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.

 

[Embrand]

Does anyone know approximately what percentage of Atom names are sold at Afternic? I still don't understand why Atom sellers are allowed to list names at Afternic with an uplift, but BrandBucket sellers are not.

Although BrandBucket claims leaving Afternic has not hurt sales at all, I am not entirely convinced.

 

[enterscope]

Does anyone know approximately what percentage of Atom names are sold at Afternic? I still don't understand why Atom sellers are allowed to list names at Afternic with an uplift, but BrandBucket sellers are not.

Although BrandBucket claims leaving Afternic has not hurt sales at all, I am not entirely convinced.

I've had 16 sales with 2 of those at Afternic. The buyer in both cases spent more at Afternic than the price at Atom, but I imagine they just felt more comfortable purchasing through Godaddy.

 

[Embrand]

I've had 16 sales with 2 of those at Afternic. The buyer in both cases spent more at Afternic than the price at Atom, but I imagine they just felt more comfortable purchasing through Godaddy.

Thanks for the info. Yes, I wonder if they would have purchased at Atom if it was not possible to buy at Afternic...

 

[Chris Co]

Be sure to opt-out if you don't want to give a 25% discount in addiition to a 30% commission. Atom has never provided any stats on any STR lift for the 25% promos (other than saying it lifts interest and is received well).

Until I see facts - 25%+30% discounts are simply too much to bear for me

They must have heard you (even if this doesn't really count as official stats):

 

[Simon SE]

Pleased I already started offboarding all my domains. It takes 30 days to remove them, and you have to spend 2 hours explaining why via the chat. A lot of the Ts & Cs also make for some interesting reading too.

 

[teadom]

I've had 16 sales with 2 of those at Afternic. The buyer in both cases spent more at Afternic than the price at Atom, but I imagine they just felt more comfortable purchasing through Godaddy.

thanks for sharing this, is quite insightful. Can you share how much more(percent-wise)?

 

[Velocity.Now]

They must have heard you (even if this doesn't really count as official stats):


Show attachment 286326

I remember Brandbucket saying the time between the first visit to a name and purchase date was around 30 days. So I'm guessing most sales would be from people who have been looking at the name previously and not spontaneous purchases. So I guess this rules out pumping the price up before the event.

 

[Velocity.Now]

Pleased I already started offboarding all my domains. It takes 30 days to remove them, and you have to spend 2 hours explaining why via the chat. A lot of the Ts & Cs also make for some interesting reading too.

I have removed a lot of domains and it is a straight forward procedure. I even have an e-mail template.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would like to give 30 days notice for the removal of the following domains from Atom.

xxxxxxx.com
12356.com


The Answer to the 2 questions below is NO.

1)Have there been any offers or inquiries received on this domain within the last 30 days on Atom or outside the Atom platform?
2)Has this domain sold, or is pending sale outside the Atom platform?

 

[NameGroove]

Does anyone know approximately what percentage of Atom names are sold at Afternic? I still don't understand why Atom sellers are allowed to list names at Afternic with an uplift, but BB sellers are not.

Although BB claims leaving Afternic has not hurt sales at all, I am not entirely convinced.

Some time ago BB told me many corp sellers are forced to buy via GoDaddy. They are not allowed to buy via alt platforms and that's why they allowed Afternic.

Fast forward to recent times and BB pulled everything off Afternic. When I approached them about it - they simply said, we haven't seen any sales drop (which as you say is quite hard to believe). Large sellers I've spoken with report 10-25% of their sales came via Afternic/GD when listed on both platforms. So that is the "loss" happening on BB's listings for sellers, which differs from the data BB reports.

BBs (and Atoms) business model differs from sellers. They only earn money via commissions when sold on their platform. So a sale that occurs on Afternic - doesn't earn them any monies. That's likely why a brandable marketplace would prefer to pull names from being allowed to market on Afternic.

Even though it can hurt Atom's bottom line, they continue to be seller friendly, and allow names to be cross-marketed on Afternic. Which likely gives them a leg up on "first listing dibs" since sellers have a choice of where to list their names.

 

[Chris Co]

I remember Brandbucket saying the time between the first visit to a name and purchase date was around 30 days. So I'm guessing most sales would be from people who have been looking at the name previously and not spontaneous purchases. So I guess this rules out pumping the price up before the event.

True, it also makes you wonder if most of the 40-60% extra domain sales on the discounted domains would have been purchased anyway at a later date, and the discount just gives them a push.

 

[NameGroove]

They must have heard you (even if this doesn't really count as official stats):


Show attachment 286326

yea but even Atom understands many names don't need discounts to sell.

 

[Embrand]

Some time ago BB told me many corp sellers are forced to buy via GoDaddy. They are not allowed to buy via alt platforms and that's why they allowed Afternic.

Fast forward to recent times and BB pulled everything off Afternic. When I approached them about it - they simply said, we haven't seen any sales drop (which as you say is quite hard to believe). Large sellers I've spoken with report 10-25% of their sales came via Afternic/GD when listed on both platforms. So that is the "loss" happening on BB's listings for sellers, which differs from the data BB reports.

BBs (and Atoms) business model differs from sellers. They only earn money via commissions when sold on their platform. So a sale that occurs on Afternic - doesn't earn them any monies. That's likely why a brandable marketplace would prefer to pull names from being allowed to market on Afternic.

Even though it can hurt Atom's bottom line, they continue to be seller friendly, and allow names to be cross-marketed on Afternic. Which likely gives them a leg up on "first listing dibs" since sellers have a choice of where to list their names.

Thanks, very informative. I agree that Atom is very seller friendly. It seems you can even negotiate a sale below BIN at Afternic if you give Atom a 10 percent commission of the sales price.

 

[NameGroove]

True, it also makes you wonder if most of the 40-60% extra domain sales on the discounted domains would have been purchased anyway at a later date, and the discount just gives them a push.

This is the first year we'll actually be able to corroborate this 40-60% stat. A subset of sellers now report sales to NameBio. So we have data for monthly sales at Atom. In Jan, we'll see just how many sales Atom made from Nov 28-Dec 28. And if it's 2x those prior 6 mos - we'll know if these stats are correct. I'll take the under. But if I'm wrong, you can be sure I'll never miss participating in a black friday sale again.

 

[enterscope]

thanks for sharing this, is quite insightful. Can you share how much more(percent-wise)?

Buyers paid 10% more through Afternic

 

[Velocity.Now]

Thanks, very informative. I agree that Atom is very seller friendly. It seems you can even negotiate a sale below BIN at Afternic if you give Atom a 10 percent commission of the sales price.

I suppose allowing sellers to sell on Afternic is a balancing act for marketplaces like Atom and BB . For Atom allowing sellers to sell on Afternic may get a lot of premium domains listed , if X amount sell on afternic as a result then this is balanced against the names it attracted by allowing listing on Afternic.

Its not that they are super seller orientated, if they were they would allow parallel pricing on both marketplaces. It is simply a business decision that makes them profits, if the balance goes against them then they will be quick to not allow listing on Afternic or rise the percentage from 10 to 20%.

BB obviously felt the balance of allowing listings on Afternic was not paying off for them. They make more profit by not doing so.

 

[teadom]

I suppose allowing sellers to sell on Afternic is a balancing act for marketplaces like Atom and BB . For Atom allowing sellers to sell on Afternic may get a lot of premium domains listed , if X amount sell on afternic as a result then this is balanced against the names it attracted by allowing listing on Afternic.

Its not that they are super seller orientated, if they were they would allow parallel pricing on both marketplaces. It is simply a business decision that makes them profits, if the balance goes against them then they will be quick to not allow listing on Afternic or rise the percentage from 10 to 20%.

BB obviously felt the balance of allowing listings on Afternic was not paying off for them. They make more profit by not doing so.

thanks, it's just game theory

 

[love4ever]

I wish i can block some locations Lol
Usually a curious domainer sneaking !

.

 

[Embrand]

Does anyone know if Atom sellers are allowed to enable LTO at Afternic? I can't find any information about this in Atom's help files.

 

[alop]

I wish i can block some locations Lol
Usually a curious domainer sneaking !

You wish

 

[love4ever]

Does anyone know if Atom sellers are allowed to enable LTO at Afternic? I can't find any information about this in Atom's help files.

Atom does not allow LTO Afternic cross-listings. BIN only

I got this answer before .