SquadHelp: A Game with Too Many Rules ?

[DomainBanana]

Yesterday, SquadHelp launched a new policy of charging $1/submission to their premium marketplace, a marketplace that accepts only 9.79% of names. A major cash grab by SH, this escalates the cost of listing a single name on the SH marketplace to over $10.

Even before this damaging move, I found something about SquadHelp frustrating: the whole site is designed like a giant game.

There are ranking boards to show who's in the lead, sellers earn points for things like winning contests or getting a name approved, and now they've introduced SquadHelp coins to pay for submissions.

Gamifying business can be fun, if done well.

SquadHelp has gone to the extreme and gamified everything, two or three times over. All their points and coins and rules are dizzyingly convoluted and feel demeaning and manipulative. When it comes to listing domains and getting paid for my work, I want a clean, simple, professional, streamlined interface.

I don't want to play Candyland.

Yet, playing a childish boardgame is exactly what SH is making me do to participate in their brandable marketplace, and now this childish boardgame is ridiculously expensive to play.

I'm not interested in points or coins or rankings or any other childish, manipulative games.

I won't pay high prices and high commissions for the privilege of rolling the dice at brandable Candyland.

 

[BrandPlease]

Just just sold another name on SQ late last week, payment received last night, name was listed for a total of 8 weeks, last one took 14 weeks. They bring traffic & customers who are likely to purchase services + domains.. TrophyBuds (in the com) was the name, if you were wondering.

 

[Peak.Domains]

I'd gladly play Candyland, Monopoly and Hungry Hungry Hippos all at once if it helped me sell handregs for $2000

 

[d-e-x]

SH rejected, BP accepted, BB accepted, BB listed and 2 weeks later sold.
Now I don't submit my domains to SH anymore.

 

[iHaveThisIdea]

I got an update from them the same day this decision was made.

They've listened to feedback (likely overwhelmingly negative) and are now leaving it up to the seller: pay $1/submission and incur lower commission if sold, or everything remains as it was. The option to toggle is down at bottom of your Seller preferences: https://www.squadhelp.com/marketplace-seller-preferences

 

[BrandPlease]

Why not just list them - choose the option to allow other to use you names for submissions - step back and let your names sell or be promoted by others more active on SH? I havent had the time to try out all the different ways to increase my sales on SQ (gamification)- but in only a handful of months a couple names sold. So a 1 to submit = good ROI(still). We can only imagine the amount of low quality names that they must have been sorting through & have to put some kind of control in place?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Let me preface this by saying that I have not yet used SquadHelp or any of the other brandable marketplaces personally. However, it seems to me that, even with hefty commissions, the brandable marketplaces are managing to do well for domainers who use their services, as well as offering something the startup community want. I can see if there is $0 to submit there will be huge amounts of trash submitted. A modest cost that represents their cost to look at a domain name and inform the results does not seem to me unreasonable. And everyone has a choice as to where you list your names.

Bob

 

[iHaveThisIdea]

This thread is a bit confusing. I understand that constructive criticism is good, and no - I have nothing to do with SH, nor do I swear by them entirely or absolve them of any criticism.

But what is undeniable is that they listen to customers, respond quickly and iterate based on feedback, much moreso than any other platform in the entire industry.

Here's an updated notice of their decision to *scrap* the $1/submission rule. As you can see, it's still an option if you want lower commissions and to be moved through their queue quicker.

I just found it weird that people are still complaining about the "changes", when in fact the decision was entirely reversed.

If in the event some of you don't get these notifications, here it is in its entirety:

///

From Grant:

We have continued to receive overwhelming feedback from the sellers about the recent changes announced related to Marketplace.

It is clear that a large number of sellers do not wish to pay the upfront $1 fee in lieu of reduced commissions. At SH, our goal has never been to use these fees to generate additional revenue. Our primary goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry, while offering the shortest approval times as well as best in class customer support and platform features for our sellers.
As a result of this feedback, we have eliminated the requirement to use Squadhelp coins for ALL SELLERS.

You still have the option to use Squadhelp Coins in lieu of reduced commissions, however if you prefer to stay with the original commission rates, you can simply adjust your preferences in Marketplace Seller Preferences page.

If you are not using SH coins, your account may be limited to how many domains you can submit at a time, and your review and approval times may be a bit longer than usual. In addition, we may decide to remove the free submission option from those seller accounts which are not in good standing, have too many irrelevant submissions or have requested an excessive number of domains to be delisted from their account.

Note: If you are submitting unregistered domains, you will still be required to use Squadhelp coins if you choose to register the domains yourself. This requirement is necessary to manage the overwhelming amount of unregistered domains that are submitted every day for review.

If you have already purchased Squadhelp coins and do not wish to use them for your future submissions, simply contact our support team and we will be happy to give you a refund. Note: In the near future, you will also be able to use Squadhelp coins for other aspects (such as Logo redesigns, Lifestyle images and few other benefits)

At Squadhelp, our mission is to continue to improve our platform every day. While we may not get all the changes right the first time, we are committed to making swift adjustments based upon the feedback from our user community.​

 

[raresf]

SH has interesting features that other marketplaces don't have(i.e. wholesale marketplace, which is awesome to have, despite the 5% fee- at the values you get at wholesale prices, that doesn't really count, as compared with the effort and risks involved in selling domains to investors at other marketplaces), really fast support team and good level of sales(smaller prices than BB, though). Regarding rules, don't forget SH is at it's base a crowdsourcing platform for naming projects (and from here some differences to other marketplace regarding rules). Rules: yes, there are more than on BB or other markeplaces; yes, there have been plenty of changes lately (mostly because the marketplace inventory exploded in the last year). Nobody forbids you to just enter the platform, submit your registered domains to the premium marketplace and see if they're accepted or not. The process is basically the same as to any other marketplace. The differences come from the extra options, which you have the freedom to opt for or not (i.e.: promoting a domain for points you get from contests/logo ratings; submitting rejected domains as basic/basic plus and then maybe try getting them to premium through contests ratings; choose to pay 1$ for submission in case of already registered domains in order to get better commissions and priority in reviewing, etc). Big plus: they made plenty of improvements and even dropped some changes based on users feedback (no other platform does this). So, yeah, some of these rules that bother some people actually came out due to users feedback (i.e. ''what do we do with rejected domains?'' - SH: ''Well, let's create some extra categories, basic and basic plus'') One big issue that could easily be fixed: sometimes the help articles are not updated on time.

 

[Peak.Domains]

^ This

If their submissions are $0 right now and they're accepting about 1 in 10 names, I can only imagine that rate will shoot up if people are more careful about what they're submitting. So, I don't think OP has to worry about it costing ~$10 each name.

 

[DomainBanana]

Let me preface this by saying that I have not yet used SquadHelp or any of the other brandable marketplaces personally. However, it seems to me that, even with hefty commissions, the brandable marketplaces are managing to do well for domainers who use their services, as well as offering something the startup community want. I can see if there is $0 to submit there will be huge amounts of trash submitted. A modest cost that represents their cost to look at a domain name and inform the results does not seem to me unreasonable. And everyone has a choice as to where you list your names.

Bob

When the marketplace accepts less than 10% of names, $1/submission is not a modest cost. At this approval rate, if you wanted to list 1,000 names at SH, you'd need to pay over $10,000. This plus high commission fees on sales.

 

[GrantP]

SH's latest scam:

SH will reg an approved name for free and give sellers a 25% commission for the first year.

After one year, sellers pay a $10 reg fee/name. SH retains ownership of the name and takes a 75% commission on all sales!

Once you let SH register a name that you've come up with, they own it forever, even if you cover 110% of the reg fees!

Reposting my response from the other thread that was recently added regarding the same topic

____
We typically do not participate in discussions unless specifically tagged but using words like "Scam" is going a little too far, so I am offering a response here.

First of all, we offer three ways to participate in our Marketplace:

• Submit names that you already own
• Submit names that are still unregistered, you will register if they are approved
• Submit names that are still unregistered, SH will register if they are approved

If you are an active domain investor, it certainly makes sense to register the names yourself - not only do you pay a significantly lower commission compared to SH registered option, you also retain full flexibility to remove your domains from marketplace and sell them elsewhere if you prefer. The SH registered option is for those people who do not wish to take an investment risk for upfront reg fees and/ or for ongoing renewals.

Within the SH registered option, there are two ways we handle renewals. You can continue to have SH pay for any renewals or pay $10 (or $5 + 500 points) to keep your original commissions.

Most people choose to have SH continue to pay for their renewals - so they have zero investment risk for the entire lifespan of the marketplace listing but in that case the commission reduces slightly every year. For example, if your domain is initially approved to receive 25% in the first year, you may receive 22% of the selling price in the next year, 20% in the following year, and so on. We have not had a situation where the commission of a seller has dropped below 18% and we do not intend to do go below that number. It is, however, possible (and likely) that after few years we may stop offering renewal options on that domain because we can not pay for renewals in perpetuity - in that scenario the domain will be dropped.

Many creatives on SH platform are not domain investors. Several of them do not wish to take investment risk for their domains, and they choose the SH registered option to protect their names so that they can continue to submit their names to contests, and build a portfolio in the Marketplace at the same time.

At the end of the day, there are several ways to participate in the marketplace so that sellers/creatives can decide for themselves what method works the best in their situation. The rules for each method are clearly stated in our Marketplace Terms.

 

[BrandPlease]

They can also be a great learning tool for those trying to understand what actually makes a "valuable:" brandable. I say that - not because I believe any particular market place is more knowledgeable that anyone else in the industry - but what they do - do, is force you think about spending that 1 dollar for validation that you made a good choice. If you are having a hard time deciding to spend 1 dollar to list a name - that's about 1/10 of the reg fee - it may be a good time to step back an evaluate what is being bought?

 

[ecomslice]

I thought marketplaces were a service for sellers and buyers who CHOOSE to take part. I think its more of a take it or leave it. they don't work for us. they are a business, and if we're not happy, we just don't deal with them. go start your own amazing and perfect market place.
I just left grandpa myself due to their lack of innovation until they were forced to step up. and im in squad working with the good parts, dealing with the bad.

Same with Godaddy whom I despise for their broken system and lack of warning for unreliability. so , had my awakening and no longer regging with them. trying to sell anywhere else more. etc..

if your truly against a service, your best action is to promote other options. anything else seems to be a waste of energy ive learned the hard way also.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

In return for what exactly?

Err... I am simple minded I guess, but bringing in traffic from startup owners, selling your domain name and doing the negotiation/transaction for you, it seem to me. People like @richasis seems happy that BrandBucket saw the value in his name, priced it higher than he would have, brought a buyer and closed the deal for $90k.

As has been said, any of us can choose to use any marketplace or not, but I think it is a stretch to claim that they don't do anything.

Bob

 

[urlurl]

im assuming they are introducing this option so sellers are more mindful and selective of what they submit

Dont get me wrong, im not keen on paying $1 either - but i know why they are doing it...

 

[Kachi]

I give SH credit for responsiveness, but let's consider the new policy update. In over 2,000 words, SH rolls out eight convoluted changes. This is not seller-friendly. I don't have time for this!

We have continued to receive overwhelming feedback from the sellers about the recent changes announced related to Marketplace.

It is clear that a large number of sellers do not wish to pay the upfront $1 fee in lieu of reduced commissions. At SH, our goal has never been to use these fees to generate additional revenue. Our primary goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry, while offering the shortest approval times as well as best in class customer support and platform features for our sellers.

As a result of this feedback, we have eliminated the requirement to use Squadhelp coins for ALL SELLERS. [1]

You still have the option to use Squadhelp Coins in lieu of reduced commissions [2], however if you prefer to stay with the original commission rates, you can simply adjust your preferences in Marketplace Seller Preferences page.

If you are not using SH coins, your account may be limited to how many domains you can submit at a time, and your review and approval times may be a bit longer than usual. [3] In addition, we may decide to remove the free submission option from those seller accounts which are not in good standing [4], have too many irrelevant submissions [5] or have requested an excessive number of domains to be delisted from their account. [6]

Note: If you are submitting unregistered domains, you will still be required to use Squadhelp coins if you choose to register the domains yourself. [7] This requirement is necessary to manage the overwhelming amount of unregistered domains that are submitted every day for review.

If you have already purchased Squadhelp coins and do not wish to use them for your future submissions, simply contact our support team and we will be happy to give you a refund. Note: In the near future, you will also be able to use Squadhelp coins for other aspects (such as Logo redesigns, Lifestyle images and few other benefits) [8]

At Squadhelp, our mission is to continue to improve our platform every day. While we may not get all the changes right the first time, we are committed to making swift adjustments based upon the feedback from our user community. ​

Why spend so much time and energy on issues at a marketplace that is CLEARLY not your favorite?
What do you gain?

 

[DomainBanana]

I'd gladly play Candyland, Monopoly and Hungry Hungry Hippos all at once if it helped me sell handregs for $2000

Have fun. I'll stick with marketplaces that don't treat me like a 2-year-old.

 

[DomainBanana]

They can also be a great learning tool for those trying to understand what actually makes a "valuable:" brandable. I say that - not because I believe any particular market place is more knowledgeable that anyone else in the industry - but what they do - do, is force you think about spending that 1 dollar for validation that you made a good choice. If you are having a hard time deciding to spend 1 dollar to list a name - that's about 1/10 of the reg fee - it may be a good time to step back an evaluate what is being bought?

$1/per name isn't a terrible thing in itself. On BrandBucket, it works well. But on SH, where the approval rating is so low--even for solid brandable names--it's not worthwhile to participate. Sorry, I won't pay $10.21 on average to list a standard brandable name. There are so many better options.

 

[xynames]

Charging for submissions might make for less submissions but won’t necessarily lead to squadhelp’s being any less selective about allowing garbage in which already there is a good amount of garbage listed at SH.

See also from six months ago:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/squadhelp-marketplace.1120686/page-11#post-7201784

 

[DomainBanana]

Are the acceptance rates significantly different on SquadHelp and BrandBucket? (I have no clue, just asking, I had thought they were around that at all).

Also, is it not possible that once they start charging the quality will go up and the acceptance rate will also go up? Not sure, but that seems logical to me.

Bob

BB and BP's acceptance rate is much higher than SH premium.

It's unlikely SH's acceptance rate will go up. The majority of brandable names fall into a gray area where there's no clear and immediate way to assign value and inclusion is up to marketplace's subjective discretion. SH is just very picky -- and, on the whole, their taste in brandables is very poor, in my view.

 

[karmaco]

maybe that's what they want to improve - the submissions sellers send in

im sure some sellers are just throwing anything and everything against the wall to see what sticks - especially when you are able to send in non-registered names.

If they want to improve what’s being submitted they could limit the per week submissions. This is simply another way for them to nickel and dime their sellers to death. Next you will say it’s noble they take 5% if you wish to sell your names to another domainer.Everything they do is an excessive money grab— even how people get paid.

 

[Kachi]

Why stay and complain about stuff that has suddenly become valueless and useless. AND you claim to have better options?

If you don't like the heat, leave the kitchen. Enough of this wailing as if you are being held hostage.

 

[Domain_savvy]

Yeah just saw the backout, quite admirable move.
There are very few markets/businesses who give such high priorities and support the opinions and feedbacks.

 

[GrantP]

@GrantP Given that SH changes its terms almost daily, it's extremely difficult to know what SH's terms are.

We do not change the Terms that are the basis of our Marketplace listings. However, you are correct in that we do make very rapid/ iterations to our platform features based upon end user feedback. This is part of our DNA, and we believe this allows us to improve and innovate at a much rapid pace. We have come a long way over the last several months and still have a lot more to accomplish to build a truly unique experience for our users.

We recognize that some of the changes can be too rapid - this is a fair criticism and we need to do a better job in communicating these changes, keeping in mind that we now have thousands of new users on our platform who may find these changes too overwhelming. In the near future, we plan to make several changes to simplify the seller onboarding process as well as listing process.

That said, simply disagreeing with SH's policy does not mean that I legally won't abide by your terms. Please don't use semantics to try to excuse SH's crude, draconian behavior.

I am sorry if you felt I was using semantics to explain our policies. Individual account issues are best discussed privately, so let me try to offer one final response to this specific situation. You have listed several SH registered domains since May, and have recently informed our team that you are not in agreement with the SH registered domain policy and you have asked for those domains to be transferred to your ownership.

I see that you have been in communication with our support team, and I suggest to continue the discussion directly with the support team to discuss the status and next steps for your listings.