Atom / Atom.com - Marketplace (formerly Squadhelp)

[JudgeMind]

Hey Folks,

I've just started using squadhelp.com to list some of my brandable. So far I have 76 domains listed, there is no fee to list. I've had some decent action so far in the way of interested buyers but no sales as of yet. I've only been with them for 1 week now.

A bit of a summary review of SquadHelp:

PROS

• No Listing fee
• No Logo design fee
• Ability to submit your names to end users holding naming contests
• Ability to chat directly or send a message directly to end users.
• Stats of your marketplace domains are shown in the marketplace dashboard.
• Their customer service and support has been great, 24hr a day chat.
• Ability to increase or decrease the list price of your domains or to show a discount. You can decrease or increase the price yourself by $200. If you want to lower more, you can contact support.
• End users can shortlist your domains before they make a decision on which they want to purchase. The number of shortlists is shown in you marketplace dashboard.
• When you submit your names you get to set the price you wish to get. Because their commissions are high I recommend listing at a higher price to offset the commission costs.
• Their landing pages are fairly basic but they work. Because the marketplace is fairly new, I'm sure we will see style improvements in the future.
• One thing I really like is they accept multiple extensions. I have listed .co and .io along with .com
• Each seller gets a direct link to their marketplace portfolio, HERES MY PORTFOLIO. It is handy if your trying to p[promote your portfolio through social media.
• I like that their marketplace doesn't have tens of thousands domain listings like BB. They are fairly strict on the domains they accept to list and so this helps keep the number of domains in the marketplace down and gets your listings more exposure.

CONS

• Their commissions are very high, depending on the domain name they are usually between 30% and 35%. However, there are no listing fees, no logo design fees, so in the end their commission is very similar to brand buckets.
• Their logos are not top quality, in fact I requested to have some of my logos remade.
• I think they have a big backlog of logos to design, the wait time for logo design has been around 1 week, but your names are still listed while the logos are being designed.
• After your names are accepted you need to agree to their commission rate, at this point you also need to apply your own keywords, descriptions etc. I found this was very time consuming.

 

[DomainBanana]

i respect your opinion, but I thought I would share mine as I'm pleased with over 80% of the logo's and increase in effort/innovation. especially considering they are free. and completed in a fraction of the time vrs other sites.

Your logos are free? So SH gets no commission from your sales? Pretty good deal for you. They would get 35% of most of my sales. Not free for me.

I work in marketing and am discriminating about logos. Overall, SH's are extremely poor, demonstrating little care, thought, quality, or professionalism.

SH doesn't get many things about domaining.

They don't understand logos.

They don't understand the virtue of simplicity.

They don't really understand what premium names are or how to value them.

But they're young and willing to learn. Hoping for the best.

 

[ecomslice]

Your a very passionate Banana, I still find Squad A Peel ing. Less Monkey business than other places imho.

 

[sharastar]

From today's Intercom news message:
Bad, bad advice, Squadhelp. You need to consult an IP lawyer before giving such ideas to your sellers.

Combined with the fact that you already have some trademarked domains in your inventory, that may not end well.

If someone has TM-ed "Pristine Spring Water" and you own "Spring Water" you shouldn't have any TM issues, but you have a potential client there, as they already see value even in a longer string.

@Recons.Com Only if its something like Generic term right here "Spring Water" is Generic but "Corp" added to end is not generic and not right if trademarked.

If not trademarked then there would not be a problem and would be a boon having "Corp" at the end of the keyword right as it would cater to whole market

 

[Recons.Com]

@Recons.Com Only if its something like Generic term right here "Spring Water" is Generic but "Corp" added to end is not generic and not right if trademarked.

If not trademarked then there would not be a problem and would be a boon having "Corp" at the end of the keyword right as it would cater to whole market

I am not sure if you an IP lawyer or just making this stuff up.

if "corp" is part of the brand, then it does distinguish, unless it is a very famous brand within a market that can create confusion. I.e., AppleCorp making phones won't fly, AppleCorp selling apples or Spring Water is fine... If Corp is not a part of the brand, but just shows the type of entity, then you might be right.

See labcorp.com, LabCorp is their name, not Lab, Corp.

 

[sharastar]

I am not sure if you an IP lawyer or just making this stuff up.

if "corp" is part of the brand, then it does distinguish, unless it is a very famous brand within a market that can create confusion. I.e., AppleCorp making phones won't fly, AppleCorp selling apples or Spring Water is fine... If Corp is not a part of the brand, but just shows the type of entity, then you might be right.

See labcorp.com, LabCorp is their name, not Lab, Corp.

Got Cleared!

I was not making this up was just asking it to you about whether it was right!

 

[Recons.Com]

Got Cleared!

I was not making this up was just asking it to you about whether it was right!

Sorry, misunderstood.

So, again, if "corp", "ltd", "inc" are just a description in your legal name and your main one is violating a tm, that won't make difference.

If "corp", "inc" etc. is part of name, like in CostCo, then it is distinctly new name, unless a brand is so well known in the market, that any confusing similarity can be interpreted as tm violation. So, with CostCo existing it is a bad idea to go and establish CostCorp that is a retail/wholesale shop in the US or other markets where it operates. But, you'd be fine establishing a cost comparison website under it.

But, when you sell a name, most often you are not designating a market. It is up to buyer to decide his use and if that name is in the clear for use/market.

 

[sharastar]

Sorry, misunderstood.

So, again, if "corp", "ltd", "inc" are just a description in your legal name and your main one is violating a tm, that won't make difference.

If "corp", "inc" etc. is part of name, like in CostCo, then it is distinctly new name, unless a brand is so well known in the market, that any confusing similarity can be interpreted as tm violation. So, with CostCo existing it is a bad idea to go and establish CostCorp that is a retail/wholesale shop in the US or other markets where it operates. But, you'd be fine establishing a cost comparison website under it.

But, when you sell a name, most often you are not designating a market. It is up to buyer to decide his use and if that name is in the clear for use/market.

It's ok and Thanks again for some detail stuff which makes things more understandable.

 

[JudgeMind]

Small update on my SH experience.

Sales seem to be coming in after longer time frames, I currently have 291 premium domain listings in the SH marketplace and over saturation of the market has drastically decreased the visibility of my listings. Average sales time in the past six months "for me" has increased from 2 weeks to 6 weeks.

I find it very difficult to understand how a 10%-20% STR is possible over 12 months... regrettably, I scaled in a big way with SH after seeing some real results early on, but now I may need to begin removing names from there and sell <$500 on afternic or sedo. Be great to hear how things are going for others here, but I'm quite disappointed in sales results.

 

[Laguna]

Thinking of moving mine too. I'd rather go back to listing on multiple marketplaces rathar than exclusively to squadhelp

 

[jk23]

Yep, after having a good month of October everywhere else, I had 0 sales on SquadHelp. Had a good start there, as well, but things seem to have slowed down. I have also used a number of marketplace boosts and lifestyle images.

 

[ecomslice]

Reality is the entire domain market has run into a slow down for many reasons.
I see that as a fair reason Squad should slow down on dilution. So yes I agree.

 

[Ostrados]

Is SquadHelp down?! I get HTTP error 500

 

[capybara]

Has anyone ever managed to submit a non-com domain to contest?
I see this everywhere:

I think the contest holders fill some kind of form, and the first entry kinda allows something else maybe, but then the second one makes it impossible.

 

[KDN]

Small update on my SH experience.

Sales seem to be coming in after longer time frames, I currently have 291 premium domain listings in the SH marketplace and over saturation of the market has drastically decreased the visibility of my listings. Average sales time in the past six months "for me" has increased from 2 weeks to 6 weeks.

I find it very difficult to understand how a 10%-20% STR is possible over 12 months... regrettably, I scaled in a big way with SH after seeing some real results early on, but now I may need to begin removing names from there and sell <$500 on afternic or sedo. Be great to hear how things are going for others here, but I'm quite disappointed in sales results.

Thanks for the post @JudgeMind ! I have 236 names listed and only one sale so far. Also, I experienced a sharp decrease in shortlists yesterday. Could be a bug though. Anyway, hope things get better before renewals.

 

[November]

Thanks for the post @JudgeMind ! I have 236 names listed and only one sale so far. Also, I experienced a sharp decrease in shortlists yesterday. Could be a bug though. Anyway, hope things get better before renewals.

I have a sharp decrease in shortlists too. It seems like a bug.

 

[Ostrados]

I have a sharp decrease in shortlists too. It seems like a bug.

Did you report to SH support?

 

[November]

I noticed it 10 min ago, but I'll report it.

 

[domains21]

Has anyone ever managed to submit a non-com domain to contest?
I see this everywhere:

I think the contest holders fill some kind of form, and the first entry kinda allows something else maybe, but then the second one makes it impossible.

They only want a .com but it doesn't have to exactly match the company name you submit. So you could submit Ignited for company name and they would accept GetIgnited(.com). If they want something other than .com then that will show under the 'Acceptable Domain Extensions'.

 

[Avijit Roy]

I have a sharp decrease in shortlists too. It seems like a bug.

Same with me. i have 27 listed and i used to have shortlist of 6-10 daily. Now it's 2 average.

 

[JudgeMind]

With my current portfolio size, if I were to be getting the "SITE AVERAGE" Sell Thru Rate 11.77% for 12 months, I should be selling 34 domains per year, 2-3 per month...on average.... my current "TIME TO SELL" is 14 weeks, site average is 25 weeks now.. When I first started selling with SH the time to sell was just 3 weeks and the site average was 5 weeks..... @GrantP can you please comment on how the sell through stats are legitimate if the average time to sell is so high? Please feel free to use my portfolio as reference.

 

[Bohdan]

I'm with SH for about 8 months, 34 domains, 3 offers, and 0 sales so far. I'll quit if there will not be a sale before the new year.

 

[Laguna]

I'm with SH for about 8 months, 34 domains, 3 offers, and 0 sales so far. I'll quit if there will not be a sale before the new year.

Same here. Seems like the shortlists are just like the like button on namepros. Means diddly squat ( British expression lol)

 

[GrantP]

I would like to address few of the recent comments .

@GrantP can you please comment on how the sell through stats are legitimate if the average time to sell is so high? Please feel free to use my portfolio as reference.

The Average time to sell and sell through rate are two different (mostly independent) metrics. It is possible to have a really short time to sell, with a really low sell through rate. This is because the time to sell is based on the domains you actually sold, while the sell through rate is based upon all your domains. For example, let's say you have a portfolio of 100 domains , but you sold one domain 2 weeks after listing. In that case, your time to sell would be 2 weeks while your sell through rate would be 1%.

Infact, based upon our current algorithm, your sell through rate will actually show 0% because the 12 month and 6 month sell through rates are calculated only for those domains that were atleast listed for 12 month and 6 month respectively. In other words, if your domain sells in less than 6 months, it is currently not reflected in the sell through rate.

As indicated in one of the previous posts, we plan to update the sell through rate calculation over the next few days to provide a more accurate view of the sell through across the platform (by also including those domains which are selling in less than 6 months).

On the broader point, it is certainly expected that our platform's overall sell through rates will gradually decline and settle towards a lower number as we increase the listings in the Marketplace. Regardless of this expected decline, our goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry by ensuring a high level of marketing spends. In addition, we are significantly more selective in approving new domains to the marketplace to ensure that the growth of marketplace is extremely controlled.

Since all these metrics are averages, it is possible that the experience of individual sellers may be different - some may achieve a much better sell through than the average, while others may achieve a lower sell through. These variations will likely be even higher, if you have a relatively smaller portfolio.

We are currently operating at highest level of marketing spends, and we plan to increase them even more. However at the end of the day we absolutely understand that you would not want to continue to list your domains with a platform if you are not seeing results. We also recognize that some sellers may find that they are seeing better success with other platforms - in those cases, it certainly makes sense to move more domains towards that platform.

While ultimately it is your decision, we do recommend to list your domains for atleast 12 months before evaluating your overall portfolio performance.

 

[JudgeMind]

I would like to address few of the recent comments .



The Average time to sell and sell through rate are two different (mostly independent) metrics. It is possible to have a really short time to sell, with a really low sell through rate. This is because the time to sell is based on the domains you actually sold, while the sell through rate is based upon all your domains. For example, let's say you have a portfolio of 100 domains , but you sold one domain 2 weeks after listing. In that case, your time to sell would be 2 weeks while your sell through rate would be 1%.

Infact, based upon our current algorithm, your sell through rate will actually show 0% because the 12 month and 6 month sell through rates are calculated only for those domains that were atleast listed for 12 month and 6 month respectively. In other words, if your domain sells in less than 6 months, it is currently not reflected in the sell through rate.

As indicated in one of the previous posts, we plan to update the sell through rate calculation over the next few days to provide a more accurate view of the sell through across the platform (by also including those domains which are selling in less than 6 months).

On the broader point, it is certainly expected that our platform's overall sell through rates will gradually decline and settle towards a lower number as we increase the listings in the Marketplace. Regardless of this expected decline, our goal is to continue to offer the best sell through rates in the industry by ensuring a high level of marketing spends. In addition, we are significantly more selective in approving new domains to the marketplace to ensure that the growth of marketplace is extremely controlled.

Since all these metrics are averages, it is possible that the experience of individual sellers may be different - some may achieve a much better sell through than the average, while others may achieve a lower sell through. These variations will likely be even higher, if you have a relatively smaller portfolio.

We are currently operating at highest level of marketing spends, and we plan to increase them even more. However at the end of the day we absolutely understand that you would not want to continue to list your domains with a platform if you are not seeing results. We also recognize that some sellers may find that they are seeing better success with other platforms - in those cases, it certainly makes sense to move more domains towards that platform.

While ultimately it is your decision, we do recommend to list your domains for atleast 12 months before evaluating your overall portfolio performance.

thanks for the info grant.. it is unfortunate however, as many of us sellers scaled our portfolio of premium listings after SH announced the average sell through rate was 20%... this misleading information has cost us sellers a lot of time and money and now with the premium marketplace over saturated with tens of thousands of names.. we can’t recover the thousands of dollars we’ve invested because our names, quite simply, are not being seen by potential buyers.

it’s great for SH to scale and have as many domains as possible listed in your marketplace, but your sellers suffer

 

[DomainBanana]

If I were SH, I'd invest in hiring industry pros who understand brandable domains and their valuation.

You can keep upping the marketing spend, but lipstick on a pig only goes so far.