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

 

[campout]

but I have only accumulated about 5,400 'listed days' so far (per Nat Hunt's formula, I need 7,300 'listed days' before I need to start worrying).

@deverett You're gonna hit 7,300 in 10 days. Get ready to worry?

Like others here, I am certainly leaning toward revising my expected sell-through rate down -- is 3.5% too generous? In that case, we are talking about 1 sale every ~10,400 listed-days.

And I have amassed 4820 credits using BB's voting-for-credits (I have only used 2370 credits and still have more than half left).

Love this -- nice vision.

I just sold one of my rejected names on Sedo for $1,400 which covers almost half of my investment in brandables so far. Not paying the bills yet ... but I'm keeping my fingers crossed as I type this.

Awesome! I just put most of my (150) rejects up on Sedo, 99% with BIN, most BINs are $400-$900 range approximately. I'm parking them there, too, to get the lower commission and the stats. It's fascinating to see that a couple of them (that I hand-regged) are getting ~80 visits a day (from China) because of their past incarnations.

I'm only at 3,233 listed-days, but growing at 101 per day now with all my accepts listed. So in 41 days I'll hit that 7,300 number.

 

[bazabizo]

I think its time for me to help here by providing some stats as well... I have currently around 440 names PUBLISHED on BB, this number was 150 december-2014 and growing in a scalar format since then until 300 in March... that kept almost steady until I had 140 published over the past 2 weeks... I will try as much as possible to give you sales stats :

November 2014 : 1 Sale - 100 names there (around 6,000 Listed days)
January 2015 : 1 Sale - 200 names there (around 7000 listed days since sale before)
March 2015 : same as January 2015
April 2015 : 5 Sales, I had 300 names there, and it was 1 buyer that boiught them in bulk (for 10% additional discount). I would remove this from stats as its not within the norm! Most probably a Venture Capitalist bought them for a lot of his startups
May 2015 : 2 Sales : 2 Sales, 6,500 listed days since previous sale(s).
Since 29th of May 2015, I didnt sell a single domain name. Around 16,000 listed days since then.

I calculate listed days as the number of listed/published names * the number of days since the last sale

I am getting increasingly worried at the moment to be very honest. I will list the reasons below :
1) I started on BB hoping that I get a 3-5% sales a year, with anything below 3% making it not appealing for me! 3% means 13-14 sales a year(for 440 listed names), thats 1 sale every 4 weeks. Now I am 8 weeks since the last sale. I know its a probability thing and sometimes we have to wait to make sure its really correct and that a margin of error exists sometimes.

2) I removed my names from Brandroot as I mistakenly put 1 name in both of them, and I preferred to terminate the BR account than cause issues for BB. Yes, I am more loyal to BB as BR doesnt have any sort of professionalism in handling matters.

3) Most of my names arent Hand registered names, so they have a decent chance to sell OFF any brandable marketplace! AND they also get a decent traffic, so I think at least $50-100 monthly parking is lost!

4) I pay 30% to BB, and this leads to some sales being lost.

5) I dont have the chance to negotiate with the buyer.

6) Even if brandbucket has access to traffic sources from startups that we dont have, with 16K names inside, its almost useless for me!

7) I spent hours voting, and these hours cost me almost same as the 10$ listing fees. Thats $4,400 listing fees/time lost. I could have spent the same voting time to do email marketing for a couple of my high end domains. I might have had something out of it, rather than comparing 2 names for 100+ hours.

8) I spoke personally to Michael before being the MD at BB. They guy is really friendly and is someone capable of running this thing. I just want to highlight one important thing. There are a couple of sales channels :
a) Someone who presses the buy button on a self-service fashion. Fair for all
b) Someone who negotiates just the price. Fair for all
c) Someone who asks BB reps to nominate a name for them. UNFAIR FOR ALL OF US. I think our names arent brought up here as much as Michael's!

To cut it short for all of us, I think the past few pages have highlighted all our concerns, and its time for BB to give it a shot and correct some stuff. And YES, I am transforming from someone who used to get really excited with an accepted name, to someone who is considering moving out completely; Unfortunately

 

[London555]

I think its time for me to help here by providing some stats as well... I have currently around 440 names PUBLISHED on BB, this number was 150 december-2014 and growing in a scalar format since then until 300 in March... that kept almost steady until I had 140 published over the past 2 weeks... I will try as much as possible to give you sales stats :

November 2014 : 1 Sale - 100 names there (around 6,000 Listed days)
January 2015 : 1 Sale - 200 names there (around 7000 listed days since sale before)
March 2015 : same as January 2015
April 2015 : 5 Sales, I had 300 names there, and it was 1 buyer that boiught them in bulk (for 10% additional discount). I would remove this from stats as its not within the norm! Most probably a Venture Capitalist bought them for a lot of his startups
May 2015 : 2 Sales : 2 Sales, 6,500 listed days since previous sale(s).
Since 29th of May 2015, I didnt sell a single domain name. Around 16,000 listed days since then.

I calculate listed days as the number of listed/published names * the number of days since the last sale

I am getting increasingly worried at the moment to be very honest. I will list the reasons below :
1) I started on BB hoping that I get a 3-5% sales a year, with anything below 3% making it not appealing for me! 3% means 13-14 sales a year(for 440 listed names), thats 1 sale every 4 weeks. Now I am 8 weeks since the last sale. I know its a probability thing and sometimes we have to wait to make sure its really correct and that a margin of error exists sometimes.

2) I removed my names from Brandroot as I mistakenly put 1 name in both of them, and I preferred to terminate the BR account than cause issues for BB. Yes, I am more loyal to BB as BR doesnt have any sort of professionalism in handling matters.

3) Most of my names arent Hand registered names, so they have a decent chance to sell OFF any brandable marketplace! AND they also get a decent traffic, so I think at least $50-100 monthly parking is lost!

4) I pay 30% to BB, and this leads to some sales being lost.

5) I dont have the chance to negotiate with the buyer.

6) Even if brandbucket has access to traffic sources from startups that we dont have, with 16K names inside, its almost useless for me!

7) I spent hours voting, and these hours cost me almost same as the 10$ listing fees. Thats $4,400 listing fees/time lost. I could have spent the same voting time to do email marketing for a couple of my high end domains. I might have had something out of it, rather than comparing 2 names for 100+ hours.

8) I spoke personally to Michael before being the MD at BB. They guy is really friendly and is someone capable of running this thing. I just want to highlight one important thing. There are a couple of sales channels :
a) Someone who presses the buy button on a self-service fashion. Fair for all
b) Someone who negotiates just the price. Fair for all
c) Someone who asks BB reps to nominate a name for them. UNFAIR FOR ALL OF US. I think our names arent brought up here as much as Michael's!

To cut it short for all of us, I think the past few pages have highlighted all our concerns, and its time for BB to give it a shot and correct some stuff. And YES, I am transforming from someone who used to get really excited with an accepted name, to someone who is considering moving out completely; Unfortunately

The post you wrote is probably the most thought out and fluent post on this thread so thank you. Here's the type of issue I have and it goes right to some of your points. Mr Krell hand reg. OriginalStack.com on June17th-it's now up-running and published within approx. 30 days. I have a name sitting at BB that was submitted TWO MONTHS before Mr Krell even registered his name and my name has not even received a logo yet. If Mr Krell simply came out and said " I have advantages due to my volume" I'd actually be fine with that-but he's said the opposite. That he has no advantage and as you know Mr Krell is now also approving names. I think many many people are starting to think exactly as you and believe that the BB ship may have left the dock unless changes are made. What was a great opportunity a couple of years ago simply doesn't exist now with 16,000 names and counting.

 

[Dominic Belley]

Here's the type of issue I have and it goes right to some of your points. Mr Krell hand reg. OriginalStack.com on June17th-it's now up-running and published within approx. 30 days. I have a name sitting at BB that was submitted TWO MONTHS before Mr Krell even registered his name and my name has not even received a logo yet.

Well I am not Mr. Krell and I have domains published ealier this week that were hand reg. + submitted on June13th. That is pretty similar to the scenario of OriginalStack.

If you have a logo stalled in logo design for more than 2 months, write to Michael, he might be able to see if something is wrong with it because it is an abnormal delay.

 

[London555]

Well I am not Mr. Krell and I have domains published ealier this week that were hand reg. + submitted on June13th. That is pretty similar to the scenario of OriginalStack.

If you have a logo stalled in logo design for more than 2 months, write to Michael, he might be able to see if something is wrong with it because it is an abnormal delay.

I wrote 10 days ago- its still not published but thank you.

 

[Brandworthy]

I have currently around 440 names PUBLISHED on BB

Can I ask what your handle on BB is please? I can't see an obvious profile for you.

The info you've shared is very useful, and the larger the data set we have the closer we'll be to a significant sample size.

 

[D Haynes]

Struggling with BB. Submitted a name and it got accepted. Now I need to validate DNS but I can't find anywhere on their site that tells me how. No FAQ section no email sent to me like they said, nothing. Even the log in tab is hidden. Maybe it's because I'm on a mobile device. Anybody know the nameservers or how to validate DNS? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Dominic Belley]

Struggling with BB. Submitted a name and it got accepted. Now I need to validate DNS but I can't find anywhere on their site that tells me how. No FAQ section no email sent to me like they said, nothing. Even the log in tab is hidden. Maybe it's because I'm on a mobile device. Anybody know the nameservers or how to validate DNS? Thanks in advance for your help.

Deleted message .. solution provided at the same time by wwwulff just below.

 

[wwwulff]

Set the nameserver to:

NS1.BRANDBUCKET.COM
NS2.BRANDBUCKET.COM

 

[DKN]

Struggling with BB. Submitted a name and it got accepted. Now I need to validate DNS but I can't find anywhere on their site that tells me how. No FAQ section no email sent to me like they said, nothing. Even the log in tab is hidden. Maybe it's because I'm on a mobile device. Anybody know the nameservers or how to validate DNS? Thanks in advance for your help.

https://www.namepros.com/threads/brandbucket-experience.793278/page-73#post-4897935

Please check this

 

[cocaseco]

They guy is really friendly and is someone capable of running this thing.

Thank you for a great informative post!

I am curious about this one line. What is it that led you to believe he was capable? I'm not publicly suggesting that he is or isn't. Was it brandable experience or business acumen? IMO, you need both in generous amounts to be successful in this role. Anyone that is incredibly strong in one, but weak in the other, will fail in the long run.

I'm just curious from a business perspective. Many years ago in grad school we studied a Harvard Business Review case study that has amazing similarities, but the key issue was they promoted a technical expert in their field to a staff leadership position. It ultimately brought the company down, but by the time the ownership group saw it, it was too late. The focus was on the leadership teams failure to keep their eye on the business, not the technical expert and any deficiencies he may have had. I have looked high and low for the article and haven't yet been successful. I'd like to think that BB will have long term success despite all the recent problems.

 

[trelgor]

To 'curate and simplify' this massive feedback experience for BB, I created this post. Bless my heart. It is not in any way meant to be aggressive, but progressive. Feel free to add to the list.

The post is meant to be a personal list of the questions and points raised in this thread, for thread readers in general, and for BB representatives in particular.

1. Sales figures. If you want a stable marketplace with loyal sellers, there need to be sales stats. For motivation and embetterment.

2. Trend watch. The big picture of the marketplace is only visible to BB at present and beneficial only for inhouse portfolio owners. At the expense of them trying their darndest to make educated guessing profitable. This means keyword search, name types, industry demand. In short: what sells and why. I don't see why this should be top secret for sellers in every respect and how it wouldn't be win-win to educate us. This is a strongsuit for a niche marketplace this size. The elephants could never compete.

3. Some sort of replacement for the vote-for-credit feature. It was probably partly a submission flow regulator. But many hobby investors has now built it into their model. Without it count their effort and 30% out. That may cause ripples.

4. What is the plan? How do you see BB evolving and finding new opportunities?

5. How many names listed is the limit and how do you tackle cluttering?

6. When submission criteria change, please say so first. Or explain that there might be fluctuations and why.

7. When you are actively participating in a forum thread please reply to all warranted questions. In your own time. I have a couple that has gone unanswered, as do many others. It is unprofessional. Either participate or don't. Halfmeasures benefit none.

The sellers on a marketplace like yours invest in the success of the model and the company. They are not stakeholders but have the same need for reports. They invested their hardearned money. Respect that.

 

[slimjim270]

To 'curate and simplify' this massive feedback experience for BB, I created this post. Bless my heart. It is not in any way meant to be aggressive, but progressive. Feel free to add to the list.

1. Sales figures. If you want a stable marketplace with loyal sellers, there need to be sales stats. For motivation and embetterment.

2. Trend watch. The big picture of the marketplace is only visible to BB at present and beneficial only for inhouse portfolio owners. At the expense of them trying their darndest to make educated guessing profitable. This means keyword search, name types, industry demand. In short: what sells and why. I don't see why this should be top secret for sellers in every respect and how it wouldn't be win-win to educate us. This is a strongsuit for a niche marketplace this size. The elephants could never compete.

3. Some sort of replacement for the vote-for-credit feature. It was probably partly a submission flow regulator. But many hobby investors has now built it into their model. Without it count their effort and 30% out. That may cause ripples.

4. What is the plan? How do you see BB evolving and finding new opportunities?

5. How many names listed is the limit and how do you tackle cluttering?

6. When submission criteria change, please say so first. Or explain that there might be fluctuations and why.

7. When you are actively participating in a forum thread please reply to all warranted questions. In your own time. I have a couple that has gone unanswered, as do many others. It is unprofessional. Either participate or don't. Halfmeasures benefit none.

The sellers on a marketplace like yours invest in the success of the model and the company. They are not stakeholders but have the same need for reports. They invested their hardearned money. Respect that.

@trelgor

Terrific post!!!

BB has an opportunity to accelerate their business growth by leveraging, developing, and engaging their seller base.

Your post is a terrific summary of several opportunities to develop their supply channel and broaden their partner relationships.

-Jim


cc: @michaeljkrell / @AndrewRice

 

[cocaseco]

When you are actively participating in a forum thread please reply to all warranted questions. In your own time. I have a couple that has gone unanswered, as do many others. It is unprofessional. Either participate or don't. Halfmeasures benefit none.

The sellers on a marketplace like yours invest in the success of the model and the company. They are not stakeholders but have the same need for reports. They invested their hardearned money. Respect that.

Spot on....the growing tide of dissent could be so easily stopped. This is becoming a case study of what not to do. It's as if we are all in a car and as a passenger, we see the train headed right for us. We scream and yell, but still the driver doesn't see the train. We chose this car over others because it seemed like the best vehicle to get us to our destination. While we don't own the car, we still have a vested interest in the outcome of the trip.

 

[DKN]

To 'curate and simplify' this massive feedback experience for BB, I created this post. Bless my heart. It is not in any way meant to be aggressive, but progressive. Feel free to add to the list.

The post is meant to be a personal list of the questions and points raised in this thread, for thread readers in general, and for BB representatives in particular.

1. Sales figures. If you want a stable marketplace with loyal sellers, there need to be sales stats. For motivation and embetterment.

2. Trend watch. The big picture of the marketplace is only visible to BB at present and beneficial only for inhouse portfolio owners. At the expense of them trying their darndest to make educated guessing profitable. This means keyword search, name types, industry demand. In short: what sells and why. I don't see why this should be top secret for sellers in every respect and how it wouldn't be win-win to educate us. This is a strongsuit for a niche marketplace this size. The elephants could never compete.

3. Some sort of replacement for the vote-for-credit feature. It was probably partly a submission flow regulator. But many hobby investors has now built it into their model. Without it count their effort and 30% out. That may cause ripples.

4. What is the plan? How do you see BB evolving and finding new opportunities?

5. How many names listed is the limit and how do you tackle cluttering?

6. When submission criteria change, please say so first. Or explain that there might be fluctuations and why.

7. When you are actively participating in a forum thread please reply to all warranted questions. In your own time. I have a couple that has gone unanswered, as do many others. It is unprofessional. Either participate or don't. Halfmeasures benefit none.

The sellers on a marketplace like yours invest in the success of the model and the company. They are not stakeholders but have the same need for reports. They invested their hardearned money. Respect that.

Nice post Bro!

I believe BB will reveal sales data as well as search data to help us to know better about the market.

 

[AndrewRice]

3 sales in total, all within the last 30 days or so.

Hopefully not pure luck and this will be something that is sustainable. I didn't have a single sale from November last year until around a month ago. However, I have been consistently adding inventory over this period.

As for auction of accepted name, no real reason. Just testing the waters. I have a lot of names - prob will hit 500 mark in the next month or so. So a little cash flow goes a long way.

Congrats on the multiple sales!

Good job sticking with it, looks like your patience is paying off.

 

[AndrewRice]

@AndrewRice

This is r e a l l y interesting. (To me atleast).

Since you see a quality difference in names sold versus names unsold I was wondering if you could try to verbalize it? Exemplify?

Personally, I don't see any selfevident "premium" appeal to M*O*B*I*A*G*O (1) or V*A*Z*O*O*L*A (2).

I think (1) has many alternate variations that could be considered equal or superior. It has an extra syllable in the form of the "A" in the middle. What I like about it is that it is based on a highly desirable keyword. I also like the "go", that the "A" works well with, see "A go go". That is somewhat negated though by the pronunciation of that "A" that to me atleast becomes long. Same prosody (word melody) as "santiAgo".

Not being keyword based at all, (2) has even more similar alternates IMO.

What is the linguistic quality stamp you see in these names compared to lesser names?

Defining and detailing a few linguistic rules of thumb would IMO benefit BB, BB buyers, and BB sellers alike. On par with acquisition skills, and industry knowledge.

What are yours?

Thank you for your replies!

It does seem a bit obvious, that higher quality names sell better. However, I think many sellers could benefit from this advice and though it is obvious, many domain investors struggle actually implementing a tight investing strategy.

As far as those two specific names in my opinion those variations are the best. It is my opinion, but the buyers must agree to some extent.

There is no scientific strategy for making up brands but I think much of it comes down to experience and creativity. I'm still figuring this stuff out myself to be honest.

 

[AndrewRice]

To 'curate and simplify' this massive feedback experience for BB, I created this post. Bless my heart. It is not in any way meant to be aggressive, but progressive. Feel free to add to the list.

The post is meant to be a personal list of the questions and points raised in this thread, for thread readers in general, and for BB representatives in particular.

1. Sales figures. If you want a stable marketplace with loyal sellers, there need to be sales stats. For motivation and embetterment.

2. Trend watch. The big picture of the marketplace is only visible to BB at present and beneficial only for inhouse portfolio owners. At the expense of them trying their darndest to make educated guessing profitable. This means keyword search, name types, industry demand. In short: what sells and why. I don't see why this should be top secret for sellers in every respect and how it wouldn't be win-win to educate us. This is a strongsuit for a niche marketplace this size. The elephants could never compete.

3. Some sort of replacement for the vote-for-credit feature. It was probably partly a submission flow regulator. But many hobby investors has now built it into their model. Without it count their effort and 30% out. That may cause ripples.

4. What is the plan? How do you see BB evolving and finding new opportunities?

5. How many names listed is the limit and how do you tackle cluttering?

6. When submission criteria change, please say so first. Or explain that there might be fluctuations and why.

7. When you are actively participating in a forum thread please reply to all warranted questions. In your own time. I have a couple that has gone unanswered, as do many others. It is unprofessional. Either participate or don't. Halfmeasures benefit none.

The sellers on a marketplace like yours invest in the success of the model and the company. They are not stakeholders but have the same need for reports. They invested their hardearned money. Respect that.

I don't know the answer to many of those questions but I can say in general BB like any business plans on growing and I don't think they plan on limiting that growth. My apologies if i've missed any questions in the past. I'll be happy to answer any question I can, as long as it is constructive.

 

[J Parker]

I assume you mean the ones that were rejected? Yes, they were pure brandables. They were all sold through me being contacted either via my parking page or whois email. The best domains should be ones that someone would type in or search for IMHO. These were some of my lower quality ones, but I had still selected them due to my belief people would search for them for various reasons.

Your post is a good example of why complete stats are important. Let's say you sell 5 names listed on BrandBucket, 3 are sold from of a search on their website and 2 are type-in / whois search. Reality would be that BrandBucket sold 3 names for you, other 2 would have sold on any parking page.

 

[London555]

I don't know the answer to many of those questions but I can say in general BB like any business plans on growing and I don't think they plan on limiting that growth. My apologies if i've missed any questions in the past. I'll be happy to answer any question I can, as long as it is constructive.

Andrew-first of all thank you for your helpful posts. You've stressed "Quality" names here sell on BrandBucket. My question is this-why would BrandBucket approve any name they don't consider "Quality"? Is BB telling us they have 16,000 "Quality" names and adding each day or are they telling us "Keep those listing fees coming in and we'll keep approving names" ? Thank you.