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.

 

[Sperry8]

No, they are not

I can now confirm this (I believed you, just saying). I recently hand reg'ed a name (7.5 SH score) and put it up on SH and saw it was a previous Premium listing. At least the AI recognized it as such, and it's currently pending Premium acceptance (awaiting Expert Reviews). Because AI said it was a fit - I'll get the $1 coin back if it doesn't re-list. So no harm at least.

Interestingly, I was finding SH was approving names quite fast in Feb and March, but have stopped altogether in April. I haven't had a name get approved all month (yet) and only 1 denial. They just sit there with 10 Expert Reviews. Even those like the aforementioned name barely get any Expert Reviews, just sitting there for 9 days with 2 or 3 reviews. Chat just says they are inundated with names (probably because BrandBucket is too everyone is throwing names at SH). From what I'm able to tell, SH wants to keep Premiums to ~250,000 names and they are 1% over that so they slowed everything down until some names expire. BB does the same thing, keeping their portfolio at a smaller ~150,000 names.

 

[Inframan]

Does anyone feel their Squadhelp standard account is in a holding pattern? I currently have 88% profile completeness on all my domains listed. It seems like I'm locked as far as total views. It's like my views have been capped.

Everyday on Sedo I get at least several views per day per domain. On Squadhelp I still have the same number of views I had last month.

 

[Sperry8]

Does anyone feel their Squadhelp standard account is in a holding pattern? I currently have 88% profile completeness on all my domains listed. It seems like I'm locked as far as total views. It's like my views have been capped.

Everyday on Sedo I get at least several views per day per domain. On Squadhelp I still have the same number of views I had last month.

I'm getting views daily on my names. They don't break out standard vs premium in the Engagements section, but I see many hundreds of views daily. Within the Standard section, when I sort by views - I see views for all my names (except those I just listed this AM)

 

[skshogun]

I moved all my domains to SquadHelp landers (standard) recently and set most to BIN.
I see there is a chat for visitors available. Can they make offer to the SH staff using this? If so, how frequently do you receive such offers?

 

[TBN]

Do others find they get a lot of offers that come in on SH names? I've not had a single offer in years.

I have tried many different pricing strategies with SH over the years, including pricing names below market rates. I increased prices later when this didn't help with sales, and my costs went up. With no sales still on 750 names I am looking to further reduce all my prices significantly, again. Which I already did a while ago, and repeatedly on an individual name basis.

Though many names I have are are priced exactly as SH suggested and no sales on them either.

Thanks

 

[Recons.Com]

Do others find they get a lot of offers that come in on SH names? I've not had a single offer in years.

I have tried many different pricing strategies with SH over the years, including pricing names below market rates. I increased prices later when this didn't help with sales, and my costs went up. With no sales still on 750 names I am looking to further reduce all my prices significantly, again. Which I already did a while ago, and repeatedly on an individual name basis.

Though many names I have are are priced exactly as SH suggested and no sales on them either.

Thanks

Question: are your 750 names also listed on Afternic Faster transfer? SH aside, normal brandable names should get few sales a year just from the exposure there and from that network, regardless of landers.

If, again, they are the typical brandables and pricing is right (2k-3k range for most) you should get 0.3%-0.6% STR just from there, i.e. 2-5 sales annually.

 

[TBN]

Question: are your 750 names also listed on Afternic Faster transfer? SH aside, normal brandable names should get few sales a year just from the exposure there and from that network, regardless of landers.

If, again, they are the typical brandables and pricing is right (2k-3k range for most) you should get 0.3%-0.6% STR just from there, i.e. 2-5 sales annually.

Thank you. That's helpful. In answer to your question, no, they are not all on Afternic. Some are, but quite a lot are not as they weren't submitted with coins. Because I have been undecided on what to do with SH, I haven't gone back and added those names. I have wasted time waiting to see if sales would come in, and should have gone back and used coins to do this for the reasons you say.

Thanks.

 

[freety85]

I just can´t figure it out the sweet spot price range there for these typical brandables to be honest (I have different styles listed ( from keyword based to made up). I do have some sales as Recons mentioned, mostly from AF lately, but simply for some reason SH cannot convert properly from a portfolio of circa 600. I started to doubt my names then I have done a little experiment to auto-confirm my naming selection. Of course the names were quickly picked up by large portfolio holders for decent prices at the internal wholesale marketplace. Names are hidden due to my buyer´s privacy , the vast majority of my names mostly listed at 2.6k-3.5k range retail.

It is just from the last few days, so I removed my names from wholesale to assess what is going on. I am successful at Afternic for the very same style of names ( mainly sub3k).
Note I really like squadhelp for their tech and innovation and I want to make this work. So I perhaps give a last change by further adjusting my prices (maybe 2.2k-2.5k would trigger some impulse buyers) Perhaps something will start to move since they added the Escrow checkout as well. I guess then I will have these options :
- ride it out and let´s see if things improve
- add a ton more names ( more chances to sell even at low STR)
- list on Afternic ( ns5.ns6 works for me) back it up with Sedo and remove all names and thank for the collaboration

@Recons.Com you mentioned earlier that these marketplaces can "hurt" your sales long term:
- is it because their listings are in the hundreds of thousands
- the Godaddy vs SH lander ( trust factor)
- is it due to the price markup you need to add to the Afternic listings and this very same fact creates confusion with buyers.

Bottom line is: regardless how much I like the platform for various reasons at the end of the day I need to make a business decision which improves the performance of my own portfolio.

 

[TBN]

I hope your situation improves. One thing I would say on your list of options - consider not adding a ton more names.
I am biased because that strategy hasn't worked out for me, so bear that in mind with what I'm posting. Others with a similar sized portfolios have done large numbers of sales in that time. But I added larger amounts of names, after initial sales, with the idea that even at a low sell-through it would be financially viable. But at a very low sell- through if sales dry up or stop entirely it doesn't take long before you can be losing large amounts of money. Obvious, I know, but when there is some sort of unknown with SH and your portfolio, it isn't necessarily a great idea to keep adding more names.

. I guess then I will have these options :
- ride it out and let´s see if things improve
- add a ton more names ( more chances to sell even at low STR)
- list on Afternic ( ns5.ns6 works for me) back it up with Sedo and remove all names and thank for the collaboration

@Recons.Com you mentioned earlier that these marketplaces can "hurt" your sales long term:
- is it because their listings are in the hundreds of thousands
- the Godaddy vs SH lander ( trust factor)
- is it due to the price markup you need to add to the Afternic listings and this very same fact creates confusion with buyers.

Bottom line is: regardless how much I like the platform for various reasons at the end of the day I need to make a business decision which improves the performance of my own portfolio.

 

[freety85]

I hope your situation improves. One thing I would say on your list of options - consider not adding a ton more names.
I am biased because that strategy hasn't worked out for me, so bear that in mind with what I'm posting. Others with a similar sized portfolios have done large numbers of sales in that time. But I added larger amounts of names, after initial sales, with the idea that even at a low sell-through it would be financially viable. But at a very low sell- through if sales dry up or stop entirely it doesn't take long before you can be losing large amounts of money. Obvious, I know, but when there is some sort of unknown with SH and your portfolio, it isn't necessarily a great idea to keep adding more names.

thanks, fingers crossed. I am not to worried since I have a well diversified portfolio ( other ext, plus targeted end user com names ) outside of the platform which carries this on the side. However I do want to make it work, I am not the type of the person who easily gives up. I try to learn from the best namers in the industry. Moreover there are others who could do this even at 1.2%-1.4%STR with huge portfolios so what I am striving for is improvement on every single detail I can. Side note: plan B is there as well I have liquidated 8k worth of names in the last months or so which saves you on renewals as well ( also an indication that people appreciate my selections)

 

[TBN]

. However I do want to make it work, I am not the type of the person who easily gives up. I try to learn from the best namers in the industry. Moreover there are others who could do this even at 1.2%-1.4%STR with huge portfolios so what I am striving for is improvement on every single detail I can

Yes, this is also why I have stayed with SH to date, despite zero sales. Testing, trying to improve things, ensuring I am doing all I can.

 

[freety85]

Yes, this is also why I have stayed with SH to date, despite zero sales. Testing, trying to improve things, ensuring I am doing all I can.

I have just seen your comment that 0 sales for over several years which can be concerning of course. I hope you get some sales soon. Perhaps you will need to reassess also especially if that portfolio is containing a lot of handregs. At least I had 12 sales + 2 cancelled installments and 1 ongoing for a similar portfolio size. My concern mainly is for the performance of the past 1 year or so ( since they added a bunch of new names up to 250k) If they can match it with more seamless checkout process, improved performance of a superficial broker team ( couple of 4 figure offers, including a 5k initial offer, but they could not manage to get a SINGLE counter from buyers) and a significant investment for marketing to drive even more people to the website then we might see some radical change.

 

[freety85]

at least they are the only platform to always change things up listening to feedback. Let`s see if this is going to be a state-of-the-art implementation once again impacting positively sales as well.

 

[Future Sensors]

https://www.atom.com/blog/discover-atom/

 

[Sperry8]

Yes, this is also why I have stayed with SH to date, despite zero sales. Testing, trying to improve things, ensuring I am doing all I can.

I successfully sell on BrandBucket... have you listed names there to see the difference between the platforms?

 

[TBN]

If they can match it with more seamless checkout process, improved performance of a superficial broker team ( couple of 4 figure offers, including a 5k initial offer, but they could not manage to get a SINGLE counter from buyers) and a significant investment for marketing to drive even more people to the website then we might see some radical change.

Thanks. A lot of my names have been accepted by multiple branding platforms and are 5-10 years old. But yes, reassessing and making changes will be necessary. It's far from a premium portfolio, but certainly no issue with quality to the extent it should result in no sales out of 700 names happening in one year, let alone three. But there is something causing it and yes, anything I can be doing to improve on things is definitely a focus. Now you mention brokers, on a slightly different note, I wonder if they might do more on this as they expand with the rebrand. They have referred to it as part of their offering for sellers before, but I am unaware of how it is accessed or available in practice.

 

[TBN]

I successfully sell on BrandBucket... have you listed names there to see the difference between the platforms?

I used to list with BrandBucket. I always liked them and their customer service. BrandBucket started to get quieter for me, and when high sell-through rates were reported at Squadhelp some years back, I decided to switch over. That decision hasn't worked out well for me.

 

[TBN]

I think the new name is definitely a much better name. Looks like a lot is going on for them. The rebrand seems very positive, hopefully any changes will be too.

 

[Future Sensors]

Two nameservers associated with the atom.com domain have already been established, but they are not yet operational as of today (externally). I anticipate that these atom.com nameservers will soon become the recommended ones, replacing the existing squadhelp.com nameservers. When that happens, I expect that the current name servers will also be maintained.

 

[freety85]

I am sure this is due to the rebrand and they are still migrating stuff over but current page load time for some of my landers is 20+ sec on average...

 

[Future Sensors]

I am sure this is due to the rebrand and they are still migrating stuff over but current page load time for some of my landers is 20+ sec on average...

Can confirm. In the status bar, I see a request to mc.yandex.com that is taking a very long time.

 

[Future Sensors]

 

[Future Sensors]

 

[xbank]

Squadhelp or Atom is dead, overloaded with names any company crosses 150k names then it is hard to sell on that platform as too much competition and stuff.

Squadhelp is no more good, needed new platforms

 

[WordMills]

Correction follows below