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.

 

[Optimal Names]

There is no correlation. If Atom parsed out domainer & wholesale shortlists from logged in end user shortlists perhaps ultimately there would be.

But Atom confirmed there is no correlation. https://www.namepros.com/threads/atom-atom-com-marketplace-formerly-squadhelp.1120686/post-7306038

Anyone who focuses on this metric as it is currently presented is likely to make pricing and renewal mistakes.

Thanks for that link.

Seeing that was 6 years ago I wonder if @Atom.com can confirm or deny that there is little to no correlation between shortlists and sales? If there isnt then what is the metric for?

 

[NorthernDomains]

If there isnt then what is the metric for?

Most likely contests. I could be wrong, though.

 

[Dane]

This is an issue with a lot of the Atom site design - it's all or nothing.

Pretty big issue in my opinion. It's silly that we can't change certain things on a per-domain basis.

 

[NameGroove]

Thanks for that link.

Seeing that was 6 years ago I wonder if @Atom.com can confirm or deny that there is little to no correlation between shortlists and sales? If there isnt then what is the metric for?

Atom is a gamified system. Gamified systems generate usage by using things such as likes & loves (in this case shortlists and views) to keep you coming back and interacting. Gamified systems tap into human emotions quite successfully and it is in part, why they have proliferated.

None of this is to say Atom doesn't work - it works quite well (from a sales perspective). But not all the little bells and whistles are intended to get end user sales - but rather intended to get a user to engage (which ultimately helps increase on platform listings). When Atom was young that was quite important especially as they needed to acquire domainer listings vs the other options.

 

[Dane]

Anyone feel like they've had success by upgrading names from Standard to Plus? Or not so much?

(Not Premium, but Plus)

 

[alop]

Thanks for a devouted appearance but it would be cool to hear from atom rather than you

 

[Optimal Names]

Anyone feel like they've had success by upgrading names from Standard to Plus? Or not so much?

(Not Premium, but Plus)

Time will tell but I moved all my standard to standard-plus... Its only been 6 weeks so we'll see.

Still a lot to learn on there, however.

 

[NameGroove]

Anyone feel like they've had success by upgrading names from Standard to Plus? Or not so much?

(Not Premium, but Plus)

I'm interested in this too.
It'd be most interesting to hear from @Atom.com about the efficacy of Plus & Sapphire (separately) vs Standard.

We obv do not expect either Plus or Sapphire to perform like Premium - but it'd be good to get some stats on these areas vs Standard.

Until we hear from Atom, at least we can gather anecdotal info from domainers.

I know of only one Plus sale from another domainer.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1922392758033023307

 

[NameGroove]

It's cumulative. I don't know of a way to reset the counter.

Agreed, it's cumulative. And worse, when a name is set as fs in Atom's wholesale marketplace shortlists skyrocket and "stay" with that name forever. My top shortlists and top repeat visits are all former names I acquired from Atom's wholesale marketplace (which I mention just for fun since I ignore this stuff anyway)

 

[alop]

Defff not i spent 2 coins
Maybe 10

That's 5 bucks

 

[Atom.com]

Thanks for that link.

Seeing that was 6 years ago I wonder if @Atom.com can confirm or deny that there is little to no correlation between shortlists and sales? If there isnt then what is the metric for?

Hello, and thanks for raising this.

Based on our data, we do not see a direct or consistent correlation between shortlist counts and actual sales. That’s because shortlists can come from many sources beyond serious buyers, such as creatives participating in naming contests, wholesale buyers, domainers researching trends, casual browsers, and even bots in some cases. These signals often don’t reflect genuine purchase intent.

Because of this, we plan to phase out public shortlist counts in the near future and instead introduce more actionable insights that are more closely tied to real end-user behavior. Our goal is to help sellers focus on meaningful signals, rather than make pricing or renewal decisions based on signals that may not reflect true buyer intent.

 

[Optimal Names]

Hello, and thanks for raising this.

Based on our data, we do not see a direct or consistent correlation between shortlist counts and actual sales. That’s because shortlists can come from many sources beyond serious buyers, such as creatives participating in naming contests, wholesale buyers, domainers researching trends, casual browsers, and even bots in some cases. These signals often don’t reflect genuine purchase intent.

Because of this, we plan to phase out public shortlist counts in the near future and instead introduce more actionable insights that are more closely tied to real end-user behavior. Our goal is to help sellers focus on meaningful signals, rather than make pricing or renewal decisions based on signals that may not reflect true buyer intent.

Thank you for the clarity and confirmation of what others have said.

 

[alop]

Can I get my money back though? Any return policy shiii

 

[alop]

atom be like

Nawwwww that was a mistake

 

[DomainBFF]

You can shortlist names (especially easy to do from the wholesale marketplace). But these are not correlative to sales in any way (Atom confirmed this). Ignore them.

I've seen that stated and I'm not putting any weight into them except to maybe monitor my pricing. I just haven't seen where I have the ability to shortlist still, so it's amusing that I already have 60+ in 3 days.

 

[DomainBFF]

I believe it's the heart on the lander.

That's what I thought it would be, but whenever I go to my shortlisted domains landers the hearts all show 0. Even for domains with 6+ shortlists already.

I also see on the dashboard the "Total Likes" which is described as total number of times a contest holder has liked your domain, so I would then assume that's what puts the hearts on the lander?

 

[D Haynes]

Sold a name yesterday. Second LTO has started.

One issue I found was that when negotiating with they buyer they asked for a payment plan over a set amount of months but I couldn't see any option from the negotiation page to offer this. I had to change the price and LTO terms on the lander which showed another issue.

The name was being discounted (as set to do so periodically) and when I changed the price to what was agreed with the buyer (quite a bit lower than the initial BIN) the new price kept the discount (around 30% of the new BIN) so there was a period of a few minutes while I changed settings that the buyer or anyone else could have gotten themselves a real bargain.

I think any discount should be cancelled when a BIN price is changed throught the dashboard and there should be an option to offer LTO terms through the negotiation page @Atom.com

 

[DomainRecap]

Anyone else's sidebar missing at Atom? I just checked an offer and it disappeared.

And it's back - someone must be testing feature updates in production. Oh, this new generation...

 

[NorthernDomains]

Anyone else's sidebar missing at Atom? I just checked an offer and it disappeared.

I have the same issue; the sidebar is missing.

 

[domainer8888]

The “Free 3-day returns” notice is part of a recent experiment to test paid ads on Google Shopping listings, and we’ll be adjusting it in the near future.

I wouldn't put too much effort into the Google Shopping listing for domains, as they violate Google policies because they are considered products that do not result in ownership of a tangible item.

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/6150006?hl=en

As soon as someone reports them, Google will take them down.