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]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[Charybdis]

Haha, actually they accept crappy names -- in the thousands -- from a select group of sellers.

What I'm trying to understand is: how can I get all of my crappy names (and good names) accepted like this special group of sellers?

Care to give us some examples?

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[wwwulff]

It doesn't matter who they are

Without names, your claims will appear as unreliable as an undocumented conspiracy theory

Was just hoping someone here would know how I can join the Friends of Darpan club

If you know who is in the club, why not ask some of them?

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[Charybdis]

I can't share specific names or sellers. I respect these people and there's no need to single anyone out.

The point is, it happens.

Buyers are buying crappy names all the time, just browse the past sales. I think SH has more data than you have. They spend a lot of money on marketing. It doesn't make sense to heavily market crappy names. You just think that some names are crappy names, but in fact SH has probably enough data to determine that in fact those names are in demand. In the end if the buyers are buying these "crappy" names, then they are great domains, the customer is always right.

How do you know that these "crappy" names don't sell?

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[Tom_Collins]

SH has accepted in some cases 100%, in some cases close to 100%, of large portfolios that have average brandable names.

If you think anything close to 100% of these names would pass the review system everyone else has to go through, you are wrong.

I tried to contact Darpan about my large portfolio of brandable names and he refused to even speak to me. Even though I am one of his top sellers, I was shut out.

Some people are getting special treatment. I'd like to know why.

Can you list your top 10 brandable names out of your 'large portfolio'?

 

[wwwulff]

Some people are getting special treatment. I'd like to know why

Apparently no one here knows anything other than you, so there is no need to look for answers here

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[chenzen]

I'm telling the truth. I've seen this happen again and again at SH.

It's probably against SH policy to discuss specific sellers or specific names in a public forum. Even if it weren't against their policy, I respect these people and I'm not going to single them out. They did nothing wrong and they don't deserve to have their names dragged into the open.

I was just hoping to understand how I can get the same benefits.

tldr; trust me bro.

 

[Alex270]

Seeing the latest comments on this topic I would like to share my thoughts about them:

1. I have an approval rate on Squadhelp of 9.68% meaning that's lower than the average (11.29%) but I know that's in part due to the fact that I've submitted a lot of names at the beginning of the marketplace and also because others have way much better domains than my hand registered ideas.

So I don't think Squadhelp is approving/rejecting names based on the fact that they like you or not, because their interest is to sale domains. It would't make sense to do that. I think they are rejecting domain names because they are not a good fit for this specific marketplace, even if those names have some value. With all the info they're possessing I guess they have an idea of what will/won't have better chances of selling. That doesn't mean that a name is bad if it's rejected by Squadhelp.

2. Some people around are making/have made A LOT of money with Squadhelp. Way, way, way more than I did, but they are continuously accusing Sh of wrongdoings without bringing any evidence. That's like shooting yourself in the foot. There's a saying in my country "Don't bite the hand that feeds you".

You can't accuse anyone of anything without a proof.

3. Even if I don't write a lot on this forum, I do enjoy reading things written by smart people like Deven Patel (I'm sad about the news with Alter) and Grant. It's a rare thing to see CEOs sharing their wisdom with you and I think that we can all learn a lot from them.

Sadly, I feel like some of these people renounced to write here anymore just because they are tired of answering to all of these baseless accusations, tired of all the toxicity and negativity around.

Instead of focusing our energy to find ways to sell more domains we are wasting it with unfounded claims...

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[br1ll1on]

Here is my honest unbiased take
with a 70% approval rate (even tho they still reject A LOT of my top tier names) , do I know anyone working at SH? no ,do I get any special benefits? no ,did I reach out to any staff at SH or did they reach out to me about any special offer or bulk upload? no ,did I do a bulk submission? no
but I noticed regardless of how premium your domain is SH accept based of the market demand, for example during the meta trend when there were high demand I noticed SH accepted a lot and since the reduction in demand for meta names SH reduced acceptance (same for NFT)
And about the afternic commission pass, I can't speak on that because I haven't experienced it nor have i seen anyone with proof having that pass

 

[VJB]

1. This is not a baseless accusation. I can name several people who have gotten 70%+ approval on thousands of submissions, some 100%. Here, watch Darpan discuss it himself:

My concern here is that I tried to contact Darpan about a bulk submission, and wasn't even given a chance to discuss while others were.

I've been working hard day after day for years to get names on the platform, one by one, seeing many quality names rejected, so it's discouraging to me -- as one of SH's top sellers -- when one day someone else decides they want to join up and suddenly they get like 90% or 100% of all their 1000s of names approved.

Then, finding out things like some people getting a free pass on Afternic commissions just compounds the problem, in my view.

2. I like SH and I've been very successful there. Just because I'm expressing some concerns doesn't make my comments "toxic" or "negative." I'm not spreading hate, I'm trying to understand why a few people get these special benefits while most of us don't.

3. I'm one of the board members of Branders Union, an organization that advocates for fairness for investors on brandable marketplaces and I've been working to protect seller interests on these marketplaces for years. I don't make things up.

Thanks

Bro making a personal allegations without giving proof is not good. .
Had you asked about recent rejections in general I think many people would have agreed with you because there were indeed many rejections in SH(personally speaking).
I agree there are issues and may be SH are upto something or not.
But making personal allegations without proof is in bad taste imho.
Our community deserves to know the truth if there is any to your allegations.

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[JimJammy]

What? I just posted a video with proof.

That video is not proof, and you actually sound a bit crazy in it, it's like you don't understand what they are telling you. You are alluding to a special group people being able to upload all of their domains through a special process, it is explained to you that this is not the case (Darpan says there is a special process for bulk domain submission and they don't get all of their names approved).

It appears you don't understand the answer and continue to assume there is a special process for people to upload all of their domains so continually ask the same question three or four times. Darpan is amazingly patient with you and answers your continual accusation with the same answer in different ways.

Here is my honest unbiased take
with a 70% approval rate (even tho they still reject A LOT of my top tier names) , do I know anyone working at SH? no ,do I get any special benefits? no ,did I reach out to any staff at SH or did they reach out to me about any special offer or bulk upload? no ,did I do a bulk submission? no
but I noticed regardless of how premium your domain is SH accept based of the market demand, for example during the meta trend when there were high demand I noticed SH accepted a lot and since the reduction in demand for meta names SH reduced acceptance (same for NFT)
And about the afternic commission pass, I can't speak on that because I haven't experienced it nor have i seen anyone with proof having that pass

br1ll1ion above and many other large members over the years have spelled out their situation for you. I've seen it in many forums in answer to this continual accusation you keep throwing at SH (and us members) without any proof.

I am the biggest seller on SH (as referred to in the video). I have a 54% acceptance rate, I upload my domains in the same way as everyone else, I don't get any Afternic commission pass or any other privilege over anyone else. I too get frustrated at my brilliant names they reject but don't assume that other people must be getting some special privilege over me.

I've seen you harp on about this for years, but you've never provided any proof. Respectfully, put up or shut up because at the moment, you are just causing unrest with baseless allegations and you will probably get yourself banned from SH. Since you've already been banned from the other marketplaces for baseless allegations you probably don't want to do that, as SH is the only decent brandable marketplace left that hasn't banned you (so far!).

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[JimJammy]

You clearly don't understand what Darpan said.

I wouldn't call it a special treatment, I would call it a matter of making things as efficient as possible. If someone comes to us and says "I have 5,000 names", it would he highly inefficient for those 5,000 names to go through the poll system so in some cases we may ask them to give us the entire portfolio so we can do an assessment based on our own internal team (in the same way the sellers can chose between internal team or expert reviews), this has happened 3 or 4 times.

Later on he says...

Yes, there are some sellers that for efficiency sake we have reviewed names using a spreadsheet.

I cannot see anything in there that acknowledges they've approved high percentages of names 3 or 4 times, or anything about some very large accounts at 100% acceptance.

Misinterpreting what you've been told (repeatedly!), then repeating it over and over because you don't understand what you are being told, makes you sound bananas.

All concerns are valid. But provide proof, not accusations based on your not understanding what you've been told.

 

[karmaco]

I'm active in the brandable space. I have direct knowledge from personal sources.

People talk about these things, and they aren't happy.

I'd just like to know how to join the club.

We are all active in the brandable space we just don’t spend as much time as you do obsessing about other peoples domains, what’s getting listed by whom and looking for imagined slights and wrongdoing by the markets.

Focus on your own portfolio and not on gossip. You don’t like what you have convinced yourself is going on? Leave the market.

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[JimJammy]

You know me well enough to know I don't make things up.

Like you didn't make up some report on Brandbucket? Cherry picking certain keywords to highlight "some sellers have better rankings" and referring to them as insiders, whilst totally ignoring the keywords where you or others had the top rankings. That report was a joke and laughed at in the private domaining groups.

Think about your attitude. Wanting to discuss concerns is fair, appreciated and warranted. Throwing unfounded accusations around is not. Sorry to be blunt but it is no wonder BB banned you.

He's smart enough to speak like a politician and dance around the truth. He's not going to come out and admit 100% that he's giving some people special deals. That's why he reframed it as "efficiency".

Throwing unfounded accusations around is bad enough, publicly calling the owner (and someone who gave you an interview and repeatedly and patiently responded to those accusations) a liar is probably your door out of the last remaining brandable marketplace that hasn't banned you yet. Good luck!

 

[DomainBanana]

*Removed -- these comments created more trouble than I intended. In the interest of moving forward peacefully and productively, I'm removing them.

 

[JimJammy]

He's smart enough to speak like a politician and dance around the truth. He's not going to come out and admit 100% that he's giving some people special deals. That's why he reframed it as "efficiency".

That translates as you calling Darpan a liar to me.