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.

 

[h2o]

No, someone asked the same thing recently in the SH forum. The reviewers are shown names only, no descriptions.

Well that's a major bummer. Because at the end of the day, end users are shown the name along with the description.

 

[gina ferrano]

^^


So it seems like this "Expert Reviews" process is a big factor behind the sudden SH change. I truly do not believe the reviewers are true experts at all. A true expert would not allow a name like epicRealt*r to be on their marketplace due to trademark concerns. I thought that end users get the benefit of screening their name for potential trademark concerns as part of the full brand experience.

I guess SquadHelp not only has technical bugs to fix, but they need to fix legal bugs as well.

I would imagine SH is trying fulfill the time line from submission to approval in a shorter space (within hours not days up to one month plus, so by utilizing 'experts', not SH staff but folks who are just like you and I but who have been on the SH platform and are tier A, won contests and have a higher rate of acceptance and domain sales. If you want SH staff to review this would only work on unregistered names.

Yes, but now they are not using that vast statistical data when accepting names. Now they are relying on "Domain Experts" who, among other things, do not know which categories are over saturated, which niches are hot, etc.

I understand that this is a very challenging task and that there is no perfect answer. That being said, I think the previous method is better.

So true

Question - Does anybody know if the Expert Reviewers are shown the Domain Description when they rate your names? I ask because I think the description can make all the difference. The description can open up minds and opportunity. It's also good for niches that the reviewers may not be familiar with. Because let's face it, nobody is an expert in everything.

The 'experts' are essentially our peers (anywhere from 7-15) or those on the SH platform who have a proven sell through, high ranking, higher acceptance rate who are shown 4 names only and in mere seconds are incentivized to click on names that will A. likely be accepted (points) and B. sold ($5 per). Their criteria is different than 'experts' who will take their time and have worked many years in advertising and are looking at internal data as in the case of BB, though different than BP that uses AI to assess. So sadly no, it's like playing the slots at Vegas, a bit like a poll for those that partake (I participated in this model for points at BB several years prior, though only for names that had already been selected and on the platform) So, like you I was taking my time in writing descriptions only to realize, why? The only plus I see for sellers is that one can technically reg a name, have it reviewed/accepted all within a space of 5 hours, then to speed things up further, you can write your own description/categories and be live w/ logo within 3 days time.

 

[boker]

I would imagine SH is trying fulfill the time line from submission to approval in a shorter space (within hours not days up to one month plus, so by utilizing 'experts', not SH staff but folks who are just like you and I but who have been on the SH platform and are tier A, won contests and have a higher rate of acceptance and domain sales. If you want SH staff to review this would only work on unregistered names.

So true


The 'experts' are essentially our peers (anywhere from 7-15) or those on the SH platform who have a proven sell through, high ranking, higher acceptance rate who are shown 10 names only and in mere seconds are incentivized to click on names that will A. likely be accepted (points) and B. sold ($5 per). Their criteria is different than 'experts' who will take their time and have worked many years in advertising and are looking at internal data as in the case of BB, though different than BP that uses AI to assess. So sadly no, it's like playing the slots at Vegas, a bit like a game for those that partake (I participated in this model for points at BB several years prior, though only for names that had already been selected and on the platform) So, like you I was taking my time in writing descriptions only to realize, why? The only plus I see for sellers is that one can technically reg a name, have it reviewed/accepted all within a space of 5 hours, then to speed things up further, you can write your own description/categories and be live w/ logo within 3 days time.

As far as I know, they can review domains in batches of four, they can favorite one of the domains from the batch or can pass all of them. If your domain has over 5 favorites from reviewers, it will automatically accepted, if it has 5, it will be reviewed one more time by SH staff, if it has less than 5, it will be rejected. The domains will be reviewed by 10 to 20 reviewers, depending how many favorites it has until it will reach ten or so. If the domain has 2-3 favorites until it reaches 10 reviews, it will be reviewed by others, up to 20, if it has 0-1 favorites until it will reach 10 reviews, usually it will be rejected. I was doing pretty fine until the review system has changed, but now I'm a few % better, so depends by who is reviewed and which domains were competing with it, if all are average, you have big chances, if at least 1 of them is a valuable backorder or a domain won at auctions in the xxx range, usually you can't compete with it.

 

[ArielT]

As far as I know, they can review domains in batches of four, they can favorite one of the domains from the batch or can pass all of them. If your domain has over 5 favorites from reviewers, it will automatically accepted, if it has 5, it will be reviewed one more time by SH staff, if it has less than 5, it will be rejected. The domains will be reviewed by 10 to 20 reviewers, depending how many favorites it has until it will reach ten or so. If the domain has 2-3 favorites until it reaches 10 reviews, it will be reviewed by others, up to 20, if it has 0-1 favorites until it will reach 10 reviews, usually it will be rejected. I was doing pretty fine until the review system has changed, but now I'm a few % better, so depends by who is reviewed and which domains were competing with it, if all are average, you have big chances, if at least 1 of them is a valuable backorder or a domain won at auctions in the xxx range, usually you can't compete with it.

I understand that the poll is ramdomized and "not the same" to more than one reviewer so if in one poll there is a top domain it wouldn't be a problem because there would be different polls for other reviewers

But anyway maybe not perfect

 

[boker]

I understand that the poll is ramdomized and "not the same" to more than one reviewer so if in one poll there is a top domain it wouldn't be a problem because there would be different polls for other reviewers

But anyway maybe not perfect

It's random, but out of 100 domains reviewed, there could be 10-15-20 good one's, bought in the low xxx range, so there are big chances to compete with at least one of them in each selection. On top of that, there could be another 20-30 good one's, that will steal some votes. In the end, you would be happy to compete all the time with the average one's, the rest of them, but it's random, so you can't count on this.

 

[ArielT]

It's random, but out of 100 domains reviewed, there could be 10-15-20 good one's, bought in the low xxx range, so there are big chances to compete with at least one of them in each selection. On top of that, there could be another 20-30 good one's, that will steal some votes. In the end, you would be happy to compete all the time with the average one's, the rest of them, but it's random, so you can't count on this.

I understand that is out of much more than 100

Maybe @GrantP could clarify

 

[boker]

I understand that is out of much more than 100

Maybe @GrantP could clarify

I was just giving an example, with 100. I guess there are couple of thousands at certain times.

 

[ArielT]

I was just giving an example, with 100. I guess there are couple of thousands at certain times.

I agree, so as that can fluctuate, probably they could test something like "Vote for one or more if you think we should accept. Or mark none if you don't like any of them"

I don't know if they have already tested it or not

 

[capybara]

This sucks. Contests can be dragged on for months, why should the name stay locked because someone is slow to decide? If by 0.0000000.....001 chance the name sells elsewhere at the same time, it should just disappear from all other contests.

 

[h2o]

As far as I know, they can review domains in batches of four, they can favorite one of the domains from the batch or can pass all of them. If your domain has over 5 favorites from reviewers, it will automatically accepted, if it has 5, it will be reviewed one more time by SH staff, if it has less than 5, it will be rejected. The domains will be reviewed by 10 to 20 reviewers, depending how many favorites it has until it will reach ten or so. If the domain has 2-3 favorites until it reaches 10 reviews, it will be reviewed by others, up to 20, if it has 0-1 favorites until it will reach 10 reviews, usually it will be rejected. I was doing pretty fine until the review system has changed, but now I'm a few % better, so depends by who is reviewed and which domains were competing with it, if all are average, you have big chances, if at least 1 of them is a valuable backorder or a domain won at auctions in the xxx range, usually you can't compete with it.

This is super helpful info to know boker. I appreciate your time in laying down the details.

 

[gina ferrano]

As far as I know, they can review domains in batches of four, they can favorite one of the domains from the batch or can pass all of them. If your domain has over 5 favorites from reviewers, it will automatically accepted, if it has 5, it will be reviewed one more time by SH staff, if it has less than 5, it will be rejected. The domains will be reviewed by 10 to 20 reviewers, depending how many favorites it has until it will reach ten or so. If the domain has 2-3 favorites until it reaches 10 reviews, it will be reviewed by others, up to 20, if it has 0-1 favorites until it will reach 10 reviews, usually it will be rejected. I was doing pretty fine until the review system has changed, but now I'm a few % better, so depends by who is reviewed and which domains were competing with it, if all are average, you have big chances, if at least 1 of them is a valuable backorder or a domain won at auctions in the xxx range, usually you can't compete with it.

This is the link that will help explain their 'process'. In short, 4 names are shown, reviewer(s) picks one, or skip all. Those reviewers receive up to 1500 points for 25 rounds (example) the incentive being they choose a name that IS selected, and an extra $5 if it sells. My own personal experience so far, I had one that was fast tracked to being accepted within the first 7 or 8 reviewers. All other names received, in all, 14 reviews. In order to move forward one must get 4 favorites. Though if you get say, 3 out of 4, you can have it reviewed by staff (5 are allowed per month).

 

[Zagalee]

No, someone asked the same thing recently in the SH forum. The reviewers are shown names only, no descriptions.

So that means, i was busy suffering myself to describe names that can not be read by Reviewers. Lol

 

[NameMedia]

I submitted some names 8 or 9 over the weekend, just to test the expert review system out. The names were not the best, but most had been accepted at 1, if not 2 other brandable marketplaces. The typical suggested prices of the accepted names, based on the valuations of other marketplaces was from $1995 - $3995.

In every case, the expert reviewers rejected. The one name that got the most votes (only four) was the worst name of them. It went to the internal team, who rejected it (which I understand).

Not sure how the system will go for people, but will probably be fine-tuned as things go on.

In the meantime, worth remembering that opinions and valuations can really differ across marketplaces, and
if names are not accepted, it does not mean they can't sell.

 

[h2o]

I plan on doing another review of SH later, but the good news is that I am warming up to their platform. If you look at earlier posts of mine in this thread you will see that I have been a bit critical of SH while also pointing out their strengths. I truly believe that our feedback post here, including the critical feedback, is actually making SquadHelp better. I just noticed that the SH team updated their Review Process viewable here
so that reviewers can now Favorite 2 out of 4 names in one screen (although there is a max amount of times they can do this.) I believe that this is fair for us investors.

 

[ArielT]

Good improvement, although I think there shouldn't be a max as the reviewers have to vote if they indentify a good name and they are interested in voting good names to get the $5 if the names sell

 

[gina ferrano]

I plan on doing another review of SH later, but the good news is that I am warming up to their platform. If you look at earlier posts of mine in this thread you will see that I have been a bit critical of SH while also pointing out their strengths. I truly believe that our feedback post here, including the critical feedback, is actually making SquadHelp better. I just noticed that the SH team updated their Review Process viewable here
so that reviewers can now Favorite 2 out of 4 names in one screen (although there is a max amount of times they can do this.) I believe that this is fair for us investors.

Thanks for the update, they must have just updated it! I think selecting more than one name is good, as many excellent names will slip away and for those of us who have choices we can easily place our names on other marketplaces, or independently. I'm testing SH at the moment, as BB is my marketplace of choice, but I'm open to trying SH and hopefully garner a sale at some point!

 

[JudgeMind]

I haven’t read up and maybe it was discussed already but is anyone experiencing excessively long wait times after a sale for the buyer to let you know where they want to have the domain transferred to. I’ve been waiting 7 days now. Interested to hear if this is something occurring frequently. Take care

 

[Ntmt]

Why is word "fifth" so popular at Squadhelp?
Has it some special meaning?
https://www.squadhelp.com/premium-domains-for-sale/all/q/fifth

 

[NameMedia]

I am still testing out the expert review system. Sales have been slow at BrandBucket for me for a long time now. I have been trying out some BB published names in the new Squadhelp review process. I have just had 3 BrandBucket published names rejected by the expert panel. 2 with 0 votes out of 15, and 1 with just 1 vote.
Not quite sure what to take from that, other than brandable marketplaces seem to have very different ideas on what will sell.

 

[gblasting]

Why is word "fifth" so popular at Squadhelp?
Has it some special meaning?
https://www.squadhelp.com/premium-domains-for-sale/all/q/fifth

Because they are the fifth popular brandable marketplace to launch (list below).

1. BrandBucket
2. Namerific
3. Brandroot
4. BrandPa
5. SquadHelp

I think it's popular because it resonated with a lot of contest holders and get selected as winning entries a lot of times. SH contests act as a feedback loop to let people know what kind of names end users want. Words that are popular among winning entries then become popular in the marketplace as people prepend and append all the words they can think of to it.

In fact, some of the names I've sold (on SH and elsewhere) were created by participating in SH contests.

 

[thedotsol]

Because they are the fifth popular brandable marketplace to launch (list below).

1. BrandBucket
2. Namerific
3. Brandroot
4. BrandPa
5. SquadHelp

I think it's popular because it resonated with a lot of contest holders and get selected as winning entries a lot of times. SH contests act as a feedback loop to let people know what kind of names end users want. Words that are popular among winning entries then become popular in the marketplace as people prepend and append all the words they can think of to it.

In fact, some of the names I've sold (on SH and elsewhere) were created by participating in SH contests.

As an outsider I don't agree with your list. I'm not sure of the current status of Namerific and Brandroot, but these markets shouldn't be above SH. LOL even BB with its 87.100 listed names is not above IMO.

SH is not ideal, but they do score these days, at least you can find many reported sales here on NP all happened on SH. That's my impression.

 

[Cdomains]

If you thought getting names approved on SH was hard before,

now it seems impossible.


I stopped trying to get names approved a while ago

because they seem to reject every name now.


In the beginning more names were approved.


I just tried again for the first time in months.

Now they have a new system that is even worse.


A group of so called "experts" is now responsible

for approving names.


I tested this by submitting one name.


This was the result:

Automatically rejected.

"Auto Rejected - Did not receive a minimum of 4 votes from Expert Review process."


So now we are at the mercy of a group of unknown, supposed expert name pickers.


And I thought SH's name approval process could not get any worse.


Guess I was wrong.

 

[Rhinnnn]

As an outsider I don't agree with your list. I'm not sure of the current status of Namerific and Brandroot, but these markets shouldn't be above SH. LOL even BB with its 87.100 listed names is not above IMO.

SH is not ideal, but they do score these days, at least you can find many reported sales here on NP all happened on SH. That's my impression.

I think the idea here is that SH was the fifth to launch chronologically, not that it's the fifth in popularity. SH is certainly in top 2 next to BB.

Fifth may be popular because of New York's Fifth Avenue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Avenue

 

[karmaco]

They are slowing down their inventory which grew greatly in the last year. Not sure that sales grew at a comparable rate.All the brandable markets have sales routinely not just SH.

I also find it amazing that everyone is ok with them passing the buck and review process over to expert domainers. Maybe the expert domainers will start rejecting some bottom of the barrel names that only show up on SH. (The cringey “Qore” ones come to mind.)

I wouldn’t do their job for them without getting paid but I guess the experts are ok with their convoluted point system.

 

[Ntmt]

If you thought getting names approved on SH was hard before,

now it seems impossible.


I stopped trying to get names approved a while ago

because they seem to reject every name now.


In the beginning more names were approved.


I just tried again for the first time in months.

Now they have a new system that is even worse.


A group of so called "experts" is now responsible

for approving names.


I tested this by submitting one name.


This was the result:

Automatically rejected.

"Auto Rejected - Did not receive a minimum of 4 votes from Expert Review process."


So now we are at the mercy of a group of unknown, supposed expert name pickers.


And I thought SH's name approval process could not get any worse.


Guess I was wrong.

Please share some numbers when stating this concern.

Here are my numbers: I have 14 aproves and 165 rejects with this new Experts system. I've just recently started with brandables and I think it was ok that my acceptance rate was that low.