BrandBucket Pre-Listing Qualification Question/Feedback

[hostkobo]

Hello sir,
Just curious, how do you / I know that a name would be accepted by BB even while its available for handreg?

regards
HK

 

[Keith DeBoer]

@hostkobo Good question!

BB allows its sellers to submit domain names for review and acceptance ($1 fee) whether the BB seller owns the domain or not.

Sometimes I submit a name for review and it is accepted but I choose not to buy it. In those cases I offer others in this thread the option to buy it and resubmit it to BB ($1 fee) where it is auto-accepted and then published.

BB normally charges a $9 publishing fee but for the past several months they have waived the publishing fee and so it's free to publish once a name is accepted. This can change at anytime. So get your domains in now

 

[Keith DeBoer]

If we submit unregistered names, what if people who appraise domains at BB register these names for themselves if they think the names are good. Is there a some kind of company policy that prohibits it?

Yes, absolutely 100% prohibited

 

[Keith DeBoer]

The GrowthProgram went into effect Jan 5th, 2017. Any accounts created before that date will be on the old program.

This discussion (my fault) is a bit off topic. So if you need any more info send me a direct message or visit the BrandBucket Experience thread.

I made a big post there explaining the whole thing with cost/savings calculator, downloads etc.

 

[Keith DeBoer]

@Keith DeBoer I thought the BB listing fee is waived but I have 6 accepted names and I am being made to pay $10 each ($60 total) as payment for listing. Promo gone?

You must have an old account. As Cougar has said, send an email to BB and ask to be placed on the Growth Program

Cheers!

 

[4better]

@Keith DeBoer I thought the BB listing fee is waived but I have 6 accepted names and I am being made to pay $10 each ($60 total) as payment for listing. Promo gone?

 

[polymorph]

@nitg16
IMO If you are afraid it is so good that someone might reg it, it is probably worth regging it ASAP.
By the way I have 8 names submitted and accepted in BB before handregging and had no problems with them.

 

[BrandCougar]

@nitg16 / @Axc --

To respond to a couple of your questions..

1) If we submit unregistered names, what if people who appraise domains at BB register these names for themselves if they think the names are good. Is there a some kind of company policy that prohibits it?

I had that concern initially, however, can tell you that one of my employees has submitted over 220+ names over the past 90 days and had 60+ Accepted. The average time for name review was 5 days.

As a benchmark, during the past 90 days we had only (1) name that was registered during that 90 window. The person who registered the name was not one I recognize (it was not under Privacy) and the name was not that strong a name. Having participated with BrandBucket for the past 3 years, we happen to know most of the names of the top players on the site and our conclusion was it was a mere coincidence. (59 of 60 that were available to reg the day the Approval email arrived in our inbox is solid results - and something you can develop a business model around).

From these results, we are confident there is no cherry picking going on.

As an outside party (non-BB employee / etc) I will report we had several unregistered names appraised at over $2,500 upon submitting to BB the past 90 days and NONE of them were cherry picked by BB staff.

You would think - if someone were going to cherry pick - they probably would hit the higher appraisals. But since none were scoffed, we are confident this is not happening.

So I believe BB's "no cherry picking" policy is being honored.

One suggestion I do have - the moment you get your Approval, make your decision on which you want to keep and immediately register them.

IF YOU DON'T - and 30-60 days goes by, you may find someone out of the blue registered them and it is instinctive to think "conspiracy".

IMO - delaying registering after an Approval is not prudent, and not a conspiracy if someone out of the blue does register it months later. (not directed at anyone mentioned above, only my personal opinion on how we as investors should promptly act once the "green light" of Approval is provided).


2 ) What is the average review time for BB submissions?

In my experience, it varies from 3-7 days. Likely the variance is due to volume fluctuations, weekends, and a staff member being out. Average over the past 90 days: 5 business days.

FYI - And if you happen to submit a name that was coincidentally Approved previously, you might get a quick auto-approval email within 24 hours.

3) I recently submitted names to BB for first time and two names were approved. I saw a publishing fee of $0 in front of them. However after proceeding to the next page, it is still showing me $10 fees. Currently these names are in "Pending editorial" status.

If you have an older account, you might be under the older program.

HOWEVER - you have mentioned in an earlier post that you recently opened your account and new accounts currently default to the new Growth Program.

So, I looked at my account this morning and realized your statement is 100% correct, but permit me to mention here's what you are "possibly" observing. (please verify for us)

The "Publish $0 Fee" shows up in ORANGE text under the SUBMITTED tab when the name was Approved. Correct?

Then - the "$10 Listing Fee" shows up in RED text under the LISTED tab after you clicked on the ORANGE "Publish $0 Fee" text to move the name to the Editorial stage. Correct?

If so, then this is common as BB does happen to display the "$10 Listing Fee" in RED along with (for example) the "$100 Logo Fee" in RED text prior to your hitting the BIG ORANGE BUTTON asking you to "PUBLISH" on the Listing tab.

HOWEVER - when you did click on the ORANGE "Publish $0 Fee" back on the SUBMITTED tab you were not actually charged 10 (or 9) Credits. Meaning, your Credits tally was not reduced. Correct?

In this situation, the RED "$10 Listing Fee" is a bit out of context (and is confusing), but does not mean that BB actually charged you 10 Credits. BB just happens to have some older code displaying the old "$10 Listing Fee" text on the screen


I hope the above info is helpful.

-John
Cougar

cc: Hi @Keith DeBoer - is this consistent with your observations?

 

[Keith DeBoer]

In our BrandBucket dashboard there are two domain pages:

• SUBMITTED
• LISTED

The publishing fee is paid when an ACCEPTED domain name is moved from the SUBMITTED page to the LISTED page by clicking on the orange colored PUBLISH $0 FEE button as seen below:

 

[BrandCougar]

@nitg16 -

Glad it helped.

Though I have to admit, Keith's screen shot was a lot simpler and to the point than my long novel.

Best of luck with your domain investing and BB adventure.

 

[BrandCougar]

@nitg16 -

Shoot me a PM with the domain name in question and I'll take a look at the Whois.

Also include in your PM which registrar you perform your availability checks through? Some (most) of these registrars track search patterns and checking a name multiple times while waiting during the BB review cycle is not advisable..

Also curious, how many unreg names did you submit to BB over the past 30 days and how many were Accepted? And of those Accepted, how many of those names did you successfully register?

The reason I ask - operating your business in paranoia is not healthy and may cause you to 2nd guess yourself (which will lead to anxiety and making mistakes). If this is 1 in 60 accepted names that was regd during the review window, then your results are consistent with ours and that is likely coincidental. The 59 successful registrations we viewed as a positive outcome and track record. If, however, it was the opposite and a large portion of your names were regd during the review window (prior to receiving your BB Approval notifications), then it's definitely worth performing some detailed research to identify patterns and then draw a conclusion. And I recommend that if you (we) do find a pattern, we share it with Keith. I am sure he would welcome such insight.

As a programmer, I think "structurally" and am process driven. So the best way to address your concern is to analyze the data as a whole, not focus solely on a one off, and then determine if there is an overarching process flaw (or not). And if there is a flaw, address it with someone who can (and will) take action on the matter.

Glad to help in the background with some research.

 

[BrandCougar]

As a side note - some data you (and others) might find interesting...

Last fall we had submitted a batch of a few hundred names to BB and with that batch we received 147 rejects. No, we don't have a perfect acceptance rate and yes we tightly track our operating processes..

So, here's something we found - of the 147 unregd "Rejects", a whopping 13 were registered within a 90 day period following the our submission.

We then performed a detailed Whois search on the 13 names and found no significant patterns. Most (nearly all) of the 13 did not use Whois Privacy, the Registrant contact information was diverse, as was the registars being used.

Our conclusion - we had submitted quality names and others throughout this planet felt the same when they stumbled upon them.

We had a similar situation on a group of 2,000 5L's back in 2016 that were unreg at the time (not submitted to BB) and within 6 months over 18% were registered. A crazy 3% per month were being absorbed and were no longer available for handreg only 6 months later.

We are a data driven group.

 

[karmaco]

While I think it’s great that it is an option, I do not submit unregistered domains or domains at closeout or auction. I either like the name or I don’t.

Often wondered if 20 BB people all submit the same names of auctions they are watching or domains they are considering buying B.B. is making a nice profit for the same one assessment. System never says that name has allready been approved or declined keep your money.

Case in point, my 4 highest priced names are all hand regs. 2 of them are five figure. Now can you imagine getting a five figure assessment and not allready having the domain?

I keep lists too dating back almost 6 months on keyword based brandables. 80 percent are gone in 6 months even more if it’s a trending term or niche. So the bottom line is it’s a nice option if you are comfortable leaving it unregistered.

 

[Primary Names]

You must have an old account. As Cougar has said, send an email to BB and ask to be placed on the Growth Program

How old ?

 

[Furquan]

How old ?

My account was one year old when I sent them email to upgrade me in growth plan, I got accepted hour after.

 

[Primary Names]

My account was one year old when I sent them email to upgrade me in growth plan, I got accepted hour after.

Thank you @Furquah. You are a star
Is it possible to pm me a link to your BB portfolio. Just curious !

 

[Jonathan MacDermid]

Just a note but I also was getting notified that there was a $10 publishing charge but when I published any names, it does not ask for payment. Seems like they are waiving publishing fees like Keith stated but it may not be clear on first appearances.

 

[BrandCougar]

@nitg16 -

Thanks for the confirmation that the backend did apply the waiver correctly.

I hope the waiver never ends - the reduced cost is fostering a company like ours to accelerate our submissions. The results of which are more inventory, quicker for the site..

 

[nitg16]

@Keith DeBoer @BrandCougar

Thanks for the clarifications.

 

[Keith DeBoer]

As Brand Cougar has said, domaining is a highly competitive industry. There are several thousand domainers (at least) all looking for quality names to reg or catch in the expiring/drops etc. This results in thousands of domains being registered everyday. Anyone with a list of unregistered names will find that many of them get registered over the coming days, weeks and months. You can try it as an experiment.

However, if anyone notices some pattern or suspicious activity in regards to BrandBucket, please tell them (or me) right away. They are very keen to make sure there is no leaking or hacking of their system. Trust is a key component to their business model and they take it seriously.

 

[nitg16]

>> I will keep an eye if this domain ever pops up on BB or other marketplaces like BrandPa.

Seriously?

Chasing a name that has long since been registered seems like a waste of energy.

Based on your anxiety on the topic, respectfully, I strongly recommend you only submit registered names to BB.

This will eliminate your stress and allow you to focus your energy on finding solid names that you 100% know that - if approved - you will have them secured in your registrar account already.

I hope the suggestion is helpful.

Cheers.

Lol, I am not stressed and I am not even thinking about it.

I will only do that once in a while if I get reminded about it and won't actively pursue it. That's it.

Don't know why you thought that I am taking stress or I am getting anxious. There are tons of domains names available and getting a domain name approved means nothing. It is the sale that counts. If I lost this one, then I will get another.

 

[Keith DeBoer]

Often wondered if 20 BB people all submit the same names of auctions they are watching or domains they are considering buying B.B. is making a nice profit for the same one assessment. System never says that name has allready been approved or declined keep your money.

This is an interesting point, and surprisingly (as far as I know) you are the first to bring it up. I raised this point to BB when the Growth Program was first implemented and was told by Margot (BB founder) that the BB staff had lengthy discussions about this point.

They decided an auto-acceptance wouldn't be fair to all sellers. Here's why:

If sellers were to get an automatic acceptance with no fee. It would tip them off that another BB seller was going to be bidding on (or registering) that domain. This would be insider info for the second seller and info that the first person who submitted the name would not have. It was decided that in order to keep things on a level playing field for all BB sellers the process would be the same for all submissions, even those that were previously submitted and approved.

The exception to this is when a BB seller submits a name for an appraisal review that was previously published on BB and then deleted/expired etc. In those cases, when the domain is submitted, you will get an error message as seen below. What you would do then is buy/register that domain and then send an email to BB ([email protected]) and tell them you are the current owner of the domain and could they please put it in your account.

There are zero fees for republishing a domain that was previously published on BrandBucket - except for the logo fee which is paid to the logo designer when/if the domain is sold.

PS Elatey.com is available for purchase, right now, in the GoDaddy closeouts. It was previously accepted by BB at a suggested price of $1,795

 

[nitg16]

@hostkobo Good question!

BB allows its sellers to submit domain names for review and acceptance ($1 fee) whether the BB seller owns the domain or not.

Sometimes I submit a name for review and it is accepted but I choose not to buy it. In those cases I offer others in this thread the option to buy it and resubmit it to BB ($1 fee) where it is auto-accepted and then published.

BB normally charges a $9 publishing fee but for the past several months they have waived the publishing fee and so it's free to publish once a name is accepted. This can change at anytime. So get your domains in now

Show attachment 88084

If we submit unregistered names, what if people who appraise domains at BB register these names for themselves if they think the names are good. Is there a some kind of company policy that prohibits it?

 

[nitg16]

@Keith DeBoer

I recently submitted names to BB for first time and two names were approved. I saw a publishing fee of $0 in front of them. However after proceeding to the next page, it is still showing me $10 fees. Currently these names are in "Pending editorial" status.

In seller rules, I can see this note:

“At this time, the $9 listing fee is being waived for all published names. This is a special promotion and subject to change at any time.”

So, there is a fee or not? If yes, I will have to pay listing fees after names move beyond pending editorial status or these names have been exempted already?

I am dealing with BB for first time and I don't have much idea about the listing process.

 

[Keith DeBoer]

Hi @nitg16,

It sounds like you opened your BB account before Jan 2017 and are on the old program. If you send an email to [email protected] they will put you on the Growth Program at no charge.

In fact you will get $10 in credits for future domain submission/appraisals.

Under the Growth Program you can submit any domain, even ones you don't own, by paying a $1 appraisal fee. Any domains that are accepted can be published for a $9 publishing fee. However, at the present time, the publishing fee is being waived for those on the Growth Program.

I hope that makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers!