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

 

[AndrewRice]

Today marks a month with zero sales for my 490 domains portfolio on BB. The difference between my last sale and the one before was almost 2 months! I do consider the quality of my portfolio to be amidst the best there. That makes my annual sales roughly at 1 sale every 1.5-2 months. which is less than 2% a year.
I dont get parking revenue as well. Dont get to negotiate with buyers, and get a 30% cut + logo + listing fees.

If I sell 1-1.5% outside BB, I might be in a better financial position!

Some serious decision soon... most probably... and Unfortunately

You have a good portfolio indeed. But most of your names are made up or pure brandables. It looks like KW names have been selling better at the moment, but that could change.

I wouldn't make any big decisions in the middle of the holiday season. I think sales would naturally be slow during November and December and pick up in January and February. We're also in an unprecedented market with the CHiPS affecting the whole industry.

I also know from experience that it's way easier to sell these types of brandables on BrandBucket compared to on your own separate site. Think about all of the things BrandBucket does; Marketing, Sales, Escrow, Logo design, Descripton etc. Do you really want to take on all of that along with domaining? BB is already well established and experienced and has brand awareness.

I get a good percentage of my names listed on the front page and I can confirm that it doesn't make much of a difference, if any, in sales.

 

[bazabizo]

You have a good portfolio indeed. But most of your names are made up or pure brandables. It looks like KW names have been selling better at the moment, but that could change.

I wouldn't make any big decisions in the middle of the holiday season. I think sales would naturally be slow during November and December and pick up in January and February. We're also in an unprecedented market with the CHiPS affecting the whole industry.

I also know from experience that it's way easier to sell these types of brandables on BrandBucket compared to on your own separate site. Think about all of the things BrandBucket does; Marketing, Sales, Escrow, Logo design, Descripton etc. Do you really want to take on all of that along with domaining? BB is already well established and experienced and has brand awareness.

I get a good percentage of my names listed on the front page and I can confirm that it doesn't make much of a difference, if any, in sales.

Thanks a lot for a great reply.

1) All sale rates have dropped, not only made up names. AND IF, KW ones are the ones that sell, why on earth are they accepting 6K 6 letter domains?
2) Chips are for investors, not poeple branding their businesses. Zero effect.
3) My sales rate is very bad since July. Not november and August.
4) If I am a bad guy, I would expose here the stats of people that are willing to leave this december/january. I got pms from a lot of people saying they are already considering the same thing!
5) I finish an entire escrow transaction including payment in a total of less than an hour all in all. Used to that.
6) I dont care if they do Marketing or not, logo or not, Escrow or not. I am a numbers guy, I paid 30% for a better sales rate. I am not getting it, its more feasible elsewhere. End of sales story.

All I see from BB supporters are defensive comments. Once someone starts admitting there are mistakes and works on a resolution, things will be better, never before that! I have a bad gut feeling, its not!
Good Luck again.

 

[campout]

To give a little perspective on the home page sales rate, I made 15 sales last month and 2 were on the front page during the last 6 months.

Cool -- so you will agree to no longer have your names dominate the front page and let us have some of that space, since it doesn't matter anyway

 

[AndrewRice]

Thanks a lot for a great reply.

1) All sale rates have dropped, not only made up names. AND IF, KW ones are the ones that sell, why on earth are they accepting 6K 6 letter domains?
2) Chips are for investors, not poeple branding their businesses. Zero effect.
3) My sales rate is very bad since July. Not november and August.
4) If I am a bad guy, I would expose here the stats of people that are willing to leave this december/january. I got pms from a lot of people saying they are already considering the same thing!
5) I finish an entire escrow transaction including payment in a total of less than an hour all in all. Used to that.
6) I dont care if they do Marketing or not, logo or not, Escrow or not. I am a numbers guy, I paid 30% for a better sales rate. I am not getting it, its more feasible elsewhere. End of sales story.

All I see from BB supporters are defensive comments. Once someone starts admitting there are mistakes and works on a resolution, things will be better, never before that! I have a bad gut feeling, its not!
Good Luck again.

I definitely don't think you are a bad guy and don't mean to sound defensive. To be honest, I don't mind a good debate as I think it's the best way to get to the truth.

Just a quick example of how hard it is to sell brandables outside of BB:

About a month ago I tried selling one of my BB rejects D/I/G/I/O/C/O on Flippa.com. The name has quite a bit going for it, it has 'dig' which is short for 'digital', 'co' short for company not to mention 'gioco' means game in Italian, it gets quite a bit of type in traffic and had a $9700 estibot value at the time ( the estibot value actually went up during the listing to $30,000). I think the name is a great brandable.

I did a ton of outbound, hundreds of emails, took out ads, paid the $350 flippa premium listings and my final auction price didn't even cover costs, it was like high 200s.

My point is that it's not easy to sell brandables. I used to have my names listed on my own site Brandiogo.com and I had hard time making a sale. Could be I was doing something wrong, but I figure I'm better suited specializing at just finding domains. I talked to VC guy the other day and he agreed that BB was really great at selling hand reg brandables.

If anyone comes up with a better way to sell these types of names for $XXXX then I'm all ears.

@Nat Hunt
I'd have a hard time finding a flaw in your logic. As someone who gets a good percentage of my names listed on the front page, I wouldn't feel much of any kind of loss if less of my names made the front page.

 

[bazabizo]

Flippa is for investors. Irrelevant comparison a 100%! A domain I own didnt meet the 300 reserve on flippa and sold 2 months ago for 2.5K
irrelevant comparison.

 

[Brandworthy]

I tried selling one of my BB rejects D/I/G/I/O/C/O on Flippa.com

No matter how I put this it will sound negative, but I think that's a pretty low quality name. Reading that word my brain has difficulty with both pronunciation and spelling, and I still cant quite grasp the correct phonetic. That leaves me thinking English-speaking users/customers would would also have difficulties.

Not knocking your attempt to sell it, but I think a better name would have done much better in the same circumstances.

 

[Leopard]

Its really really hard to sell made-up fancy names, especially more so outside of BrandBucket or such sites.
Those are end-user domains and its going to be hard finding them.

Keyword domains would sell even if they are BB rejects. I have sold 13 BB rejects so far but all keyword, 2-word domains. No misspellings.

I think overall one might have to keep a distributed portfolio on BB, BR, Namerific and other keyword marketplaces. All platforms have their + and -. You cant completely depend on 1 platform or completely leave them out either. Balance is key.


- Leopard

 

[Doron Vermaat]

I definitely don't think you are a bad guy and don't mean to sound defensive. To be honest, I don't mind a good debate as I think it's the best way to get to the truth.

Just a quick example of how hard it is to sell brandables outside of BB:

About a month ago I tried selling one of my BB rejects D/I/G/I/O/C/O on Flippa.com. The name has quite a bit going for it, it has 'dig' which is short for 'digital', 'co' short for company not to mention 'gioco' means game in Italian, it gets quite a bit of type in traffic and had a $9700 estibot value at the time ( the estibot value actually went up during the listing to $30,000). I think the name is a great brandable.

I did a ton of outbound, hundreds of emails, took out ads, paid the $350 flippa premium listings and my final auction price didn't even cover costs, it was like high 200s.

My point is that it's not easy to sell brandables. I used to have my names listed on my own site Brandiogo.com and I had hard time making a sale. Could be I was doing something wrong, but I figure I'm better suited specializing at just finding domains. I talked to VC guy the other day and he agreed that BB was really great at selling hand reg brandables.

If anyone comes up with a better way to sell these types of names for $XXXX then I'm all ears.

@Nat Hunt
I'd have a hard time finding a flaw in your logic. As someone who gets a good percentage of my names listed on the front page, I wouldn't feel much of any kind of loss if less of my names made the front page.

Sorry Andrew but you couldn't have given a worse example. Trying to sell a made-up pronounceable on Flippa plus spending money on upgrades and time on outreach is kinda silly.

You can't really "go out" and sell brandables. You have to sit on them and if your names are any good (maybe that's the key question in this whole thing since a BB accepted name isn't automatically a good name imo) an end-user will come knocking on your door sooner or later. If you have them listed on BB then they will knock on BB's door instead of yours.

The alternative for selling outside of BB is very simple. To start with you make sure you put up a great landing page so you can tackle inquiries and offers directly yourself without paying a dollar in commission. Then you do like everyone else and make sure the domain is listed with Sedo, Afternic and on GoDaddy (which is were millions of end-users start their search for a business name). Yes, you can set up your own marketplace but as you already pointed out chances are that's going to be a lot of hard work and most of us here don't even have the time and/or knowledge for that.

With this approach you're 100% in control over your inventory and you can negotiate directly with buyers and have the freedom to sell a name for a thousand or even $500 bucks if you need to.

Don't get me wrong, I like BB and I also have a sweet spot for their competitor BR. I have sold 8 names with BB alone this year on a relatively small portfolio (112 listed at the moment) and I have a similar sales rate at BR (sold 6 out of 70 listed in 1,5 year). I just would never list my entire portfolio of names with any of these sites. It's not smart business sense to do so.

Sellers with such large portfolios on BB such as yourself, @bazabizo and @Brandworthy made a big gamble by building such large portfolios exclusively on BB and when sales start to slow down BB really has you by the balls because there's nothing you can do besides wait and hope for a couple sales so you can pay your bills or get your portfolio out of there with a 30/days wait time. Because those sellers have invested so much time and money in building their BB portfolios this last option is a very difficult one to make.

 

[KDN]

Its really really hard to sell made-up fancy names, especially more so outside of BrandBucket or such sites.
Those are end-user domains and its going to be hard finding them.

Keyword domains would sell even if they are BB rejects. I have sold 13 BB rejects so far but all keyword, 2-word domains. No misspellings.

I think overall one might have to keep a distributed portfolio on BB, BR, Namerific and other keyword marketplaces. All platforms have their + and -. You cant completely depend on 1 platform or completely leave them out either. Balance is key.


- Leopard

I agree with you. That's the reason why I focus on keyword names now.

 

[AndrewRice]

Sorry Andrew but you couldn't have given a worse example. Trying to sell a made-up pronounceable on Flippa plus spending money on upgrades and time on outreach is kinda silly.

You can't really "go out" and sell brandables. You have to sit on them and if your names are any good (maybe that's the key question in this whole thing since a BB accepted name isn't automatically a good name imo) an end-user will come knocking on your door sooner or later. If you have them listed on BB then they will knock on BB's door instead of yours.

The alternative for selling outside of BB is very simple. To start with you make sure you put up a great landing page so you can tackle inquiries and offers directly yourself without paying a dollar in commission. Then you do like everyone else and make sure the domain is listed with Sedo, Afternic and on GoDaddy (which is were millions of end-users start their search for a business name). Yes, you can set up your own marketplace but as you already pointed out changes are that's going to be a lot of hard work and most of us here don't even have the time and/or knowledge for that.

With this approach you're 100% in control over your inventory and you can negotiate directly with buyers and have the freedom to sell a name for a thousand or even $500 bucks if you need to.

Don't get me wrong, I like BB and I also have a sweet spot for their competitor BR. I have sold 8 names with BB alone this year on a relatively small portfolio (112 listed at the moment) and I have a similar sales rate at BR (sold 6 out of 70 listed in 1,5 year). I just would never list my entire portfolio of names with any of these sites. It's not smart business sense to do so.

Sellers with such large portfolios on BB such as yourself, @bazabizo and @Brandworthy made a big gamble by building such large portfolios exclusively on BB and when sales start to slow down BB really has you by the balls because there's nothing you can do besides wait and hope for a couple sales so you can pay your bills or get your portfolio out of there with a 30/days wait time. Because those sellers have invested so much time and money in building their BB portfolios this last option is a very difficult one to make.

Nice post. It's good to see some honest debate and educational info on this thread.

I agree, selling a brandable like that on Flippa is tough. It was a great learning experience and I don't regret it at all.

I may actually try listing a few domains as you described, I had thought of it previously. It would be interesting to see how the sales rates would compare to BB and BR.

 

[hookbox]

Double post. Reposted below.

 

[hookbox]

Nice post. It's good to see some honest debate and educational info on this thread.

I agree, selling a brandable like that on Flippa is tough. It was a great learning experience and I don't regret it at all.

I may actually try listing a few domains as you described, I had thought of it previously. It would be interesting to see how the sales rates would compare to BB and BR.

The BrandBucket brand ambassador wanting to try out the competition at BrandRoot doesn't say much for your confidence in BrandBucket.

 

[JimJammy]

The BrandBucket brand ambassador wanting to try out the competition at BrandRoot doesn't say much for your confidence in BrandBucket.

In Andrews defense, he clearly gets no special sales privileges just because he is an Ambassador.

Andrew has sold 7 domains since 1st June with BB. For ease of calculation let's say that averages 14 sales a year from his 1,000+ portfolio. Thats an annual sales rate of 1.4% - which is in line with the majority here.

Michael has sold 150. 3,000+ portfolio. Sales rate of 5%.

I've been tracking the sales: I note there has been 3 repeat buyers in the last six months. In all cases, the repeat purchases were names owned by Michael Krell.

With that information, Ambassador or not, I'd be looking at the competition too. It's wise not to keep all of your eggs in one basket anyway.

 

[12345]

I've been tracking the sales: I note there has been 3 repeat buyers in the last six months.

A much higher percentage of sales come from repeat buyers. In just the first 12 days of this month, 4 previous clients have purchased multiple names.

 

[hookbox]

In Andrews defense, he clearly gets no special sales privileges just because he is an Ambassador.

Andrew has sold 7 domains since 1st June with BB. For ease of calculation let's say that averages 14 sales a year from his 1,000+ portfolio. Thats an annual sales rate of 1.4% - which is in line with the majority here.

Michael has sold 150. 3,000+ portfolio. Sales rate of 5%.

I've been tracking the sales: I note there has been 3 repeat buyers in the last six months. In all cases, the repeat purchases were names owned by Michael Krell.

With that information, Ambassador or not, I'd be looking at the competition too. It's wise not to keep all of your eggs in one basket anyway.

Andrew has been with BrandBucket for over 5 years working directly with them creating names and now as the brand ambassador for the last few years. When he talks of trying out the competition at BrandRoot after all the time and money he has invested with BrandBucket it clearly doesn't say much about the confidence he has in only using BrandBucket. Spin it however you want but it's very interesting to hear him say that.

 

[AndrewRice]

@JimmyJammy
Those numbers are off by quite a bit. I've only had over 1000 names very recently.
My sales rate is somewhere between 2 - 4 %
@hookbox
I've got no plans on trying out BR. I am curious, as everyone is, about comparing sales rates.

 

[bazabizo]

Brand root has sold over 500 names in 16 months. Their current portfolio size is 5,500 so taking an average or linear growth rate of their names addition, they sell around 8% a year minimum.
I regret to have terminated my account with them one day. Worst decision ever! All names have a fair chance of being sold as no one is favored against another person.

 

[JimJammy]

@JimmyJammy
Those numbers are off by quite a bit. I've only had over 1000 names very recently.

And Michael only had 1,751 domains in June, he now has 3,500. Those figures are correct. It's relevant because you have both grown at the same rate - you've both doubled your portfolio size since June.

 

[SoundMan]

I have been a member of BrandBucket for just over two years and have had eleven domains accepted and sold four so very happy Total revenue is just over $14,000 from the four sales.

Last sale was in November

https://www.brandbucket.com/profile/marque

 

[hookbox]

@JimmyJammy
Those numbers are off by quite a bit. I've only had over 1000 names very recently.
My sales rate is somewhere between 2 - 4 %
@hookbox
I've got no plans on trying out BR. I am curious, as everyone is, about comparing sales rates.

Oh ok, I just thought when you said "I may actually try listing a few domains as you described, I had thought of it previously. It would be interesting to see how the sales rates would compare to BB and BR" that you may actually try listing a few domains at Brandroot. I guess I read it exactly how it was written and came up with the wrong conclusion.