Alter.com Marketplace

[Deven Patel]

Hi all,

I wanted to introduce a new premium domain marketplace we just launched called Alter. I would love to hear your thoughts! As the world’s largest community of domainers, your feedback would be invaluable.

Let me introduce myself. Although I’m new to NamePros, I’ve been around the block. I’ve been buying and selling domains for my own startup ideas for over 20 years. As a serial entrepreneur, I founded a number of startups across various industries like marketing, web hosting, social networking, blogging, and SaaS. This experience has helped me understand how indispensable a brand name is to a business.

Most new entrepreneurs don’t think twice about their company name. Our goal is to change that! A brand name literally has the power to make or break their business. This is more true today than ever before now that there are countless alternatives to every product or service imaginable. Sure, every business may have their own world-changing differentiator but from the outside they all look the same at which point the main differentiator ends up becoming their brand name. In a world full of distractions, we no longer have the attention span to thoroughly research what we buy so we rely on our emotions. This is why large businesses like Apple and Amazon spend billions on their “brand” alone because they understand that customer perception is everything.

Anyway, I noticed that most marketplaces that exist today are focused more on the seller rather than the buyer. Our goal is to reverse the equation and prioritize buyers because I think they are the key to success in any industry. The domain industry is no exception. Without buyers, there’s no money. This is why we’ve made it our mission to help entrepreneurs succeed!

And what’s with the 30-35% commission rate most of these marketplaces are charging? Unless they’re doing more work than a human broker, I don’t think anything over the industry average of 15-20% is warranted. We’re changing that. Alter has one of the lowest rates in the industry, an all-inclusive 10% commission fee when a name sells. There are no other fees or restrictions.

What do you think? Are we on the right track or barking up the wrong tree?

Deven

This was a promoted post.​

 

[Tom_Collins]

Not Sad news....Alter depreciated in quality recently. Glad the owner decided to put it down.

 

[Mister Funsky]

@Deven Patel , thank you for the professional email giving notification of things to come.

It is/was a classy thing to do in an often too classless industry. If you choose not to continue, maybe you will have an opportunity to find an interested party for your efforts. The site is/was a welcome breath of fresh air with some nice and modern features.

Best of luck to you in the future.

 

[Charybdis]

So the most important question now, where will you list your Alter domains now?

I have brandable com names at both Squadhelp and Alter. I sold more domains on Squadhelp from a smaller portfolio.

Squadhelp displays that 95% of the traffic to my domain names is Squadhelp-influenced, meaning that this traffic is the result of the Squadhelp marketing. Only 5% is type-in traffic.

At Alter, 16% is the marketplace traffic, 3% is from the partners (Dan/Sedo), and 81% is type-in traffic. But I sold less domains at Alter from a larger portfolio. These are mainly two-word brandable .com names. My Alter names were manually appraised and approved by Alter before, so these are good names.

Squadhelp charges 30% commission (there is less commission if the name is expensive), Alter charged 10%.

I think the conclusion here is that you need a lot of traffic and eyeballs to these brandable names to sell them. 10% commission is not enough to drive enough traffic.

So my idea is that I will transfer my Alter portfolio to Squadhelp and from now on I won't complain about the 30% commission Looks like the high commission is mandatory to drive enough traffic.

I also considered Brandbucket, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that they don't allow listing my domains at Afternic. But the Afternic Fast Transfer network is the largest, and Squadhelp allows me to list my domains there. So for this reason I don't like Brandbucket from a seller's perspective, but their website is very good from a buyer's perspective.

 

[sellian]

So my idea is that I will transfer my Alter portfolio to Squadhelp and from now on I won't complain about the 30% commission Looks like the high commission is mandatory to drive enough traffic.

I don't know if you are aware of this but SH's approval rate (premium marketplace) is VERY low (10-11%). What are you going to do with the rejected 90%?

 

[Charybdis]

I don't know if you are aware of this but SH's approval rate (premium marketplace) is VERY low (10-11%). What are you going to do with the rejected 90%?

I submitted around 3500 domains to Alter, and they accepted around 300 of them, this portfolio was manually appraised and approved by Alter, they are good domains. I think SH will accept 70-90% of them, then I will list the rest at Dan and/or I will drop the rest.

 

[sellian]

I submitted around 3500 domains to Alter, and they accepted around 300 of them, this portfolio was manually appraised and approved by Alter, they are good domains. I think SH will accept 70-90% of them, then I will list the rest at Dan and/or I will drop the rest.

I have submitted a few Alter “premiums“ to SH and the acceptance rate has been the same at around 10%. Also, why drop when you can try to sell them here for at least reg fee price? If Alter found them valuable some other domainer may too. Good luck anyway!

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I am very sad to receive this news. I liked Alter landers, site features like their TM search, their commissions, great professional logos, the information they include about branding, and much more.

@Deven Patel is a smart classy guy and set a model for seeking input from the community through NamePros.

I wish Deven the best in his future endeavours.

Bob

 

[Samxui]

I also considered Brandbucket, but I can't wrap my head around the fact that they don't allow listing my domains at Afternic.

You CAN now list you Brandbucket domains at Afternic.
This is a recent development.

 

[etruscan]

Was not expecting it, the started well but in my view a wrong move was when they decided to turn into a not curated marketplace in Brandpa style accepting almost any name. Rooted is still selecting names even if they are not as picky as SH and BB and is the only way to manage a brandable marketplace in my view.

 

[Alop]

Thanks for all the services provided!

Best wishes

 

[HandmadeLife]

My first sold domain in that business was via Alter


I am afraid that this is your thinking from the beginning, I do traffic for the site and it advances in the search sites and confidence increases relatively, and then I think of myself only and you sell just my domains.

I forgot everyone who supported and supported me in this journey. That this is your thinking!! with evidence that you announced the deletion of the third party domains only!!!

Good luck, we will miss you Alter

 

[Charybdis]

I'm still getting good traffic at Alter

Thank you @Deven Patel for your service, best luck for your future projects.

 

[Reyginus]

Alter is Under Maintenance. Sold already or something huge is coming?

 

[Lord Antares]

Alter is Under Maintenance. Sold already or something huge is coming?

The site is closing. You should move your domains out by april-something.

You got an email for it.

 

[Reyginus]

The site is closing. You should move your domains out by april-something.

You got an email for it.

I know. Already did that. Just wondering why they are maintaining a site about to close up.

 

[alcy]

well the name itself alter is worth pretty penny.. I wonder if it's to be sold.
since someone mentioned financial problems

 

[Charybdis]

Don't move your domains, Alter isn't closing, see the announcement:

https://www.namepros.com/blog/alter...tinue-operations-under-new-ownership.1269973/

 

[Reyginus]

Don't move your domains, Alter isn't closing, see the announcement:

https://www.namepros.com/blog/alter...tinue-operations-under-new-ownership.1269973/

Already moved. Will be looking to see their next move.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

They're not accepting new listings for the time being.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Do you have an estimated date of when Alter will be accepting new submissions, @F.E. ?
Thanks,
Bob

 

[Charybdis]

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[Reyginus]

I have just sold a domain on Alter.com via installments, but is the platform is still operating, is it safe to transfer my domain to the Alter's escrow account? @F.E.

The last official message I received from Alter was that Alter is closing on 2nd of April and I must remove all my domains. But looks like the platform is still alive.

However I didn't receive any official email from Alter that the platform is still alive!

Please inform your domain sellers about this situation as soon as possible.

Contact support.

 

[karmaco]

I have just sold a domain on Alter.com via installments, but is the platform is still operating, is it safe to transfer my domain to the Alter's escrow account? @F.E.

The last official message I received from Alter was that Alter is closing on 2nd of April and I must remove all my domains. But looks like the platform is still alive.

However I didn't receive any official email from Alter that the platform is still alive!

Please inform your domain sellers about this situation as soon as possible.

Some contradictions….Two messages above you knew Alter changed hands and wasn’t “closing” on April 2nd. I understand the concern but why didn’t you point servers somewhere else if you thought sales weren’t possible right now?

 

[Charybdis]

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[Charybdis]

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