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.

 

[Atom.com]

Jesus, why are some of my Atom domains suddenly cycling back into "Pending Verification"?

I was searching the traffic stats and noticed some of my domains were in 'Pending Verification", then when I refreshed there were more.... then less... then more...

Whatever is happening at Atom is freaking me out and I'm having "get out of Dodge" vibes.

Thanks for sharing your feedback. The “Pending Verification” issue should now be resolved.

As a Trusted Seller, you only need to verify ownership for domains that are already live on Atom under a different seller account. All other domains should auto-verify as expected, and you shouldn’t experience the glitch moving forward.

If anything still looks off, feel free to share specific examples via chat and our team will take a closer look.

I also feel there may be other problems unrelated to server issues, as the offers I recently received on Atom (over the last few weeks) never get buyer replies/counters and there is not even a notation that the buyer even viewed the negotiations. Very weird.

Thanks for flagging that. We checked the offer flow and haven’t found any issues with email deliverability or buyer responses.

We did recently introduce a verification step, requiring buyers to confirm their offer by clicking a link in their email. This helps reduce spam and low-quality offers but it might partly explain the drop-off you’re seeing.

To address this, we will soon be rolling out an update that will let sellers view all offers, even those not yet verified. You’ll be able to respond if you choose, which should give you more visibility into early buyer activity. You will also be able to hide them from your view, if you only prefer to work with those offers which are verified by buyers.

 

[DomainRecap]

To address this, we will soon be rolling out an update that will let sellers view all offers, even those not yet verified.

That sounds like a great idea, and thanks for responding to my concerns.

 

[NameGroove]

Thanks for pointing this out. We’ve recently made changes to the underlying architecture related to how the pricing block loads, and you should no longer experience any delay. If you’re still seeing it on specific domains, feel free to share examples and we’ll take a closer look.

My last sale is still showing in ads - now the sale was only a few days ago, but you'd think it'd be pulled as soon as a sale happens. You can see the name in the Tweet - and I still saw ads for it today

https://twitter.com/x/status/1932784942330556615

 

[DomainRecap]

My last sale is still showing in ads - now the sale was only a few days ago, but you'd think it'd be pulled as soon as a sale happens.

 

[DomainRecap]

@Atom.com I just noticed there has been a major revamp done to the Offer Center and individual Offer Pages, with lots of interesting and potentially-useful updates, but there is still no indication of the "highest offer" from the Buyer.

I personally find this very confusing when someone starts at $1,000, then offers $3,000, yet the Offer Page only displays the Original Offer Amount and in a long negotiation, I need to go searching for the Buyer's latest offer.

P.S. I do like the changes, such as the extra info and the fact that the Seller's current offer is shown in the Offer Center, but man, I am dying to get a field for "Current/Highest Buyer Offer".

 

[NameGroove]

Atom human reviewers are, appropriately, more picky than the expert reviewers. Over time this should bode well for the quality of names on platform. However, either they are seeing an incredible amount of names being submitted or their Ai is not as stingy because they are still adding names at a rapid pace (up to 330k now).

The approvals used to be about 4% higher pre human expert reviewers being installed (around 7.1% avg).

 

[Dane]

@Atom.com I just noticed there has been a major revamp done to the Offer Center

I just went into the Offer Center to see the changes... and discovered an offer from April that I never knew about. I get other email notices from Atom so it's probably not a spam issue -- which means it's likely yet another glitch in Atom's system.

 

[D Haynes]

In the offer centre "on mobile at least" there doesn't seem to be an "all" selection on the filter drop down. Would be nice to see all offers regardless of status.

 

[love4ever]

When adding domain the notification keeps refreshing from 5 to 1 seconds and repeat again and again, and still nothing added !!
What's wrong !!!!? @Atom.com

 

[love4ever]

When adding domain the notification keeps refreshing from 5 to 1 seconds and repeat again and again, and still nothing added !!
What's wrong !!!!? @Atom.com

Show attachment 277029

It took 19 minutes to be added finally !!

 

[Velocity.Now]

It took 19 minutes to be added finally !!

Show attachment 277031

Only 19 mins, I'm at least an hour and no movement.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Yes, was slow but if one goes away it seems they finish the process and are added when return. At least found that for me this morning. Must be some issue taking resources today as normally the process is smooth and fast.

 

[DomainRecap]

Looks like Atom may be a victim of its own success.

 

[King]

It looks like escrow.com has been removed from domains?

Revised: It appears it's removed only on some names, I can't spot a trend.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

It looks like escrow.com has been removed from domains?

Revised: It appears it's removed only on some names, I can't spot a trend.

Escrow option still seems on all of the names I checked just now. Maybe a temporary glitch?

 

[Atom.com]

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.

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.

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.

Quick Update: We've added the ability to opt out of Escrow.com if you prefer not to offer it.
You can update this in Marketplace Settings > Promotions & Selling Tools.

That said, we recommend keeping it enabled to maximize buyer payment options.

 

[Atom.com]

When adding domain the notification keeps refreshing from 5 to 1 seconds and repeat again and again, and still nothing added !!
What's wrong !!!!? @Atom.com

Show attachment 277029

We’ve updated our domain upload process to better handle the high volume of submissions. Uploads are now processed in the background, so you don’t need to stay on the page. Depending on other uploads in the queue, it may take several minutes. You’ll be notified automatically once your domains are uploaded.

 

[Atom.com]

@Atom.com I just noticed there has been a major revamp done to the Offer Center and individual Offer Pages, with lots of interesting and potentially-useful updates, but there is still no indication of the "highest offer" from the Buyer.

I personally find this very confusing when someone starts at $1,000, then offers $3,000, yet the Offer Page only displays the Original Offer Amount and in a long negotiation, I need to go searching for the Buyer's latest offer.

P.S. I do like the changes, such as the extra info and the fact that the Seller's current offer is shown in the Offer Center, but man, I am dying to get a field for "Current/Highest Buyer Offer".

Thanks for your feedback. We’re currently rolling out a revamped self-negotiation flow, which should be fully live by next week. Once complete, sellers will have access to much richer insights about lead quality, along with new AI-powered tools to help improve negotiation responses.

Your point about clearly showing the most recent or highest buyer offer is valid, and that will be included in the upcoming updates next week.

 

[Dane]

Quick Update: We've added the ability to opt out of Escrow.com if you prefer not to offer it.
You can update this in Marketplace Settings > Promotions & Selling Tools.

That said, we recommend keeping it enabled to maximize buyer payment options.


Show attachment 277080

Excellent! Thank you!!

 

[Domen]

30-35% commission is reasonable when Atom really promote your domains.

But its impossible to be implemented effectively, cause there is thousand premium domains.

Your sale actually dominated by type in traffic