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.

 

[karmaco]

Kam, how many names do you have on SH ? Last time I checked, zero.

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

Alan, I don’t need to have names on SH to know unproven paranoid accusations are your speciality.

And your right I currently sell elsewhere so I am not for or against any one place specifically. That doesn’t mean I don’t know brandables or don’t have a right to participate here, as you were insinuating.

I don’t think these kind of accusations should be thrown out without proof and I would say that about any marketplace or any person who posted what you did.

 

[DomainBanana]

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

 

[JimJammy]

To be clear, I have a great deal of respect for Darpan and I do think he's an honest guy.

To be equally as clear, I think that stating that a company is a game with too many rules, has some sort of club for personal favorites, is favoring certain people, is accepting 100% of bulk submissions and insulting the owner for "dancing around the truth" is out of order.

Adding 'I have a great deal of respect for said owner' at the end doesn't make it right. That is in direct conflict with all of your accusations and statements and is just plain wheedling.

Other marketplaces haven't put up with your behavior, surely that tells your something!

Either way, 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]

Please stop personally attacking me. You are going too far.

There is no attack there. You cannot make accusations and when it's proven that those allegations are unfounded pull the 'you are attacking me' card. If you feel attacked by me, than I apologize, that is not my intention. My intention is to point out to anyone reading this that you repeatedly and continually make allegations against brandable marketplaces despite being told by the marketplaces and it's members that your allegations are unfounded.

 

[DomainBanana]

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

 

[JimJammy]

How can you say the accusations are unfounded when you refuse to even look at the evidence?

Let's look at the accusations you've made in the last few days:

"a few account holders at SH have gotten 70 to 100% acceptance on submissions of thousands of average names."

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

"actually they accept crappy names -- in the thousands -- from a select group of 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 average brandable names approved."

You won't publicly provide proof but we should "trust you because you don't lie".

Then you move on to accusations against the domain sellers of SH.

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

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

" I'm trying to understand why a few people get these special benefits while most of us don't."

Despite many sellers here telling you they don't get any special privileges, including me, the largest seller. You've been asked to provide proof or details and you haven't. I'm not interested in anything you won't post publicly, if you've got proof, everyone should see it.

Then you quote untruths:

"Several people who have gotten 70%+ approval on thousands of submissions, some 100%. Here, watch Darpan discuss it himself"

He says nothing of the sort in the video.

"That's why Darpan acknowledged "it's a valid concern"".

Darpan said your question was a valid concern and answered your point. He did not say anything about people having 100% of their domains accepted being a valid concern for other people as you are implying.

I honestly don't know if you are deliberately trying to cause trouble or you just don't understand what people say when they say it to you. The content of your video is the same and you did the same thing to BrandBucket. I really don't know what else to say to you other than what everyone else is saying to you. Prove your allegations or stop going on.

 

[DomainBanana]

Prove your allegations or stop going on.

You're the one who keeps pushing. I told you I'm done discussing this here. In fact, I'm going to remove my previous comments because they created too much trouble, and this wasn't my intention.

If you want proof of anything I said, DM me.

Finally, because you continue to insist on painting me as some kind of lunatic SH hater, I'd like to say that just because I have some concerns here and there doesn't mean I don't appreciate SH.

SH is my favorite marketplace. I like Darpan's innovative approach and leadership. I'm very grateful for the success I've had with the marketplace, and I hope to continue with them for many years to come.

 

[Charybdis]

I think the Squadhelp search function should be improved. I am comparing the search features of Squadhelp and Brandbucket, and BB has better search options.

When you enter a keyword on Squadhelp, they will list broad match domains and some domains don't even contain the entered keyword. There should be an option at Squadhelp to display domains which contain, start with or end with the desired keyword, like on Brandbucket.

For example what if I am looking for domain names which start with "tech"? There is no option on Squadhelp to list only those domains. If I enter the keyword "tech" then I will see domains which don't even contain the word "tech".

Shouldn't Squadhelp list those domains first which contain the word "tech"? Or at least there should be an option to filter the results and display only those domains which contain the word "tech".

 

[NameWell]

I think the Squadhelp search function should be improved. I am comparing the search features of Squadhelp and Brandbucket, and BB has better search options.

When you enter a keyword on Squadhelp, they will list broad match domains and some domains don't even contain the entered keyword. There should be an option at Squadhelp to display domains which contain, start with or end with the desired keyword, like on Brandbucket.

For example what if I am looking for domain names which start with "tech"? There is no option on Squadhelp to list only those domains. If I enter the keyword "tech" then I will see domains which don't even contain the word "tech".

Shouldn't Squadhelp list those domains first which contain the word "tech"? Or at least there should be an option to filter the results and display only those domains which contain the word "tech".

Oh, YES! This should definitely be done. They now have what, 130 000 domain names, and their search functionality is just so limited given the size of their current inventory.

You raised a good point regarding giving the buyer the right to choose if they want to have a certain keyword in their name and if they do, then where (starts with / ends with). In the review released by Squadhelps, it was clearly stated that the placement of the keyword (starts with / ends with) matters a lot.

Another problem is with abstract names. It's so difficult to find what you are looking for. Say I'm a founder of a startup. I'm looking for a name for my SaaS. I want it to be abstract, catchy, easy to spell, 5 letter .com domain name. My search journey:

1. I go to the marketplace, use filters ".com" and "5 letters". I see that there are over 11920 results. Results are displayed 100 names per page, 10 pages max. This means that I won't be able to see the remaining 1920 results that match my search criteria. What if my perfect name is among those? I'm overwhelmed and disappointed.
2. I try to narrow down search results. My closet competitors have names that start with letters B, S, and T, therefore I need a name that does not start with those letters in order to avoid confusion. My request is very reasonable, but I can't filter out names that start with B, S or T. I'm disappointed.
3. Thinking more about what kind of a name I want I decided that I would prefer it to start with the letter A. It would put me on top of various lists and also letter A evokes leadership, being in the front, A class etc. But it turns out I can't filter names that start with the letter A. I even can't sort names in alphabetical order. I'm disappointed.
4. Thinking more about what kind of a name I want I decided that it would be great if it would end in a popular and sonorous suffix like ex (i.e. Rolex, FedEx, Timex etc.). I would like to filter names that end with 'ex', but I can't do that. I'm disappointed.
5. I see a lot of names that are hard to spell. For that reason, I'd like to filter out names that have letters J, Q, K. I can't do that. I'm disappointed.
6. I see some very weird names that I wouldn't even know how to pronounce let alone explain to someone over the phone how to spell it. For that reason, I'd love to see some names in common CVCVC (i.e FedEx) or CVCCV (i.e. Venmo) patterns. I can't do that. I'm disappointed.

Overall I feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and disappointed. I leave Squadhelp hoping to have better luck on BrandBucket and BrandPa.

At the same time domain sellers on SH look at their catchy, sonorous and easy to spell abstract names and think why it is so hard to sell them

 

[Charybdis]

Exactly my problem, some of my domains on SH are hard to find because the search function is so limited!

 

[JimJammy]

Oh, YES! This should definitely be done. They now have what, 130 000 domain names, and their search functionality is just so limited given the size of their current inventory.

You raised a good point regarding giving the buyer the right to choose if they want to have a certain keyword in their name and if they do, then where (starts with / ends with). In the review released by Squadhelps, it was clearly stated that the placement of the keyword (starts with / ends with) matters a lot.

Another problem is with abstract names. It's so difficult to find what you are looking for. Say I'm a founder of a startup. I'm looking for a name for my SaaS. I want it to be abstract, catchy, easy to spell 5 letter domain name. My search journey:

1. I go to the marketplace, use filters ".com" and "5 letters". I see that there are over 11920 results. Results are displayed 100 names per page, 10 pages max. This means that I won't be able to see the remaining 1920 results that match my search criteria. What if my perfect name is among those? I'm overwhelmed and disappointed.
2. I try to narrow down search results. My closes competitors have names that start with letters B, S, and T, therefore I need a name that does not start with those letters in order to avoid confusion. My request is very reasonable, but I can't filter out names that start with B, S or T. I'm disappointed.
3. Thinking more about what kind of name I want I decided that I would prefer it to start with the letter A. It would put me on top of various lists and also letter A evokes leadership, being in the front, A class etc, advantage, etc. But it turns out I can't filter names that start with the letter A. I'm disappointed.
4. Thinking more about what kind of name I want I decided that it would be great if it would end in a popular and sonorous suffix like ex (i.e. Rolex, FedEx, Timex etc.). I would like to filter such names, but I can't do that. I'm disappointed.
5. I see a lot of names that are hard to spell. For that reason, I'd love to filter out names that have letters J, Q, K. I can't do that. I'm disappointed.
6. I see some very weird names that I wouldn't even know how to pronounce let alone explain to someone over the phone how to spell it. For that reason, I'd love to see names in common CVCVC (i.e FedEx) or CVCCV (i.e. Venmo) patterns. I can't do that. I'm disappointed.

Overall I feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and disappointed. I leave Squadhelp hoping to have better luck on BrandBucket and BrandPa.

At the same time domain sellers on SH look at their catchy, sonorous and easy to spell abstract names and think why it is so hard to sell them

That was perfectly laid out and very descriptive. I hope you blue button it to SH!

 

[NameWell]

That was perfectly laid out and very descriptive. I hope you blue button it to SH!

I did multiple times. They don't care

 

[Charybdis]

The SH logos are much better now than in the previous years! I see that only those logo designers can work on logos who received high ratings in the past.

And look at the "detailed analytics" section! I'm not sure if I can share it, because it is only available for silver level sellers and or above.

SH is improving for sure.

 

[NameWell]

The SH logos are much better now than in the previous years! I see that only those logo designers can work on logos who received high ratings in the past.

And look at the "detailed analytics" section! I'm not sure if I can share it, because it is only available for silver level sellers and or above.

SH is improving for sure.

I agree about the logos. The ability to communicate with logo designers is helping A LOT.

 

[L3af]

My small SH update. Still haven't sold a name on there.

Just sold a brand bucket name with 10% of the names on that platform.

The names I have on Squadhelp are 100x the quality of the ones on BB.

 

[4better]

Before, I can only get my payment for a domain sold at SH after about a week. But this time, when I sold a domain just a few days ago I was paid the next day after it was purchased and transferred the previous day. A big improvement. Fast payment processing and I really appreciate that.

 

[NameWell]

Before, I can only get my payment for a domain sold at SH after about a week. But this time, when I sold a domain just a few days ago I was paid the next day after it was purchased and transferred the previous day. A big improvement. Fast payment processing and I really appreciate that.

I have these two scenarios happening one after another constantly. My personal conclusion is that it mainly depends on the client. Some are fast and accept the domain name transfer the same day, then SH can release the money to the seller fast. Others are slow and take several days to accept the transfer, thus the delay in payment to the seller.

 

[Charybdis]

Why is it not possible to list a domain on Squadhelp which has been sold before on Squadhelp?

I bought a domain using a dropcatch service, and it turns out that this domain has been sold before on Squadhelp. So it is not possible to list it again. Very strange.

 

[NameWell]

Why is it not possible to list a domain on Squadhelp which has been sold before on Squadhelp?

I bought a domain using a dropcatch service, and it turns out that this domain has been sold before on Squadhelp. So it is not possible to list it again. Very strange.

They consider it a bad practice. It has been discussed before.

 

[Charybdis]

They consider it a bad practice. It has been discussed before.

But why? The previous owner doesn't need this domain anymore, since it had expired.
It is a new registration, the registration date is when I registered the domain again, after the drop.
It is a great domain since it has been sold before.
I am disappointed that my great domain has been rejected.

 

[Charybdis]

I think the Squadhelp search function should be improved. I am comparing the search features of Squadhelp and Brandbucket, and BB has better search options.

When you enter a keyword on Squadhelp, they will list broad match domains and some domains don't even contain the entered keyword. There should be an option at Squadhelp to display domains which contain, start with or end with the desired keyword, like on Brandbucket.

For example what if I am looking for domain names which start with "tech"? There is no option on Squadhelp to list only those domains. If I enter the keyword "tech" then I will see domains which don't even contain the word "tech".

Shouldn't Squadhelp list those domains first which contain the word "tech"? Or at least there should be an option to filter the results and display only those domains which contain the word "tech".

It has been implemented finally!!! Thanks, great improvement.

This feature is also useful for research, to learn more about the competition.

 

[NameWell]

It has been implemented finally!!! Thanks, great improvement.

Show attachment 213307
This feature is also useful for research, to learn more about the competition.

Oh fiiiiiiinally!

 

[Charybdis]

Oh fiiiiiiinally!

Actually this is a big improvement.

Now the domains with strong keywords will be easier to find. This should increase the exposure of the great domains with strong keywords in them.