Spaceship.com - Marketplace Thread

[DomainRecap]

Spaceship.com recently launched a new Marketplace section, and as NamePros has given me the go-head, I think the company deserves its own thread for NP domain marketplace users to converse in.

https://www.spaceship.com/sellerhub/

Personally speaking, I will be setting up a new Spaceship.com account this weekend and going to work investigating its various features, options and policies.

 

[Jannes]

As for landing pages, I see no point in using a beautiful lander that not only lacks trust signals but is functionally the same as an Afternic lander (BIN, LTO, MO). There has to be a moat, such as:

 

[domainer8888]

Namecheap reg path is leverage

as long as your domains are listed only via Afternic. Sales via Namecheap disappeared since I listed them on Spaceship. It's a failed "integration".

 

[NameGroove]

It's all about leverage. GoDaddy: brand recognition (trust) + Afternic distribution, Atom: marketing. 5 percent commission is great but it's not leverage. Namecheap reg path is leverage, but you don't need a lander for that.

Exactly this. You point NS to Afternic so as not to pay their penalty. But you list on Spaceship to gain access to NC reg path. That is the optimal solution (unless you believe for some reason that Spaceship landers would convert materially higher than Afternics). I do not believe that is the case (nor do I believe it to be the case for any lander vs another). If anyone converts higher, its one with GoDaddy on it (as they are the most well known).

If Richard listens to my advice and adds "powered by Namecheap" on the Spaceship lander, it may be possible to see Spaceship landers converting at the level of GoDaddy's landers. But I highly doubt he'll listen as he as separated the 2 entities and my guess is he doesn't want to merge them in the minds of customers, even though Spaceship lander STR could be increased by adding Namecheap to it.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2001918125806117359

 

[phaethon]

If I remember well, the NC sales were around 10-15% of Afternic sales, before Spaceship. Based on my sales it's the same now.

Why do we see high views for non com domains? they can't be real. Can't you just fix that? @Marina Savina

 

[NameGroove]

If I remember well, the NC sales were around 10-15% of Afternic sales, before Spaceship. Based on my sales it's the same now.

Why do we see high views for non com domains? they can't be real. Can't you just fix that? @Marina Savina

What you're probably seeing are SLD searches (Namecheap views are solely SLD). Spaceship views are SLD+TLD.

I've repeatedly ask for all 4 possibilities to be shown, but they have never added this

 

[Altetra]

They should swap the brands with places and everything will be right!

 

[Hashim]

Exactly this. You point NS to Afternic so as not to pay their penalty. But you list on Spaceship to gain access to NC reg path. That is the optimal solution (unless you believe for some reason that Spaceship landers would convert materially higher than Afternics). I do not believe that is the case (nor do I believe it to be the case for any lander vs another). If anyone converts higher, its one with GoDaddy on it (as they are the most well known).

If Richard listens to my advice and adds "powered by Namecheap" on the Spaceship lander, it may be possible to see Spaceship landers converting at the level of GoDaddy's landers. But I highly doubt he'll listen as he as separated the 2 entities and my guess is he doesn't want to merge them in the minds of customers, even though Spaceship lander STR could be increased by adding Namecheap to it.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2001918125806117359

This flippant response that essentially boils down to "sounds like a you problem" seems to be par-for-the-course for this CEO, I've referenced it elsewhere in this thread but based on the responses I've seen from him on this forum, his hard-headedness and allergy to constructive criticism is probably Spaceship's biggest problem. As a founder of my own web app, it's beyond me why any founder would not only disregard but outright mock data provided for free from their biggest customers. He seems to think he's done his job by designing a pretty UI/UIX - which to his credit he, or his designers, have - but that's not what moves the needle for end users, they're not going to hand over thousands of dollars just because a website looks nice. Low commissions also don't make a difference if the volume of sales is much less than competitors.

 

[Future Sensors]

I really enjoyed the community here, but my work required me to shift to another area. I can assure you that all feedback is monitored and taken into account by our sellerhub team. I'm still available for escalations and via DM.

It appears that after your announcement, no other staff representative is actively responding in this thread. That's unfortunate, because engaging with power users here is the fastest way to identify issues and improve your service.

 

[domainer8888]

Seems like the pump is over.

 

[Jannes]

It appears that after your announcement, no other staff representative is actively responding in this thread. That's unfortunate, because engaging with power users here is the fastest way to identify issues and improve your service.

It doesn't help that we cannot just tag Spaceship (especially in other threads they don't necessarily monitor). Every representative, including the former CEO has to use their own account for some reason. Who can remember all Marinas, Elenas, Edwards etc?

 

[Timkh]

For the third day already, everything loads very slowly. It takes quite a lot of time just to access SellerHub.

 

[End Game]

I remember with Dan’s landers, when someone clicked on our domain, there was a listing of our top 5 viewed domain names at the bottom of the lander. I sure wish SpaceShip would add this feature. I don’t see how it would hurt sales and would give some of our other domains more exposure.

Seems with the new owners taking over the company, the weekly progress has slowed. And I can’t believe SS doesn’t have a public link for our domain portfolio yet…that I know of. I really want SS to succeed with their 5% commissions.

 

[Timkh]

This has been going for 3 days already.

 

[Timkh]

Now like this:

 

[NameGroove]

@enetwork
Any chance you can add a buyer facing marketplace search feature for your 5mm+ SellerHub listings?

 

[Hashim]

@enetwork
Any chance you can add a buyer facing marketplace search feature for your 5mm+ SellerHub listings?

Pretty sure this is what they released the "beta" of BrandStore for, but according to their support it's not possible to buy or sell domains through it despite the fact it's been 6 months since it was released to the public. The most prominent section on the site has also advertised the same mid-tier domains for months, so the skeptic in me says they're not intending to do anything more with it and it's just a front to advertise their own domains. I'd love to be proven wrong, but whoever heard of a "beta" that's released to the public in an unusable form and is still unusable 6 months later? An MVP comes before an alpha which comes before a beta, and even an MVP is meant to include your core functionality. At the very least, their management/engineering has absolutely no clue what a beta is. Yes, I may be bitter because I spent several hours listing my domains only to be told this publicly launched product can't actually be used yet and it was all a waste of time.

 

[Future Sensors]

Seems like the pump is over.

Made me think.

 

[Timkh]

The issue still hasn't been resolved. And it seems that Spaceship isn't even aware if this. Buyers may also be facing the same difficulties when trying to access BuyerHub. It's a pity that Marina no longer handling this. In the summer, any issue used to be resolved within just a few hours.

 

[Timkh]

I've just contacted support, explained the situation, and within a few minutes everything started working normally again, just like before. Coud this have been related to my account? Has anyone else experienced this issue over the past days? Please let me know.

 

[Jannes]

Anyone on X going down the rabbit hole of vitriol caused by a certain premature (?) decision by the NC team and its rationalisation by Richard K? Very unfortunate event that I’m not going to summarize or even link here. I'm not taking a moral stance, but some people (including a subset of our buyers) will probably boycott Namecheap and by the same token Spaceship "forever" (=for a while). It’s possible that this will turn out to be a polarizing event and some people will want to show their support for NC/SS/2CEOs, so the effects for us domain sellers on SellerHub and NC reg path will not be drastic, especially when the vast majority won't even know or care about these things.