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.

 

[ran_doank]

I had been using the old layout until they forced onto the new ui. Looks like we're the beta testers now.

 

[sellian]

I had been using the old layout until they forced onto the new ui. Looks like we're the beta testers now.

A total mess!

 

[D Haynes]

How does one's domain end up like this? Is there a setting I'm not activating? No point listing it if it's not getting put in front of any eyes. Might as well list it at Afternic .

Edit - OK so having looked deeper, unless you point your standard domains to Atom you get no exposure at all. Is this right?

 

[Jannes]

 

[Optimal Names]

I had been using the old layout until they forced onto the new ui. Looks like we're the beta testers now.

Here comes a rant.....

This old-timer has been involved with writing and deploying customer-facing software projects going back to the late 1970s.

I've had my hands in everything from massive, highly available, online IBM mainframe banking and financial projects that sometimes took 12+ months to implement, to mid-range systems, to local, networked, Internet desktop application systems, database development and more. I've been involved in the nuclear power industry, hospitality, finance, medical, small and large office systems... you name it.

In almost 50 years of writing software one thing was paramount: the implementation could not fail in production or people's lives and/or their financial assets would be in jeopardy.

The testing portion of the software development lifecycle took an especially long time. It was worth the time, energy, and cost of TESTING. The end-result was not 100% bug-free, but it was close.

I dont see that anymore and its not a recent feeling... I've noticed this for almost a quarter century now. Ever since the turn of the century, when customer-facing Internet applications (websites) became prevalant, I started to notice more and more of the "let them test it in production" or "shake it out in production". Poduction being the system/website/app we customers/users log into and use and rely on.

I am NOT saying any of it was intentional; the leaders of all of these places certainly do not want their systems to fail. However, in my experience with using systems I have used since the early 2000s it definitely seems like a lot of development projects went that direction. It FEELS that way.

And its not unique to anyone or anyplace, certainly not Atom. I could write this exact post anywhere....

Nonetheless, its frustrating for the end-user. It has nothing to do with patience. Using something unstable and unreliable day after day becomes tiring. IMO, its human nature to rather start new somewhere, use an unknown X, rather than continually deal with known problems.

Again, IMO....

/rant

 

[D Haynes]

A lot of my "Domain Summaries" are saying logo is missing when it's not.

 

[NameGroove]

A lot of my "Domain Summaries" are saying logo is missing when it's not.

I find when Ai creates the logo (especially the older ones) their system doesn't recognize the logo is there

 

[NameGroove]

@Atom.com is there a way to list a name on Atom, but unlist or deactivate it (while keeping it in our acct) so no one else can list it? Afternic, Sedo, and SellerHub allow this - it stops "bad actors" from listing your names. I realize only trusted sellers are allowed to list without verification on Atom in the first place which minimizes this issue. Still - errors occur. Adding this would ensure 100% compliance.

 

[D Haynes]

How does one's domain end up like this? Is there a setting I'm not activating? No point listing it if it's not getting put in front of any eyes. Might as well list it at Afternic .

Show attachment 291485

Edit - OK so having looked deeper, unless you point your standard domains to Atom you get no exposure at all. Is this right?

I really don't understand what dictates where names are marketed/shown. I have differing results for names with the exact same settings and NS. @Atom.com what are the determining factors in whether a name is shown/marketed in any of the above ways because I don't see a pattern.

 

[Hashim]

How does one's domain end up like this? Is there a setting I'm not activating? No point listing it if it's not getting put in front of any eyes. Might as well list it at Afternic .

Show attachment 291485

Edit - OK so having looked deeper, unless you point your standard domains to Atom you get no exposure at all. Is this right?

It's very confusing and I wouldn't be surprised if there are even more bugs at play here, but yes, from what I can tell you need nameservers pointed to Atom for any real functionality, including exact/close match searches and remarketing: https://helpdesk.atom.com/en/articl...o-our-platform-for-standard-and-plus-listings. On top of everything else, Atom has a serious documentation problem too, a lot of their docs still show Squadhelp and evidently haven't been updated in a while, and unless they're planning to bring them all up to date soon, the recent redesign/refactors are just going to compound that problem.

Most of my domains are Plus with nameservers as I always got the impression from their site/documentation that anything less would be pointless, and that those domains we hear about that do manage to sell on Standard are domains strong enough/marketed widely enough that they would just as easily have sold anywhere else.

 

[NameGroove]

It's very confusing and I wouldn't be surprised if there are even more bugs at play here, but yes, from what I can tell you need nameservers pointed to Atom for any real functionality, including exact/close match searches and remarketing: https://helpdesk.atom.com/en/articl...o-our-platform-for-standard-and-plus-listings. On top of everything else, Atom has a serious documentation problem too, a lot of their docs still show Squadhelp and evidently haven't been updated in a while, and unless they're planning to bring them all up to date soon, the recent redesign/refactors are just going to compound that problem.

Most of my domains are Plus with nameservers as I always got the impression from their site/documentation that anything less would be pointless, and that those domains we hear about that do manage to sell on Standard are domains strong enough/marketed widely enough that they would just as easily have sold anywhere else.

Standard are primarily for your own marketing (unless they are in a very niche category where they can show up in a buyer search). I had a listing for firepits that basically had the whole search results to itself. Of course - not really many buyers are coming to Atom to name their fire pit company.

Also, listing as Standard allows you access to the wholesale marketplace where you can wholesale the names - which is nice when attempting to liquidate.

Plus gets retargeting so long as NS are pointed. If not, you get access to their excellent brokers (for the add'l 7.5% commission).

Atom is a Premium (and to a lesser extent, Sapphire) marketplace. If you are not taking advantage of those, you're likely better off simplifying your life and just listing at Afternic & Sedo.

 

[Optimal Names]

Edit - OK so having looked deeper, unless you point your standard domains to Atom you get no exposure at all. Is this right?

I believe this is correct. I have no names pointed at Afternic and get zero traffic over there - I assume zero exposure. I would think that is the same here as well but I may be wrong on this...

 

[ran_doank]

A lot of my "Domain Summaries" are saying logo is missing when it's not.

Yes- logo from old ai. If using free complimentary ai credit, its not detected.

Hello everyone, I haven't been here for a long time because I was undergoing serious medical treatment. I hope you are all well. I wanted to let you know that I'm looking for part-time/full-time work as a logo and graphic designer. If anyone has any suggestions, please send me a private message. Thank you.

Try platform like Fiverrr.

 

[Chris Co]

It's definitely been harder to get domains accepted for premium lately and the moderators are probably a bit overwhelmed with entries atm.

For those wanting to upgrade to premium, I suggest waiting a week or two.

Judging by the fact that the AI recommendation engine has completely stalled lately, and the version number was changed from 2.0 to 3.0 in the tooltip (probably a dev mistake updating it on live too early), I think (and it's just a guess here, I could be totally wrong) Atom is about to roll out a new AI recommendation engine.

Took a bit longer than expected, but it seems the AI grader is back working properly again. Today I have suddenly got several hundred new domains recommended for premium.

I think we'll be seeing a lot more domains being recommended again now. Unfortunately it may also mean the site average approval rate and total premiums will start going up again. Hopefully it has been improved to allow less rubbish in.

 

[NameGroove]

Has anyone ever seen a premium name approved for less than $2195? I thought that was the minimum Atom allowed for Premium acceptance? Is this a bug or a change by @Atom.com ?

 

[Chris Co]

Has anyone ever seen a premium name approved for less than $2195? I thought that was the minimum Atom allowed for Premium acceptance? Is this a bug or a change by @Atom.com ?

Show attachment 291501

I've seen a few myself. I could be wrong, but I think a lot of them might be domains that were added in the old squadhelp days before the minimum price was set at 2k.

Edit: Just noticed your screenshot - never seen a new premium being approved for that low. Looks like they've changed the minimum then if others are getting them too. Although with all the bugs lately, who can tell anymore.

 

[Jannes]

On top of everything else, Atom has a serious documentation problem too, a lot of their docs still show Squadhelp and evidently haven't been updated in a while, and unless they're planning to bring them all up to date soon, the recent redesign/refactors are just going to compound that problem.

not only docs...

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Has anyone ever seen a premium name approved for less than $2195? I thought that was the minimum Atom allowed for Premium acceptance? Is this a bug or a change by @Atom.com ?

I think there has been a change. I recently submitted a few less than that, and got some approved at $1895 and $1995. Not sure what the minimum is now.

-Bob

 

[NameGroove]

I think there has been a change. I recently submitted a few less than that, and got some approved at $1895 and $1995. Not sure what the minimum is now.

-Bob

I'm pretty sure I recall reading somewhere that they didn't accept Premiums lower than $2,199.

If this is something new - that is a change from that policy (which I can not find at the moment).

In my opinion there is nothing "premium" about names that are valued at <$2k.

 

[ran_doank]

Since when it's become issue, that PLUS name listed on afternic need following 10% higher bin rule.