp could be premade logo marketplace.

Here are some examples of already existing premade logo marketplaces:

1. https://scalebranding.com/
2. https://www.logoground.com/
3. www.logomood.com

Why do I think it would work?

1. You already have a large traffic consisting of people who are in a need of branding. They are potential buyers of premade logos. Even those who came to Squadhelp for the name marketplace but did not purchase a domain name might end up buying a premade logo. Or they might end up buying both, a domain name and a premade logo if they didn't like the one that came with the name.
2. You wouldn’t have to design and code it from scratch because you can adapt your domain marketplace.
3. You already have a community of strong logo designers. Most of them have amazing unused logo designs from their previous projects or contests. Over the years there have been so many logo contests on SH. Since there can only be one winner, a lot of great and versatile logo designs were unused. They could be sold through the logo marketplace.
4. When your customers are in a need of a name, they have several options: use the marketplace, launch a contest, use both options. If they need a logo they only have one option - a contest. But what if they don't have time for that, or don't want to go through the hassle, or don't want to risk their money, or do not like the idea of a contest etc. Some CHs find contests overwhelming. Logo marketplace could be a great option for them once they are done with their naming contest.
5. Domain name marketplace and logo marketplace could complement each other. For example, next to each domain name in the marketplace, you could display several relevant logos from the logo marketplace and offer a bundle deal domain name + logo. And vise versa, next to every logo in the logo marketplace you could offer several relevant domain names for sale and offer a bundle deal logo + domain name.
6. In the future, after purchasing a logo, the customer could further work with the same designer through your platform to get business cards, letterheads, etc. (if you will choose to implement that) and Squadhelo could earn commissions from each transaction/project.
7. I think this would be a great way to grow and expand Squadhelp.

Thank you for considering

 

[tomcarl]

WLM domain = Likely earns less trust than a SH branded page.
Less Trust = More wandering = less sales.
Logo uploading = allowed! = incentive.
Standard SH Listing = no logos allowed! = deterrent
Cross-promotion / search bar on landing pages without opt-out = deterrent
SH brand = displayed either way if search bar/similar names is on/off = makes sense/cents, ask Adsense.