BrandBucket Experience

[xtremex]

hello

I am new to BrandBucket. Before getting my hands on this

I wish to experience about brandbucket from my fellow members


Thanks

 

[svede]

Andrew-Im glad you think that "io" is the bees knees. I wonder why then my Cloudi.io ( a GREAT tech extension) was turned down AFTER I told BB that iCloud.com sold for $4million and Cloud.io sold for $45,000 and Cloudi.com is for sale for $135,000. It wouldn't have anything to do with a major seller on BB being stuffed with "Cloud" names would it?

Seriously, we have been over this a ton of times and your question was already answered - just not to your satisfaction. You can't compare Cloudi.com to Cloudi.io - they aren't even remotely on the same level. Can we let this one rest yet? If the domain was as good as you think it is, you would be able to sell it without BB and save the extra 30%...

 

[London555]

Seriously, we have been over this a ton of times and your question was already answered - just not to your satisfaction. You can't compare Cloudi.com to Cloudi.io - they aren't even remotely on the same level. Can we let this one rest yet? If the domainw as a good as you say it is, you would be able to sell it without BB and save the extra 30%...

I'm curious then why did Cloud.io sell for $45,000? Also,you're missing the point-it's not just about the name.

 

[svede]

I'm curious then why did Cloud.io sell for $45,000?

Cloud is a strong keyword - not a non-dictionary brandable. Two totally different animals.

 

[London555]

Cloud is a strong keyword - not a non-dictionary brandable. Two totally different animals.

That's ridiculous-there's all sorts of "Cloud" name variations on BrandBucket and again-you've missed the point but thank you for the comments.

 

[svede]

That's ridiculous-there's all sorts of "Cloud" name variations on BrandBucket and again-you've missed the point but thank you for the comments.

Yes, but in dot COM. Non-dictionary brandables rarely work outside of dot COM (usually only when they work as hack or as a whole "word"). You keep jumping around rather than facing reality. Your examples are never apples to apples. Comparing Cloudi.com to Cloudi.io fails because invented brandable words (even when rooted in a dictionary word) rarely work well in dot IO. Cloud.io and Cloudi.io are different because you are comparing strong keyword domains (which do work well in dot IO) to brandables which everyone here is already saying don't do well in that extension. If you believe otherwise, start producing proof of consistent sales of non-dictionary brandable dot IO domains. Then we will see your point and maybe BB will accept such domains. But until that becomes a reality (if you pay attention to sales, it ISN'T), then you need to stop complaining about BB not accepting your poor domain choices. I for one don't want that level of quality diluting the domains on BB and making it harder for me to sell decent ones. You have been calling this out yourself for many pages with the ever-increasing number of domains for sale on BB (a concern that I share with you), yet you are also complaining that they won't accept your poor quality domains. Sounds like a conflict there to me....

 

[London555]

Yes, but in dot COM. Non-dictionary brandables rarely work outside of dot COM (usually only when they work as hack or as a whole "word"). You keep jumping around rather than facing reality. Your examples are never apples to apples. Comparing Cloudi.com to Cloudi.io fails because invented brandable words (even when rooted in a dictionary word) rarely work well in dot IO. Cloud.io and Cloudi.io are different because you are comparing strong keyword domains (which do work well in dot IO) to brandables which everyone here is already saying don't do well in that extension. If you believe otherwise, start producing proof of consistent sales of non-dictionary brandable dot IO domains. Then we will see your point and maybe BB will accept such domains. But until that becomes a reality (if you pay attention to sales, it ISN'T), then you need to stop complaining about BB not accepting your poor domain choices. I for one don't want that level of quality diluting the domains on BB and making it harder for me to sell decent ones. You have been calling this out yourself for many pages with the ever-increasing number of domains for sale on BB (a concern that I share with you), yet you are also complaining that they won't accept your poor quality domains. Sounds like a conflict there to me....

I just read this rant and really don't see your point other than you don't like Cloudi.io. Calm down we're just talking here and giving opinions. Im done with your comments. Best of luck to you.

 

[Nebulous]

Another one of my domains went live today, and I think it has the best logo I've gotten. It's simple and clean with out anything looking out of place. If more of mine start to look like that, I'd be pretty happy. The name is Strize.

 

[London555]

Another one of my domains went live today, and I think it has the best logo I've gotten. It's simple and clean with out anything looking out of place. If more of mine start to look like that, I'd be pretty happy. The name is Strize.

Looks great. Best of luck with it.

 

[ApeXX]

Anyone getting a 403 Forbidden error when they try to access BB?

 

[svede]

Anyone getting a 403 Forbidden error when they try to access BB?

Site homepage and account section are working fine for me.

 

[dave74]

LOL

 

[London555]

Does anyone else think BrandBucket should have a sellers/support 800 number 24/7 with this type of growth? She's great but Julia can only do so much.

 

[Dominic Belley]

Does anyone else think BrandBucket should have a sellers/support 800 number 24/7 with this type of growth? She's great but Julia can only do so much.

With the simplicity of the website, I doubt there are any emergencies requiring immediate intervention.

 

[London555]

With the simplicity of the website, I doubt there are any emergencies requiring immediate intervention.

Sure there is-presently if you misspell a name or want to remove a name you can't- if you're waiting over 60 days for a logo etc etc there's a need and any large legitimate company-which BB now is-to have an 800 support number. The real question is why wouldn't they?

 

[12345]

To 'curate and simplify' this massive feedback experience for BB, I created this post. Bless my heart. It is not in any way meant to be aggressive, but progressive. Feel free to add to the list.

The post is meant to be a personal list of the questions and points raised in this thread, for thread readers in general, and for BB representatives in particular.

1. Sales figures. If you want a stable marketplace with loyal sellers, there need to be sales stats. For motivation and embetterment.

2. Trend watch. The big picture of the marketplace is only visible to BB at present and beneficial only for inhouse portfolio owners. At the expense of them trying their darndest to make educated guessing profitable. This means keyword search, name types, industry demand. In short: what sells and why. I don't see why this should be top secret for sellers in every respect and how it wouldn't be win-win to educate us. This is a strongsuit for a niche marketplace this size. The elephants could never compete.

3. Some sort of replacement for the vote-for-credit feature. It was probably partly a submission flow regulator. But many hobby investors has now built it into their model. Without it count their effort and 30% out. That may cause ripples.

4. What is the plan? How do you see BB evolving and finding new opportunities?

5. How many names listed is the limit and how do you tackle cluttering?

6. When submission criteria change, please say so first. Or explain that there might be fluctuations and why.

7. When you are actively participating in a forum thread please reply to all warranted questions. In your own time. I have a couple that has gone unanswered, as do many others. It is unprofessional. Either participate or don't. Halfmeasures benefit none.

The sellers on a marketplace like yours invest in the success of the model and the company. They are not stakeholders but have the same need for reports. They invested their hardearned money. Respect that.

Hi, Trelgor,

Thanks for this concise post.

We will be sending out an regular seller's newsletter, I can promise you that. We will be giving you details about keyword searches, types of names that sell (keywords vs accepted), length of names selling, etc. Releasing other sales data is on the table, but at this point we won't be releasing specific sales numbers.

I understand where you are coming from with the "free" listing being built into your investing strategy, but this was never meant to be permanent fixture.While this might be something we look at in the future, we don't have plans to implement a way to list names for "free".

The long-term plans for BB are still being formed. These last couple of months have been about getting the operations running more smoothly to get it to a point where we can plan and implement new features.

If I have overlooked a message or you want a more specific answer about something please PM, email me, Skype me, or call me. If anyone would like my advice on any particular names please contact me. I usually get a handful of PMs or emails day asking my opinion on a group of names, and I am happy to give it.

 

[12345]

I wrote 10 days ago- its still not published but thank you.

Please let me know what name you are waiting on. Feel free to PM or email me.

 

[12345]

8) I spoke personally to Michael before being the MD at BB. They guy is really friendly and is someone capable of running this thing. I just want to highlight one important thing. There are a couple of sales channels :
a) Someone who presses the buy button on a self-service fashion. Fair for all
b) Someone who negotiates just the price. Fair for all
c) Someone who asks BB reps to nominate a name for them. UNFAIR FOR ALL OF US. I think our names arent brought up here as much as Michael's!

To cut it short for all of us, I think the past few pages have highlighted all our concerns, and its time for BB to give it a shot and correct some stuff. And YES, I am transforming from someone who used to get really excited with an accepted name, to someone who is considering moving out completely; Unfortunately

Very few people ask us to give them suggestions on what name they should buy. And almost always, these inquiries never lead to a sale. Since I've been a part of BB, there hasn't been one sale go through that started with this inquiry. When these questions do come through, I can assure you that there is not any bias put into the suggestions they are given.

I personally don't like to hear that you are considering moving out of BB. Apart from being a more transparent with what is selling, and increasing sales (both of which are priorities) what are some other specific improvements you are looking for?

Here are a few other things that we are working on...

1. Wait Times - They have dropped quite a bit over the last month or two (should be right around 5 weeks now), but are working on dropping them even more.

2. Search - We are continually working on the best ways to get potential customers the names they want.

3. Logos - The logo quality has shown a steady increase in quality over the last couple of months. Yes, there might be one or two logos that get by, but we are becoming much more strict about what gets published.

4. UI - We are making some UI changes that will make the site easier to navigate.

We also have several small front-end enhancements are features that will be going live in the coming weeks.

 

[bazabizo]

Very few people ask us to give them suggestions on what name they should buy. And almost always, these inquiries never lead to a sale. Since I've been a part of BB, there hasn't been one sale go through that started with this inquiry. When these questions do come through, I can assure you that there is not any bias put into the suggestions they are given.

I personally don't like to hear that you are considering moving out of BB. Apart from being a more transparent with what is selling, and increasing sales (both of which are priorities) what are some other specific improvements you are looking for?

Here are a few other things that we are working on...

1. Wait Times - They have dropped quite a bit over the last month or two (should be right around 5 weeks now), but are working on dropping them even more.

2. Search - We are continually working on the best ways to get potential customers the names they want.

3. Logos - The logo quality has shown a steady increase in quality over the last couple of months. Yes, there might be one or two logos that get by, but we are becoming much more strict about what gets published.

4. UI - We are making some UI changes that will make the site easier to navigate.

We also have several small front-end enhancements are features that will be going live in the coming weeks.

Thanks for responding to my post.

1)Its too crowded! I dont know if there is a remedy to this. 16K, even if thats the cap, its extremely crowded. I hate to say it, but Brandroot is now a more browsable marketplace than BB (Again, I terminated my BR account favoring BB). If I am an end user and I want to buy a name and find 16,000 infront of me, then how is this different than Sedo or even GD?

2) For 30%, I would expect more. Things like Marketing specific KW to their designated niches. Also, Banner ads on places like Entrepreneur.com etc... places where startups are available online!

3) Offer something to startups MORE than the name and Logo, at the cost of NOTHING. For example, you can have an agreement with hosting providers to give them free server hosting for a year. Same logo designer could work on providing a free small static website for them. People would consider this a GREAT PLUS, and its internal cost for you would be minimal.

4) More alliances with Media and Design companies. These firms do have a lot of customers that already paid a premium for an online service, their customers would possibly pay for a name. Give these firms a cut of your commission, it will be worthy every penny!

5) Introduce a 12 months financing strategy. Startups are moving towards the cloud to down CAPEX and turn it into OPEX. Make domaining work similarly! You will sell more. All startups have the possibility to fail. If they do, they will stop paying for the domain and all what you earned is pure profit, and you will be left again with the domain, BUT with organic traffic! A bonus for everyone.

6) Have the landing page changed. It needs to include the relevant domains to the buyer in a cross selling format and also fair for the seller. The way to do this is as follows : If a customer types in a cloud domain, then he must see in the same page the other cloud domains belonging to the same seller, then if he wants more names, then he is directed a bigger selection including other sellers' cloud domains AND other domains belonging to the seller of the original domain. As a seller, I deserve more chances in selling if the customer typed in MY domain name, and the buyer would have a better chance in choosing from smaller selections. Only domainers have the time to browse through 16,000 names.

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In return, you guys need more monthly revenue, and thats deserved, let me list a couple that I thought of :

1) Cross sell most of the Boxador offerings in a smartway. Free 3 months trial for all services, then renewed at a price. You have a lot of the services that would appeal to a startup, including growth hacking etc...

2) Offer a small service to buy them all the typo variations of their domain. That could be like a $100-200 more. Companies that buy 4-5 letter domains and paid like 3K, would be willing to avoid losing return customers.

3) Make more use of the existing customers DB. By now you should have at least 2,500 paying customers. Thats a gold mine! Calling them over the phone one by one to offer something from boxador. If your conversion rate is 2%, you have 50 sales, thats over 100K in profit.

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Not everything I said is a 100% accurate, I just tried my best to spend an hour writing you some constructive tips. I didnt decide to leave BB, I said I might. Nothing is ever personal in the business world. I further support a business alliance/partnership or terminate it, solely based on numbers. I am a business person as you are right now, and we both care about nothing but a better ROI.

I hope to see BB in an increasingly better shape. I wish as well that people read this thread before posting more repetitive info/complains/ideas. This is what dilutes the messaging and turns things from constructive to destructive/personal.

Wish you all best of luck

 

[trelgor]

Thanks for responding to my post.

1)Its too crowded! I dont know if there is a remedy to this. 16K, even if thats the cap, its extremely crowded. I hate to say it, but Brandroot is now a more browsable marketplace than BB (Again, I terminated my BR account favoring BB). If I am an end user and I want to buy a name and find 16,000 infront of me, then how is this different than Sedo or even GD?

2) For 30%, I would expect more. Things like Marketing specific KW to their designated niches. Also, Banner ads on places like Entrepreneur.com etc... places where startups are available online!

3) Offer something to startups MORE than the name and Logo, at the cost of NOTHING. For example, you can have an agreement with hosting providers to give them free server hosting for a year. Same logo designer could work on providing a free small static website for them. People would consider this a GREAT PLUS, and its internal cost for you would be minimal.

4) More alliances with Media and Design companies. These firms do have a lot of customers that already paid a premium for an online service, their customers would possibly pay for a name. Give these firms a cut of your commission, it will be worthy every penny!

5) Introduce a 12 months financing strategy. Startups are moving towards the cloud to down CAPEX and turn it into OPEX. Make domaining work similarly! You will sell more. All startups have the possibility to fail. If they do, they will stop paying for the domain and all what you earned is pure profit, and you will be left again with the domain, BUT with organic traffic! A bonus for everyone.

6) Have the landing page changed. It needs to include the relevant domains to the buyer in a cross selling format and also fair for the seller. The way to do this is as follows : If a customer types in a cloud domain, then he must see in the same page the other cloud domains belonging to the same seller, then if he wants more names, then he is directed a bigger selection including other sellers' cloud domains AND other domains belonging to the seller of the original domain. As a seller, I deserve more chances in selling if the customer typed in MY domain name, and the buyer would have a better chance in choosing from smaller selections. Only domainers have the time to browse through 16,000 names.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In return, you guys need more monthly revenue, and thats deserved, let me list a couple that I thought of :

1) Cross sell most of the Boxador offerings in a smartway. Free 3 months trial for all services, then renewed at a price. You have a lot of the services that would appeal to a startup, including growth hacking etc...

2) Offer a small service to buy them all the typo variations of their domain. That could be like a $100-200 more. Companies that buy 4-5 letter domains and paid like 3K, would be willing to avoid losing return customers.

3) Make more use of the existing customers DB. By now you should have at least 2,500 paying customers. Thats a gold mine! Calling them over the phone one by one to offer something from boxador. If your conversion rate is 2%, you have 50 sales, thats over 100K in profit.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not everything I said is a 100% accurate, I just tried my best to spend an hour writing you some constructive tips. I didnt decide to leave BB, I said I might. Nothing is ever personal in the business world. I further support a business alliance/partnership or terminate it, solely based on numbers. I am a business person as you are right now, and we both care about nothing but a better ROI.

I hope to see BB in an increasingly better shape. I wish as well that people read this thread before posting more repetitive info/complains/ideas. This is what dilutes the messaging and turns things from constructive to destructive/personal.

Wish you all best of luck

E P I C post!

One thing I've thought about suggesting, to add to your list would be TM searches. It takes a second to search TESS and leave a guarantee that the words aren't TM:ed in the respect that BB is selling it.

I think that might be a tipping point for some.

 

[bazabizo]

TM Searches would kill a lot of sales. At least 50% of the listed names have TMs somewhere

 

[trelgor]

TM Searches would kill a lot of sales. At least 50% of the listed names have TMs somewhere

Didn't think the number was that high...

Yeah, but just a basic search. Not research.

 

[Brandworthy]

Yeah, TM guarantees would open a whole bucket of potential liability, and just one case going against them could kill their entire business.

Far better to use a caveat emptor approach to this IMO.

 

[trelgor]

Yeah, TM guarantees would open a whole bucket of potential liability, and just one case going against them could kill their entire business.

Far better to use a caveat emptor approach to this IMO.

Maybe so. But it would fit nicely into the model, and with the one-stop design and the price ranges the hassle could be minimal. The return might be bigger. I don't know.

But you're probably right, that's why I didn't suggest it before.

 

[12345]

Thank you, @bazabizo for the time and though put into your post. We are currently working on several of the initiatives you mentioned (maybe the specifics are different, but the ideas are the same), and we will definitely give your other suggestions the time and thought they deserve.

I think the size of the marketplace can always be wrangled with optimizing search. Just a couple of examples... Delivery services are fairly popular startup ideas. When I type 'delivery' into BB, it comes back with 6 pages of names, which I don't think is unreasonable. If I type in a keyword like 'task', two pages of results come up. Even if you search for a hugely popular term like 'cloud', 7 pages of results come up.

 

[12345]

We are happy to help customers when they have TM inquiries on specific names.