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.

 

[alop]

I just had this happen to me too. A former dictionary word in an altTLD was Premium, ultimately dropped. I picked it up and it was denied. I guess Atom's internal team felt it shouldn't have been approved in the first place.

It still reads premium if I submit it to a 'contest'


Thanks

 

[DomainRecap]

What does it mean for us? They will start competing with GoDaddy, dynadot, etc?

With my luck, probably, and I'll be forced to move somewhere else due to the competing business interests of the marketplace vs registrar.

This is why I can't have nice things.

 

[biggie]

This is why I can't have nice things.

Hi

ahhh, but you do have some nice domains

looks like atom is on it's way to becoming a baby gd
they ain't squadhelp anymore!



imo....

 

[DomainRecap]

If history repeats itself... it means GoDaddy will buy Atom and shut them down.

I don't see that happening, as the poor execs at GD are running around trying to increase prices, monetize and paywall anything they possibly can, and spending $100+ million on a marketplace that won't provide ongoing revenue will just get them all fired even quicker.

 

[DomainRecap]

Hi

ahhh, but you do have some nice domains

Sure, but everything I use and depend on seems to disappear or close down.

Not just Dan and Uni, but no one makes my shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash or soap anymore (men's toiletries are dying fast so I keep a Doomsday Plastic Bin full of discontinued items), as well as my breakfast shakes (I have enough powder cans to last to me to the expiry date of Dec 28 2025) and a lot of the frozen entrees I eat for lunch.

Things break or wear out and I try to replace them, and all you can find is China Cheap junk - In Canada, all the upscale or higher-end stores have gone out of business, so we can no longer buy quality items at stores. Even underwear is hard to find and no stores carry much of anything I wear, and I need to follow Amazon to buy when they finally go back in stock.

This current post-COVID world is starting to resemble Demolition Man (or Rollerball) and their "Corporate Wars" whereby the selection of a given product dwindles down until everyone is eating at Taco Bell.

 

[Gabriel360]

I don't see that happening, as the poor execs at GD are running around trying to increase prices, monetize and paywall anything they possibly can, and spending $100+ million on a marketplace that won't provide ongoing revenue will just get them all fired even quicker.

At this point, it should be evident that GD execs are not rational. Otherwise how would anybody justify buying Dan.com with its full-fledged, next-gen self-brokerage platform and the team behind it just to kill it off and then start building a self-brokerage system from scratch and asking for more ideas to improve their shoddy abomination from users.

The people at GD are either not very smart or they are smart but destructive to the point of irrationality.

Their only strategy for competing in the market is buying and killing competitions. And it seems to be working very well for them.

Darpan and other owners of Atom are about to get a very large payout from GD since they'll be selling 2 businesses—the registrar and the marketplace.

I congratulate them in advance.

 

[Dane]

...how would anybody justify buying Dan.com with its full-fledged, next-gen self-brokerage platform and the team behind it just to kill it off and then start building a self-brokerage system from scratch...

Craziest / worst business decision I think I've ever seen.

 

[alop]

Ya telling me I should not buy coins to promote a domain?

 

[NameGroove]

At this point, it should be evident that GD execs are not rational.

The people at GD are either not very smart or they are smart but destructive to the point of irrationality.

From a domainers perspective... I agree. But from a business perspective, I'll just leave this here

 

[DomainRecap]

Their only strategy for competing in the market is buying and killing competitions. And it seems to be working very well for them.

It's working horribly for them, due to the mass losses on the purchase of Uni, Dan, and Afternic (which have all been effectively shut down) and the mass of new competitors sprouting up, at least in part, due to the market vacuum left by Dan's closing. Then the large GD investor groups starting making open threats to either fire all the executives or sell the company outright.

Right now GD execs are in panic mode, fire-selling off their valuable domain assets, increasing prices, monetizing everything that isn't nailed down, and pay-walling everything else. They need quick, short money, not more expenditures.

No way are they going to walk into a board meeting with a proposal to buy Atom for $120 million (or more) or security would be walking them right out the door 10 seconds later.

 

[DomainRecap]

From a domainers perspective... I agree. But from a business perspective, I'll just leave this here

But that's stockholder wealth and has zero to do with the executives, who are running scared from large investor groups who are threatening to either fire the executives or sell the company outright. Why do you think they're selling off their valuable domain assets, jacking up prices, monetizing previously-free utilities, and putting up more and more paywalls?

So yeah, these investors are going to be just fine, but that's not what we're talking about.

 

[DomainRecap]

Craziest / worst business decision I think I've ever seen.

GoDaddy is virtually out of the "private domain sales" business and has closed down Uni, Dan and Afternic, and the only reason GD still offers our domains for sale on their site is due to the mass influx of new customers produced by our free type-in traffic.

That's why they give a 15-20% commission if you point nameservers to GD, as opposed to 25-30% if you don't. Classic carrot and the whip strategy at work and it's clear they want our traffic and customers, not our domains.

 

[Future Sensors]

From a domainers perspective... I agree. But from a business perspective, I'll just leave this here

Show attachment 276194

Indeed, there is ample free cash flow available to support additional large-scale acquisitions (like ATOM), much like the DAN.COM acquisition a few years ago.

Since then, the company's financial position has improved dramatically.

 

[dirk]

Thanks for sharing your experience. That’s definitely not the kind of experience we aim to provide. The majority of transfers are completed within 24 hours of payment.

In some cases, we may require a quick verification step from the buyer to help prevent fraud or abuse. While this is typically a fast process, delays can happen if the buyer takes longer to complete it. During that time, we continue to follow up with both parties to keep everyone informed.

If you didn’t receive timely updates, we’d love to look into it. Feel free to DM us your Atom email or the domain name and we’ll investigate right away.

Thank you I will when I have time.

Congrats on the accreditation! That's a big step forward!

 

[Domain Pro Seller]

@Atom.com

Hello,

I want to share a very frustrating experience I had with Atom. On May 19, I reached out to support because I wasn’t able to lower the reserve price on one of my domains. The system gave me an error saying something like "Reserve price should not be more than $0." The strange part is that just a few minutes earlier, I had managed to keep lowering the reserve price on another domain with no problem at all that was also on auction.

That first domain worked exactly how you’d expect: I was able to lower the reserve whenever I wanted, even up to the very last moment before the auction closed. So clearly, the system can support this, it just didn’t for the second domain, which shows there’s some kind of technical inconsistency.

What should’ve been a quick fix turned into a long and frustrating back n forth with several support reps. I had to repeat myself multiple times, even though I had already explained clearly what I wanted. But the real question is: why do I need to message support in the first place to change a reserve price? It should be something I can control myself at any time. I might have wanted to lower it again later like I did with the first one.

To make things worse, after a certain point, support just stopped replying altogether. I could see they were active, but no one responded and this went on for days. It felt like I was being ignored, like I was the problem, instead of them actually fixing what’s clearly a system issue.

I really hope a supervisor looks at my chat and realizes there are things that need to be addressed.

At the very least, users deserve reliable tools and responsive support instead of ignoring them.

 

[Dane]

What should’ve been a quick fix turned into a long and frustrating back n forth with several support reps. I had to repeat myself multiple times, even though I had already explained clearly what I wanted. But the real question is: why do I need to message support in the first place to change a reserve price? It should be something I can control myself at any time. I might have wanted to lower it again later like I did with the first one.

To make things worse, after a certain point, support just stopped replying altogether. I could see they were active, but no one responded and this went on for days. It felt like I was being ignored, like I was the problem, instead of them actually fixing what’s clearly a system issue.

I really hope someone on their team looks at my chat and realizes there are things that need to be addressed.

At the very least, users deserve reliable tools and responsive support instead of ignoring them.

I very much dislike Atom's chat support system. You're always dealing with a middle man who says they will pass your issue or concern "to the team" but you often don't hear back from "the team" (and therefore don't get the issue resolved). Not always, but often.

Sometimes a 3 minute conversation on the phone is all that's needed, but Atom doesn't seem to believe in phone support, unfortunately.

 

[NicTraders]

Indeed, there is ample free cash flow available to support additional large-scale acquisitions (like ATOM), much like the DAN.COM acquisition a few years ago.

Since then, the company's financial position has improved dramatically.


Show attachment 276196

Yes, I'd say they're doing better despite some of their business decisions, and certainly despite what domainers think of them. The sad fact is that GD is a virtual monopoly in some parts of the world, and it is most certainly the name everyone knows. GD advertises like crazy so that many people just go to them automatically for web services. In particular, small businesses/consumers don't know any better. And many others use them because it's just easiest not to have to find an alternative. They have the huge benefit of inertia, so while the advertising continues, I don't see much changing. It would take a competitor with extremely deep pockets willing to outdo them in advertising and price for several years to make a noticeable impact on their business.

 

[DomainRecap]

Yes, I'd say they're doing better despite some of their business decisions

Those are artificial numbers that have been achieved using short-term moves like selling off their valuable domain holdings, staff reductions, monetization, and cranking prices. It's simply not sustainable, especially on the investment domain side, as when those are gone, they're gone. Same with employees - you can only fire so many.

It's clear from the latest GD investor communique that "private domain sales" are not a business that GD is interested in, so there is no logical reason to buy Atom just to shut it down, and the only purchases GD might make are other registrars with expired domain auctions such as DynaDot.

But you guys keep fantasizing about GD buying Atom, and we'll see who's right and who's wrong.

 

[NameGroove]

Great fix!!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1927732254299590783

 

[NameGroove]

Great fix!!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1927732254299590783

Note this is not a full roll out - perhaps a test? My names with down payments still don't show the downpayment (this one has a $500 downpayment, for example)