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.

 

[silentg]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1924164735404265781

 

[DonDraper]

What score should a name have to have a strong chance of being accepted as a premium?

 

[romanlypovyi]

Hi, just a quick update: I launched my logo store - LogosHere, it's now being updated daily (there are ready-made logos and a custom service). If anyone is interested in logos in the future, please follow me. Even following my shop will give me a boost to move forward. Since this is a start, prices are very flexible. Thank you.

 

[NameGroove]

What score should a name have to have a strong chance of being accepted as a premium?

it used to be 6.5+ for a strong chance (obv going up as that # went up). But now with the removal of Expert Reviewers, things are different.

It is currently the case that as long as it is an Ai Premium Fit name, it's very likely (90%+?) to get Premium

it is however an unknown if not Ai Premium Fit. The human reviewers are all over the place denying all sorts of names. More time is needed to identify if there is an acceptance pattern among the human reviews & the domain score. My initial take is there is not (but again, the data is limited so more time is needed to truly tell)

 

[Dane]

It's now 6 Days since pushing a sold name to Atom. Still no payment sent to me (thanks to Escrow.com)

EDIT - By the way, it's not just that I haven't been paid yet. It's also the fact that the buyer has not received their domain name yet. The one they already paid for. There's a reason why buyers liked Dan's quick transfer service so much (and Afternic's Fast Transfer as well).

If Atom doesn't come up with a way for us to opt out of Escrow.com I think I will have to be done with them, unfortunately.

 

[Optimal Names]

It's now 6 Days since pushing a sold name to Atom. Still no payment sent to me (thanks to Escrow.com)

EDIT - By the way, it's not just that I haven't been paid yet. It's also the fact that the buyer has not received their domain name yet. The one they already paid for. There's a reason why buyers liked Dan's quick transfer service so much (and Afternic's Fast Transfer as well).

If Atom doesn't come up with a way for us to opt out of Escrow.com I think I will have to be done with them, unfortunately.

Not encouraging for someone who has just started listing names with Atom. Hope this gets resolved soon!

 

[NameGroove]

It's now 6 Days since pushing a sold name to Atom. Still no payment sent to me (thanks to Escrow.com)

EDIT - By the way, it's not just that I haven't been paid yet. It's also the fact that the buyer has not received their domain name yet. The one they already paid for. There's a reason why buyers liked Dan's quick transfer service so much (and Afternic's Fast Transfer as well).

If Atom doesn't come up with a way for us to opt out of Escrow.com I think I will have to be done with them, unfortunately.

The buyer had payment options presented to them and they chose Escrow.com. Perhaps if you opted out, it is possible the buyer doesn't buy your name as they needed (for internal reasons) to choose that payment method.

If Escrow is always slower than the other payment methods - @Atom.com may I suggest letting buyers know this payment method may result in a 7 day delay in receiving the name. This way, they are aware of the differences and if they still proceed with Escrow are fine with the delay.

As a Seller - if the buyer is fine - I'm fine waiting a week or two for payment. It's no big deal

 

[Dane]

As a Seller - if the buyer is fine - I'm fine waiting a week or two for payment. It's no big deal

Yep, understood. Again, my concern is also about the buyer thinking it's taking too long to get their name, not just about waiting a week for payment.

I asked about opting out of Escrow.com and was told "Unfortunately, this is not a service that any seller can opt out of." I already started moving some names out of Atom, I'm not sure yet about moving them all out.

P.S. -- I'm also not happy that Atom doesn't display the Down Payment amount on the landing page unless and until the buyer clicks on "Pay in Installments." ... I feel this is misleading to the buyer and could tank a sale once they realize the extra cost needed. So it's not just about the Escrow.com thing.

 

[NameGroove]

Yep, understood. Again, my concern is also about the buyer thinking it's taking too long to get their name, not just about waiting a week for payment.

I asked about opting out of Escrow.com and was told "Unfortunately, this is not a service that any seller can opt out of." I already started moving some names out of Atom, I'm not sure yet about moving them all out.

P.S. -- I'm also not happy that Atom doesn't display the Down Payment amount on the landing page unless and until the buyer clicks on "Pay in Installments." ... I feel this is misleading to the buyer and could tank a sale once they realize the extra cost needed. So it's not just about the Escrow.com thing.

Again, the buyer chose this option, it was not forced upon them. Now whether they are aware choosing this option can result in a week delay, I cannot say. However, the buyer chose it - and if you opt out - you are limiting buyer choice. I'm always of the mind the more payment options for the buyer, the better.

As for LTO and down payments, I believe Atom answered this upthread. But the buyer could always choose to pay in full if they are unhappy with a down payment. If you want to mitigate this issue but still offer LTO perhaps do not require a down payment?

 

[DomainRecap]

As a Seller - if the buyer is fine - I'm fine waiting a week or two for payment. It's no big deal

Again, it's NOT the extra time waiting for payment, it's the fact that with an escrow.com transaction, there is ZERO communication from Atom that a transaction has even taken place and it can take 3-4 days before the seller is advised that the offer has been accepted.

I think the problem comes down to Atom's process of "only notifying the seller when the payment has been received" as opposed to "when the offer has been accepted" like it is on many other marketplaces. It's not a huge deal with internal transactions as the delay isn't that great, but with escrow transactions, it can take a long while for them to certify funds have been received, leaving the seller totally in the dark with no idea of what's going on.

One answer is to at least notify sellers when a customer has accepted the offer and chosen to pay via escrow.com, but Atom doesn't want to do this in case the payment doesn't come through. Not sure why, as I've had deadbeats on Afternic, Dan, Sedo, GD, etc. and I'd much rather have all the necessary transaction info than be kept in the dark.

If escrow.com offer acceptances are going to remain hidden for 3-4 days, the second solution is to allow sellers to opt out of escrow.com transactions entirely, and present only the "Pay at Atom" option. If that loses a buyer or two every year or two (escrow.com sales are rare), I'm prepared to accept that in return for not worrying that every "stalled negotiation" could turn out to be a delayed escrow.com payment.

Right now, when I make an offer and it expires, I have to wait at least 3 days before reinitiating contact or providing a lower offer, just on the off-chance they've already accepted my prior offer and paid via escrow.com. That wasted time is costing me money and lowering my STR.

Either let me know when a buyer accepts my offer with escrow.com payment or let me opt out of escrow.com payments entirely.

 

[NameGroove]

Again, it's NOT the extra time waiting for payment, it's the fact that with an escrow.com transaction, there is ZERO communication from Atom that a transaction has even taken place and it can take 3-4 days before the seller is advised that the offer has been accepted.

I agree this is an issue - but you should've left out the "again". That is not the issue Dane has described in his 2 recent posts, and thus, was not the issue I was responding to.

Did Atom respond as to why they are unable to tell the seller and buyer immediately an offer/acceptance has occurred?

 

[DomainRecap]

I agree this is an issue - but you should've left out the "again". That is not the issue Dane has described in his 2 recent posts, and thus, was not the issue I was responding to.

Then don't make blanket statements promoting escrow.com payments and telling us why they are so great, when there are others highlighting the many other issues of escrow.com on Atom.

Did Atom respond as to why they are unable to tell the seller and buyer immediately an offer/acceptance has occurred?

I covered that in my post. Atom only notifies the buyer when the payment has been made, not when the offer has been accepted. They don't want to tell us when offers are accepted because of the potential for deadbeats - but that only works with internal transactions, where the acceptance-to-payment delay is much shorter.

So when it takes 3-4 days for escrow.com to notify Atom that a payment has been received, all that time the buyer is totally in the dark and has no idea the prior offer has been accepted.

 

[SuperBrander]

Escrow.com has become increasingly problematic in recent years. Lots of friction. Transactions just drag on and on and everything is super frustrating. Just the fact that buyers have to verify their account by providing Escrow.com proof of identity is a major obstacle. I think many buyers who choose that option would have probably avoided it, had they known ahead of time that it significantly complicates and slows down the process. I hope Atom will give sellers the option not to offer Escrow.com as a checkout method or explain to buyers what choosing that option means before they choose it.

 

[King]

Is the dashboard not working for anyone else?

 

[Optimal Names]

Is the dashboard not working for anyone else?

Something has slowed down just now as I was adding names to my account. I'll step away, hopefully it will resolve by the time I get back but yes - I noticed some odd messages like this one:

I am adding names individually with at least 5-10 min in between each so not sure what I need to wait for. :D

update: no longer responsive for me 14:36 EDT (USA)

 

[Future Sensors]

update: no longer responsive for me 14:36 EDT (USA)

Indeed. Error code: 500 Internal Server Error.

 

[likemike]

Just gotta keep up with your names folks... That's part of domaining

 

[King]

Is the dashboard not working for anyone else?

It's back now.

 

[NameGroove]

Then don't make blanket statements promoting escrow.com payments and telling us why they are so great, when there are others highlighting the many other issues of escrow.com on Atom.

I didn't promote Escrow payments and I haven't said they are "so great". I was responding to Dane's issue which is different than yours (he was speaking solely about a 6 day delay in his post). I was simply saying I'm happy to wait a week of two if the seller is ok waiting (that doesn't mean he should be happy to wait or you should be happy to wait). I said I am happy to wait.

Also what I said was "the buyer chose this payment method". I further said, "I'm always of the mind the more payment options for the buyer, the better". This is a blanket statement promoting more payment methods, not less. But surely not promotion of any single payment method.

As to the issues with Escrow - I said I agree with you upstream. Further, it does not seem wise for Atom to not tell sellers and buyers immediately when an offer is accepted. I'm unclear how this stops "deadbeats" although since I've not dealt with this specific issue, I haven't delved into it (and don't intend to). Clearly you're on the case (and that's a good thing).

I realize you're upset with Atom and Escrow - but please do not take it out on me.

 

[Dane]

Something has slowed down just now as I was adding names to my account. I'll step away, hopefully it will resolve by the time I get back but yes - I noticed some odd messages like this one: