BrandPa.com Experience (Brandable Domain Marketplace)

[Chris Hydrick]

BrandPa.com has announced their presence on NamePros...

Hi there! I'm sorry your experience with BB wasn't pleasant :/ If you'd like to try our marketplace please don't hesitate to do so We're new in the domaining industry but very eager to learn! Let me know what you think or if you have any questions This is us: https://brandpa.com/ (or if you'd like to read about the sellers' rules visit this page: https://brandpa.com/start-selling)

Look forward to hearing from you!

Granted, the above post is from the BrandBucket experience thread, and will likely be deleted for being off topic / wrong thread, it was the first time I heard of them. The founder, @Jowita Emberton, had introduced herself in an earlier thread:

Hi guys! NamePros is a great website to get invaluable information about the domaining industry. As a reader, I'm here pretty much every day. As a writer, I'm starting today

I'm the founder of Brandpa (brandpa.com), a domain name marketplace similar to BB, BR or Namerific. We use AI and human knowledge to create and judge the names’ value according to how easy to pronounce and catchy they are.

I'm here to learn, get to know you and your recent experiences with other brandable name marketplaces We're still developing the business so any insight on our site (brandpa.com) or anything you're missing from other marketplaces will be very useful

Thanks!

I'm creating this thread to discuss their marketplace, and for those who have experiences with them.

Here's what I know so far:

The founder, @Jowita Emberton, runs two other online businesses according to her LinkedIn page.

Delighten.co.uk - Web / brand design firm.

Weddination.com - Polish wedding services

According to her LinkedIn, she has been operating BrandPa since August 2016. Though, the last cached Archive.org screenshot is a server error on October 4, 2016 HERE

BrandPa.com (2006) is registered to Oliver Emberton, founder and managing director of SilkTide.com.

Currently, there are 562 domains published / listed on BrandPa. It appears most domains listed are handregged by the owners. Not 100% on this; I will run a check when my program is working again.

After reviewing their listings, I found two errors.

The domain regged is MonoRaptor.com, but the text reads ManoRaptor.com

The domain regged is UnknownVenues.com, but the text reads UnknownVenus.com

At first look:

Pros

• No Listing Fee
• FREE Logos
• Domain Owner sets price ($1,000+)
• Forwards all offers for sellers consideration
• Brandpa is a pretty memorable / catchy brandable domain.
• Select 'On-Sale' marketing section

Cons

• Low Alexa Ranking (4,557,819)

• New site. Assuming low organic traffic, and low type-in traffic due to quality and quantity of inventory.
• Piggy-back branding off BrandBucket in site footer see below

• Reviews are all from .co.uk domains, yet BrandPa doesn't sell any .co.uk domains. A quick glance at other domains owned by the reviewers and I wasn't able to verify any brandable .com's with history tracing back to BrandPa.

Personal thoughts: I respect that they "allow the seller to submit more domain names" by not charging a listing fee. To me this shows they are willing to work for your exclusivity. Should they gain popularity, I wonder if they'll sustain this business model and/or if their logo / listing quality will decrease over time when resources are spread across the masses.

@Jowita Emberton = Feel free to comment / fill in any of the blanks.

 

[varmuk]

Small listing fee for new domains from 22 may 2017
From today, Brandpa will charge a small fee for each new domain of $5. This is a one time fee paid when your domain is approved and you wish to proceed with listing it. Payment is easy and can be made online via debit or credit card directly from your account admin area. Simply select the domain you want to pay a listing fee of and click “Pay for selected domains”. You’ll then be asked to submit your payment.

Here’s why
We’ve been receiving a huge number of domain names that — quite simply — stretched us too thin. We’ve introduced this fee to encourage better domain name submissions and cover some of the costs of our logos and listing workload.

What happens next
Any domain names submitted and approved before May 22nd 2017 are unaffected. Only domains that were submitted after that date will be asked to pay to be listed. You can choose not to pay, or to only pay for domains that you choose in your seller login area.
______________________
So early birds have saved some bucks like me

 

[varmuk]

i disliked there decision of charging so early not your post :P

 

[kaposzta]

As of today there is a $5 fee to publish an accepted name.

That's bad news, I wanted to submit a few dozen more names.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Personal thoughts: I respect that they "allow the seller to submit more domain names" by not charging a listing fee. To me this shows they are willing to work for your exclusivity. Should they gain popularity, I wonder if they'll sustain this business model and/or if their logo / listing quality will decrease over time when resources are spread across the masses.

As of today there is a $5 fee to publish an accepted name.

RIP Brandpa.com!

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Here’s why
We’ve been receiving a huge number of domain names that — quite simply — stretched us too thin. We’ve introduced this fee to encourage better domain name submissions and cover some of the costs of our logos and listing workload.

What a B.S. explanation!

Introducing a fee doesn't encourage better domain name submissions, it discourages domain name submission. -- Simply Put -- maybe they meant to say, we aren't confident we can sell your accepted domain, please pay $5 to cover our costs and buy our confidence. Brandpa - if you don't believe the domain will sell, then don't accept it! You're assigning value by accepting the domain. All we ask in return is a free concept logo for that perceived value. You had it right the first time, why the sudden change @Jowita Emberton ??

P.S. I wrote the from my phone while on the crapper. Apologize for any typos. Full grilling coming tonight when I'm on my computer. (Unless somebody throws ice on the grill before then)

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Three Month Update

Before / Now

Alexa Ranking: 4,557,819 / 528,819 (60% US / 24% India) well done

Total Domains: 562 / 1,040 (478 domains added - roughly 5 per day)

Unique Sellers: 2 / Roughly 40 + Undetermined amount under privacy

Listing Fee: FREE / $5

@Jowita Emberton - Assuming that staff didn't add any of their domains since launch, the amount of added domains that stretched BrandPa too thin in a 3 month period was 478 ((5 per day))???

$478 x 5 = $2,390.... Is this really a needed revenue stream? It seems to me this will greatly hinder your growth. Maybe you are making a lot of sales and feel sellers will happily pay the listing fee as a result? I'm sure everyone here would appreciate an update. I can look deeper and validate what I can - if needed.

I ASSUME what is taking up a lot of time is going through a LOT of domains, and only accepting a small percentage of them. You know - with resources stretched, you need to be sure what to accept, and more than likely you are getting a trickle down of marketplace rejected domains. This is the same path BrandBucket took (expect that didn't start mandatory paid listing fee's until they had thousands plus sales to back up the value) Additionally BrandBucket gives the buyer full rights to the logo... Anyways, back to the bb story. Once listing fee's became a profitable revenue stream, they vamped up their resorces which allowed for accepting domains they wouldn't previously had accepted. Thus further stretching their sellers portfolio's with domains they believed to be valuable once validated by bb approval. @Jowita Emberton - It's not too late to revert back to free listing fee's. For the sake of the brandable marketplace industry, please think of Brandpa as a long term play, rather than some get rich quick play.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Maybe you are making a lot of sales and feel sellers will happily pay the listing fee as a result? I'm sure everyone here would appreciate an update. I can look deeper and validate what I can - if needed.

Total Domains: 562 / 1,040

Of the original 562 quoted (1st post) it doesn't appear any of them sold.

35 / 562 appears to be expired (pending renewal / deletion)

Upon bulk scan -- t doesn't appear any of the 1,040 listed mentioned May 24th have sold.

 

[maksimfa]

thanks for the update.

 

[Jevsim]

can you share your calculation methodology? thanx

 

[Oliver Emberton]

@Grilled Not sure where you're getting those sales figures, but off-hand I know we sold a domain yesterday from a seller on his second sale, so that can't be right.

Brandpa has 135 sellers, of which 66 have currently names publicly for sale - the rest either haven't had their names approved, or those names are in the process of being listed.

This week we have have almost 100 names submitted a day - in the past, we've sometimes had over 1,800 names submitted in one day. For each name, we do research on similar names, keywords, market value, and if approved we make notes so that a logo can be designed. We also write a short explanation for every name we reject.

The most time consuming part is logo design, which we believe we do significantly better than other marketplaces. We also have to write the listings, which are more substantial than other marketplaces to maximise our SEO.

So although you might only see a small number of domains each day ending up on our public website, there's a lot more going on below the surface. The listing fee has helped, as we expected, to both decrease the number of names being submitted and to increase the quality of those names. At the moment we think that's the right call, but we'll always be willing to review it as circumstances change.

Grilled said "please think of Brandpa as a long term play, rather than some get rich quick play". I can assure you it costs us more to list a name than we're paid for it. The whole company is a long term play. We're investing into the brand and into new technology that we believe will grow Brandpa into something vastly ahead of current marketplaces. Fully realising that will take us years, and we're fully committed to that.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

@Grilled Not sure where you're getting those sales figures, but off-hand I know we sold a domain yesterday from a seller on his second sale, so that can't be right.

Hi @Oliver Emberton - Thank you for joining the conversation! (Welcome to NamePros!)

If you would please PM me the name, I will verify the sale, and report.

My scan has gaps in that, it only ran two check points.

1st check point (February 20th, 2017): 562 Domains were published on Brandpa. Yesterday, I rescanned WHOIS updates / verified history to try and uncover a sale (manually). I was not able to do so. If you are able to provide me with a sale from any of the domains (520) that were published on / before February 20th, 2017 you will prove me wrong.

2nd check point (5/25/2017): 1,040 domains were published on Brandpa. I (manually) skimmed WHOIS updates to see changes, and of all the domains I manually checked (not all) I couldn't verify a sale.

*Any domain added and sold between 2/20 and 5/25 I would have missed*

**Again, these were brief checks based off of bulk scans. It's very possible that I missed some. All I'm saying is that I was unable to find a verifiable sale. I'm almost for sure I would have missed anything without a WHOIS change / sale within the last 72 hours.**

 

[Chris Hydrick]

This week we have have almost 100 names submitted a day - in the past, we've sometimes had over 1,800 names submitted in one day. For each name, we do research on similar names, keywords, market value, and if approved we make notes so that a logo can be designed. We also write a short explanation for every name we reject.

I understand running a marketplace is a lot of work. Hence, why I questioned your business model to offer free logo's etc in the first place. It didn't appear sustainable unless you took an initial customer / domain acquisition hit.

I didn't know that you wrote a short explanation for rejected domains. That is great to hear!

The most time consuming part is logo design, which we believe we do significantly better than other marketplaces. We also have to write the listings, which are more substantial than other marketplaces to maximise our SEO.

I can say, that a nondomainer friend, had asked me if I knew about Brandpa. Somehow, in brandpa's short stay, my friend had discovered yall ranking in Bing. That tells me something is working.

So although you might only see a small number of domains each day ending up on our public website, there's a lot more going on below the surface. The listing fee has helped, as we expected, to both decrease the number of names being submitted and to increase the quality of those names. At the moment we think that's the right call, but we'll always be willing to review it as circumstances change.

I personally disagree. Being new, you have to expect to get mainly marketplace rejected domains. The free barrier of entry got you access to all those rejected domains. It's a way of paying into customer acquisition. To me it sounds like, there was too much work growing that fast, and you want to throttle down the work load. Hopefully sellers success will propel your work load as much as free listing fee's did, though it doesn't appear to be the case.

Grilled said "please think of Brandpa as a long term play, rather than some get rich quick play". I can assure you it costs us more to list a name than we're paid for it. The whole company is a long term play. We're investing into the brand and into new technology that we believe will grow Brandpa into something vastly ahead of current marketplaces. Fully realising that will take us years, and we're fully committed to that.

Please prove me wrong.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

Total Domains: 562 / 1,040 (478 domains added - roughly 5 per day)

New count as of today:

1,227 Domains live. (187 domains added since 5/24/2017 or roughly 6 domains published per day ((not including sold / removed domains))

Alexa Ranking: 4,557,819 / 528,819 (60% US / 24% India) well done

Alexa ranking is still moving in the right direction.

And an interesting organic search...

 

[Chris Hydrick]

*Any domain added and sold between 2/20 and 5/25 I would have missed*

@Grilled Not sure where you're getting those sales figures, but off-hand I know we sold a domain yesterday from a seller on his second sale, so that can't be right.

The seller mentioned owns 59+ (mostly aged) domains on Brandpa. (also a brandbucket seller)

1 of the sales is confirmed. (domain added/sold between mentioned gap in my scans)

The other sale hasn't changed WHOIS yet.

Aside from these two, I can't verify any other sales. (members please share if you've made sales!)

Thanks @Oliver Emberton for stopping by and filling in some blanks via PM. Hopefully in the future you'll have the pleasure of reporting more sales.

Hope to see you @Jowita Emberton around NamePros more often!

 

[rubencouto]

I sold my first domain on Brandpa!

Back in March this year I hand registered a dropped domain suitable for a company in the gaming industry (undisclosed name). Using a FastHosts promo at the time, I payed around $1,60. I then submitted this name to BrandBucket, Namerific and BrandDo. All rejected it. A couple of months later I learned about Brandpa, here on NamePros. I decided to give it a shot. I submitted this domain and it was accepted. Back then, I payed no listing fee and the domain was published with a sale price of $1390.

A few days ago, I got an email from @Jowita Emberton (Brandpa’s director), saying a potential buyer had made an offer on this name. I asked her to negotiate with the buyer and let her know for how low I would be happy to sell it. A day after, I got another email from Jowita saying the buyer had accepted my terms and had agreed to buy the domain. The final sale was for $1100. I was very happy with this sale, as you may imagine, because even after deducting Brandpa’s 25% commission, I ended up with a ROI of over 50.000%, which is excellent in my opinion, considering it was dropped domain!!

My overall experience with Brandpa is very good! The submission process is very easy; usually their decision is quite fast (1-3 days); the current listing fee of $5 is very affordable; the logo creation is free (included in the $5 listing fee); the communication with me as a seller has been spotless; and it seems their search engine ranking is increasing!

As a suggestion for improvement, I would say the seller dashboard needs some type of financial summary where we can see our past sales, commissions and listing fees payed, dates of payments and so on. Maybe it is already in their plans. I would also like to see some stats of views/hits on my domains (same problem with other marketplaces).

Overall, so far, I am very pleased with Brandpa for providing a hassle-free brandable marketplace and a very smooth communication with me as a seller!

 

[creataweb]

I too just sold my 1st name with Brandpa. I submitted about 6 names I believe from different categories. 1 was accepted. This was last month or so... just sold it on Brandpa and will be submitting more names soon.

 

[yikun]

Sold my fist name on Brandpa last week.

Got an offer awhile ago, accepted it, but it didn't go though(assuming the buyer pulled out).
Last week the same name sold at original price.

@Grilled it's been two months since your last update on Brandpa. Have you run any new analysis? I'm curious how Brandpa is doing and will appreciate your report. TIA.

 

[Joshua Harding]

@yikun and @creataweb, congratulations on your sales! Would both/either of you be willing to disclose the names sold, either here or via PM? I'm considering listing a few names on their marketplace and would like to see what the completed sales to date look like as far as brandability is concerned.

Cheers!

 

[creataweb]

@yikun and @creataweb, congratulations on your sales! Would both/either of you be willing to disclose the names sold, either here or via PM? I'm considering listing a few names on their marketplace and would like to see what the completed sales to date look like as far as brandability is concerned.

Cheers!

Was a play on the word "robot" - brandable

 

[Joshua Harding]

Was a play on the word "robot" - brandable

Hehe - given their "Testimonials", I think I have a good idea of what it was!

Cheers mate!

 

[creataweb]

Hehe - given their "Testimonials", I think I have a good idea of what it was!

Cheers mate!

haha, didn't even see that til you mentioned it.

 

[Beezy]

Was a play on the word "robot" - brandable

Another one of my ex names I flipped on here! Glad to see that sell!

 

[creataweb]

Another one of my ex names I flipped on here! Glad to see that sell!

Yes, I knew it was a winner! Thanks sir.

 

[Joshua Harding]

haha, didn't even see that til you mentioned it.

Now the question still remains - whether the testimonials section is a comprehensive list of their completed sales, or just a snapshot.

 

[creataweb]

So far I am happy with the service. I have 3 names listed at the moment and 1 of those is listed in Hottest Names and another is in Featured names.