BrandBucket Experience

[xtremex]

hello

I am new to BrandBucket. Before getting my hands on this

I wish to experience about brandbucket from my fellow members


Thanks

 

[Chris Hydrick]

I asked if the price was flexible, to which I learned how BrandBucket operated. The domain sold while I was still thinking of purchasing. The domain sold over a year ago, and is still forwarded to BrandBucket.

According to the WHOIS Toygaroo.com is owned by Boxador, BrandBucket's parent company. Please don't tell me BrandBucket listed this domain for sale, then reported it as sold to keep it for themselves as a marketing advantage...

@michaeljkrell Say it ain't so?

 

[12345]

@Grilled Jesus - Only names that have been sold and transferred to the buyer are included in our sales data. I don't know any details regarding the domain that you mentioned. Khalan has also reached out to the buyer regarding your domain and we are waiting to hear back from there.

In addition to providing our number of sales, average sales price, number of sellers, etc we will also be posting some more specific sales information quarterly such as number of names sold in certain price ranges, number of repeat buyers, and so on.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Thanks for the quick response @michaeljkrell

Toygaroo has been reported as sold by BrandBucket for over a year via sales ribbon on the domain itself. The domain still redirects to the following:

Before I became a BrandBucket seller, and never having heard of BrandBucket before I called to ask if the price was flexible. The domain apparently sold shortly after while I was still deciding if the $X,XXX investment was worth it.

The domain WHOIS was updated around the same time the domain sold. After a year the WHOIS owner is still Boxador. I am left to asume this is the second time BrandBucket sniped a domain away from me after expressing interest. Once as a buyer, and once as a seller.

I very well could be wrong, and this is just a case of the buyer never transferring the domain to their account but that seems a little fishy given it's been over a year. In the event Boxador purchased the domain for themself, leaving a sold banner on the domain seems like a form of shill bidding for a marketing advantage.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Khalan has also reached out to the buyer regarding your domain and we are waiting to hear back from there.

Thank you for following up on this.

I informed Khalan of the time zone issue and expressed my concern to the lack of weekend support. Julia responded several hours before Khalan while it was still business hours for my buyer. By the time Khalan responded, it was 11 PM Monday night for my buyer. Effectively giving my buyer 2 additional days to second guess the purchase.

I don't believe the sale is in jeopardy as I've been in contact with my buyer. Nonetheless, I hope this incident is reviewed for future consideration of adding weekend support.

I broker and respond to inquiries 7 days a week. I expect my broker who receives 30% to do the same. Perhaps, we can forward all domain inquiries to the domain owner on the weekend to ensure a prompt response? I'm just sayin...

 

[Chris Hydrick]

I don't know any details regarding the domain that you mentioned.

Here's the story behind the domain...

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/video/shark-tank-regrets-investment-flops-successes-23577276

The bit on Toygaroo.com being Shark Tanks worst investment begins at the 1:25 mark.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

While certain frustrations have turned me into a BB reseller as of late, I still remain loyal to BrandBucket when it comes to endusers.

Email transcript from today:

Hi Christopher,

Hope you are well and having a great weekend.

I wanted to reach out about your domain name of kid***.com. While I am totally in love with it, paying around 2k dollars is a bit out of my budget.

As a mumpreneur, I was wondering if there is any way you could make this more affordable?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards,
**********

My response:

Hi *******,

Thanks for reaching out! As a Vetrepreneur myself I can appreciate your savviness.

As you probably know Kid***.com is listed with BrandBucket.com. Per our agreement, while listed, I am bound by their pricing module.

For a quick sale, I can lower it to $x,xxx and authorize an additional 10% off. Let me know if this interests you, and I'll set it in motion.

Regards,
Chris

Ironically, today I looked up this domain for the first time in while after I noticed a similar 6L BB approved Kid domain for sale at $XXX reseller price on NP. I was troubled to see the domain had been cached in 15 different NP sales threads for several months since the member didn't S*t*a*r out the domain or delete the body of the thread.

The point being, I separate resellers from endusers and NP Selling from BB Selling. Obviously, I can make the domain more affordable by setting up a Escrow.com transaction and eliminating BrandBucket's 30%. Nonetheless, the line between BrandBucket reseller and seller has to be drawn somewhere. Fingers crossed for a BB Sale soon...

...The sale will come as soon as BrandBucket responds with a purchase link :D​

Them
Hi Seller,

Thanks for coming back to me so quickly. Really appreciate it.

Just a quick question. Does the below offer of $X,XXX also include the logo as mentioned on Brandbucket?

Me
Hi Buyer,

Yes. All purchases through BrandBucket include full rights to the domain and logo.

Them
Hi Seller,

We have decided to go ahead with the purchase. I have contacted Brand Bucket but haven't heard yet from them.

Could you help us buy this domain?

Me
Hi Buyer,

Great news! It's definitely a lovable kid themed domain that deserves to be developed. I'm really excited to see what it ends up becoming.

I emailed both BrandBucket's sales and support staff. They are usually pretty responsive, however, it's Sunday morning, so we may have to wait a few hours to receive a response. I instructed them to email you a purchasing link.

BrandBucket will provide you detailed instructions about the purchase and transfer process. DOMAIN is currently registered with GoDaddy.com. You will have the option to push or transfer the domain to the registrar of your choice. In respect of your mumpreneurship, I'll add an extra year of registration time to the current expiration.

Feel free to reach out with any questions you may have.

Regards,
Chris

PS. It's been a tough week silencing my BB frustrations. I've tried to avoid the stress of looking at the undoted I's and uncrossed T's. I finally cracked earlier this morning, as depicted in my 10 response emails to 10 recently published domains with logo's you can basically do in 5 minutes with NamePros text editor.

On one hand, I wish I didn't flood their email system (only 10) thus delaying my buyer from receiving their link to purchase at 10% off listed price. On the other hand, as demonstrated by my buyers logo inquiry, a good logo helps sell a domain. It would be upsetting to see a similar knockoff domain with a better logo sell on another marketplace because of the better visual presentation. Don't get me wrong, BB has some great logo designers, but there's a few who basically use a generic font, and change the color of one letter, and expect $100 for their 5 minutes of work when the domain sells.

The buyer provided payment, and the sold banner instantly went up.

 

[Theydon]

Congrats Grilled.

Suspicion will eat your mind

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Suspicion will eat your mind

One suspicion keeps leading to another. I wan't to stop, but every time I look, I find something new to be suspicious about.

This whole suspicion thing has left my perception of BrandBucket hanging by a thread right now. I really hope there is a good explanation to why Toygaroo has been "sold" for over a year, and domain ownership has not changed from that of BrandBucket's parent company. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

 

[margotb]

@Grilled Jesus regarding Toygaroo.com...

This domain was listed by one of our long-time sellers in 2014. A couple of months went by and the seller lowered the price to the maximum allowed by our system. I liked the name (it's very in line with the rest of my portfolio) and thought it was a good deal in general. I saw the history with the company on Shark Tank, and the existing links to the domain, so I purchased the domain from the seller at his full asking price.

With a lot of names of my (Boxador's) personal domain portfolio, I have plans/dreams to someday build something on them, as I'm an entrepreneur first and a domain investor second. While the plans for Toygaroo brew, I'm leaving it on as "sold" as an example of a domain transaction that happened on our platform. It gets lots of eyeballs, especially from the type of end user that we love (watchers of Shark Tank, readers of business articles), so I see leaving it as sold as a sound marketing decision that builds trust and intrigue with buyers. If my idea every gets outdated or I lose interest in it, I'll probably put the domain back up for sale.

The name was for sale on our marketplace for a total of 5 months, and the price was dropped after 2. You weren't the only person to inquire about it during that time frame...it's a great name!

 

[Chris Hydrick]

@Grilled Jesus regarding Toygaroo.com...

This domain was listed by one of our long-time sellers in 2014. A couple of months went by and the seller lowered the price to the maximum allowed by our system. I liked the name (it's very in line with the rest of my portfolio) and thought it was a good deal in general. I saw the history with the company on Shark Tank, and the existing links to the domain, so I purchased the domain from the seller at his full asking price.

With a lot of names of my (Boxador's) personal domain portfolio, I have plans/dreams to someday build something on them, as I'm an entrepreneur first and a domain investor second. While the plans for Toygaroo brew, I'm leaving it on as "sold" as an example of a domain transaction that happened on our platform. It gets lots of eyeballs, especially from the type of end user that we love (watchers of Shark Tank, readers of business articles), so I see leaving it as sold as a sound marketing decision that builds trust and intrigue with buyers. If my idea every gets outdated or I lose interest in it, I'll probably put the domain back up for sale.

The name was for sale on our marketplace for a total of 5 months, and the price was dropped after 2. You weren't the only person to inquire about it during that time frame...it's a great name!

@margotb Thank you for chiming in! I really appreciate your honesty. Out of curiosity, does full price mean you didn't deduct the 30% commission and the logo fee from final the price of purchase? You confirmed this is specifically targeted to your clientele. While I understand the marketing advantages to this, ethically speaking there are more effective ways of utilizing this traffic oriented domain.

Slapping a sold sticker on a domain, deceives the interested buyer / shark tank viewer that somebody bought the domain before they could. The enduser is now subconsciously thinking "If I want a domain that's on BrandBucket, I better buy it before somebody else does." While this may be a true perception, there is one minor detail left out.

If this was an auction, and the marketplace bid on their own domain, we would call this shill bidding. I understand the huge marketing benefits to this, but this sort of thing can be considered shill marketing if done in an unethical manner. The unethical manner is failing to omit that this domain was bought, and is used for marketing to the advantage of BrandBucket by the parent company of the marketplace.

Please set an example for the other marketplaces, and consider changing the sold banner to a more targeted message to your targeted traffic. Thank you again for your honesty. I will now drop this issue.

 

[Coral Cove]

@margotb Thank you for chiming in! I really appreciate your honesty. Out of curiosity, does full price mean you didn't deduct the 30% commission and the logo fee from final the price of purchase? You confirmed this is specifically targeted to your clientele. While I understand the marketing advantages to this, ethically speaking there are more effective ways of utilizing this traffic oriented domain.

Slapping a sold sticker on a domain, deceives the interested buyer / shark tank viewer that somebody bought the domain before they could. The enduser is now subconsciously thinking "If I want a domain that's on BrandBucket, I better buy it before somebody else does." While this may be a true perception, there is one minor detail left out.

If this was an auction, and the marketplace bid on their own domain, we would call this shill bidding. I understand the huge marketing benefits to this, but this sort of thing can be considered shill marketing if done in an unethical manner. The unethical manner is failing to omit that this domain was bought, and is used for marketing to the advantage of BrandBucket by the parent company of the marketplace.

Show attachment 25902

Please set an example for the other marketplaces, and consider changing the sold banner to a more targeted message to your targeted traffic. Thank you again for your honesty. I will now drop this issue.

I'm sorry but I think you are looking far too into this. If she paid for the domain there's nothing unethical about it. Any shark tank visitor typing in this domain is surely not interested in the domain but in the product offered on shark tank. If it were available for sale it's highly unlikely a shark tank visitor would buy it up. Another domain investor looking for this same type-in marketing opportunity would be the likely buyer. Also, she mentioned she had plans for the name. Should she instead put up a blank page and miss out on the possible opportunity to attract more end buyers? If it is truly a marketing ploy then who cares if she ethically paid for it? And it's to yours and other sellers' advantage!

And of course she deducted her 30% commission. Why in the world wouldn't she?

 

[KDN]

I'm sorry but I think you are looking far too into this. If she paid for the domain there's nothing unethical about it. Any shark tank visitor typing in this domain is surely not interested in the domain but in the product offered on shark tank. If it were available for sale it's highly unlikely a shark tank visitor would buy it up. Another domain investor looking for this same type-in marketing opportunity would be the likely buyer. Also, she mentioned she had plans for the name. Should she instead put up a blank page and miss out on the possible opportunity to attract more end buyers? If it is truly a marketing ploy then who cares if she ethically paid for it? And it's to yours and other sellers' advantage!

And of course she deducted her 30% commission. Why in the world wouldn't she?

Your comment is a sign that brandable name investing is alive and well!

Thank you so much for providing us a place to sell our names. @margotb @Brandroot @michaeljkrell.

More power to BrandBucket and Brandroot.

 

[KDN]

Sorry I got carried away. Please go back to the original topic.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

I'm sorry but I think you are looking far too into this. If she paid for the domain there's nothing unethical about it. Any shark tank visitor typing in this domain is surely not interested in the domain but in the product offered on shark tank. If it were available for sale it's highly unlikely a shark tank visitor would buy it up. Another domain investor looking for this same type-in marketing opportunity would be the likely buyer. Also, she mentioned she had plans for the name. Should she instead put up a blank page and miss out on the possible opportunity to attract more end buyers? If it is truly a marketing ploy then who cares if she ethically paid for it? And it's to yours and other sellers' advantage!

And of course she deducted her 30% commission. Why in the world wouldn't she?

Thanks for your feedback. Maybe the marketing ploy of sold banners is an industry marketing thing I need to keep quiet about?

I notice you leave quite a few more domains with sold banners on your site viewable throughout your site. I imagine you've found success in this marketing ploy as well.

I appreciate you chiming into this discussion @Brandroot

 

[Coral Cove]

Thanks for your feedback. Maybe the marketing ploy of sold banners is an industry marketing thing I need to keep quiet about?

I notice you leave quite a few more domains with sold banners on your site viewable throughout your site. I imagine you've found success in this marketing ploy as well.

I appreciate you chiming into this discussion @Brandroot

There's nothing to keep quiet about. We mark purchased names as sold on our platform because we choose to and we take them down if the buyer requests that it be taken down. I'm not sure why you would think this unethical in the slightest.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

There's nothing to keep quiet about. We mark purchased names as sold on our platform because we choose to and we take them down if the buyer requests that it be taken down. I'm not sure why you would think this unethical in the slightest.

Where did I say what you were doing was unethical? Unless you purchased your sellers domain yourself, there is nothing unethical about it. This isolated alone is a marketing ploy. I'm sure you found adding sold domains to your reserved suggested domains slot entices the buyer for a quicker purchase. They are all over your site. There is nothing hidden about this unless some of those domains were listed on your marketplace and bought by you.

 

[campout]

https://www.brandbucket.com/profiles/ no longer visible

 

[artstar]

man all this over a bizarre and unappealing word like toygaroo! frightening where society is today mai non

lol

 

[Candace]

@sofiapartner, you asked a very interesting question a few pages back. I did not see an answer. Is there a limit to the number of domains that BrandBucket will list?

I think this helps in planning because Brandbucket is asking for an exclusive listing. This means that if I only have 2 names published of the 25K names, then my chances of selling any one of these names is like 0.004% or something. Of course, the greater the number of names, the lower my chance of success.

In that case, it doesn't seem I should list on BrandBucket if I only have a few names. The most successful BrandBucket-ers have thousands of names listed. More volume = more sales. @michaeljkrell

I am not suggesting that anyone should not list on BrandBucket (it's a great platform). However, I almost feel like if I only have a few names, it'll be better to list on Namerific, Sedo, Flippa, GoDaddy all while putting up a landing page. Because none of these are exclusive, my chances of selling might be a little higher than 0.004%.

 

[campout]

@candhan Your math logic (and maybe, math) is not correct. The guy who has a ton of names and the person with a couple, both would have the same total-marketplace effect acting on each of their names. But it seems like BB has done a good job of continuing to sell names as they've expanded although a lot of people say it used to be easier to sell names there a couple years ago (I wasn't around then and they don't put out hardly any data so.. I'm basically just going off that one January number they just gave.)

If your chances of selling 1 domain is 0.004% then the chances of a large seller selling any one individual of his names is all things equal 0.004% too.

 

[Candace]

True. But if someone 1000 names published and I have 2, then the probability of him selling a name will obviously be much higher than mine. Hope I cleared up what I mean. Sorry if I am using the incorrect math terms.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

True. But if someone 1000 names published and I have 2, then the probability of him selling a name will obviously be much higher than mine. Hope I cleared up what I mean. Sorry if I am using the incorrect math terms.

You bring up a good point, but something to factor in is renewal fee's.

2 Domains = $17-$30 annual renewal fee (depending on registrar)
1,000 Domains - $8,500 - $15,000 renewal fee's (depending on registrar) Michael's annual renewal fee's are obviously a lot more than this.

Michael seem's to always be BrandBucket's top monthly seller. It could be volume. It could be quality. It could be that he has access to loads of additional proprietary info we don't. It could be positioning. It could be that he's been doing this for years. It could be repeat buyers. He's got a secret sauce whatever it is.

Whatever it is, he has to keep a high sales rate for marketing and renewal purposes. It would be odd if BrandBucket's biggest seller wasn't selling domains on a marginal level.

 

[Candace]

I am not suggesting anything negative about BrandBucket.

All I am saying is if people with large numbers of domains are reporting sell rates of 2-5 % on their 1000 names listed. What's to expect for my 2 names? (Josh from DSAD.com - http://domainshane.com/auction-recap-24th-25th-february-2016/)

Am I better off listing on non-exclusive platforms?

I think these are genuine questions that new domainers with small portfolios should consider. It's not a plug for or against BrandBucket

 

[campout]

True. But if someone 1000 names published and I have 2, then the probability of him selling a name will obviously be much higher than mine. Hope I cleared up what I mean. Sorry if I am using the incorrect math terms.

Yeah of course, but what you said was more like: "because there are so many names at BrandBucket, it makes less sense for someone to start out listing there than someone who is already established there"

If someone has 1,000 names at Sedo, Afternic, or any other marketplace and another person has 2 names there, the one with 1,000 is more likely to sell a name. That's got nothing to do with BrandBucket, it's just a law of numbers that would apply anywhere.

 

[Candace]

Yeah of course, but what you said was more like: "because there are so many names at BrandBucket, it makes less sense for someone to start out listing there than someone who is already established there"

If someone has 1,000 names at Sedo, Afternic, or any other marketplace and another person has 2 names there, the one with 1,000 is more likely to sell a name. That's got nothing to do with BrandBucket, it's just a law of numbers that would apply anywhere.

Which is why I mentioned the exclusivity. If I list on Sedo, I could list on any other marketplace. I can't at BrandBucket. So the odds seem even more against me because I can't promote on other marketplaces at the same time.