Back in 2016 we started a series here that looked at the best and worst about companies in the domain industry. Over the last 30 months a lot has changed at many companies so we are revisiting the good, the bad and the ugly.
Each post will deal with just one company, readers are encouraged to share their positive and negative experiences. Suggestions for improvement are also encouraged.
One of the goals of the column is that company representatives will see how their customers think of them. This can lead to a conversation on fixing problems.
What is not allowed:
- Personal attacks on individuals at the chosen company
- Promoting a competitor
- Posting domains for sale
The company in the spotlight today is Squadhelp.
Founded: 2011
An appropriate day to discuss SH as today introduced a policy that will sink them, if not changed.
SquadHelp is a story of extremes.
THE GOOD – They have the best marketing in the industry, which garners insane amounts of traffic (over a million visitors last month, towering above competitors). They have a clean interface, a support team available by chat nearly 24/7, and an astounding sell-through-rate.
THE BAD – While the interface is clean, it’s not always intuitive. The contests are difficult to filter and navigate. Listing a domain with them can take up to 15 minutes. It’s a pain to click all the check boxes and fill out the complete form for each listing. Their approval rating for premium listings is less than 10%, and I don’t know who’s in charge of their approvals, but the names that get approved are often amateurish or just plain annoying or stupid. The logos are amateurish. The pricing is low for a brandable marketplace the commissions are high. SH has a discount feel. You see red slashes and “make offer” everywhere. It’s like the CostCo. of brandable marketplaces.
THE UGLY – SH’s site is too convoluted. It’s like one of those board games that takes hours to learn and turns out to be not so fun when you finally get the hang of it. They make you jump through so many hoops to do the simplest things, like find and list contests, or submit and list premium names. It’s annoying AF.
SH’s most unique proposition among brandable marketplaces, aside from its large space for contests, was their free submission reviews. Today, SH just shot itself in the face by introducing a $1 charge for premium reviews. Since the overall premium approval rating is 9.79%, it will now cost you around $10.21 to get a single premium listing on SquadHelp. So if you want to build a portfolio of just 100 names on SH (you’ll probably get one sale out of those hundred every year unless you’re super active on contests), that means you’ll have to spend over $1,000 just to build that portfolio on SH. Subtract out SH’s listing fees and its submission fees, and you’re making basically pennies now. If you’re a serious domainer and want to build a portfolio of 1,000 names, guess what? With SH’s marketplace approval rating, that will now cost you over $10,200 — just to list the names with SH! Forget about it!
SH has potential. It’s great to see a brandable marketplace that truly understands the importance of marketing investments. But if they don’t simplify things and fix their submission costs, the new brandable marketplace on the block won’t be around much longer.
Good review. I agree with everything you said, but they also just posted (push button notice) that instead of a unilateral $1/submission decision, they are now giving this option: submit to ‘premium’ for free with standard commission structure (same as it’s been), or spend $1/submission for a lower commission structure.
At the very least, I think they deserve credit for listening to (the obviously overwhelmingly negative) feedback and offering a compromise, same-day. That just doesn’t happen in ecommerce, let alone this industry.
Was incredibly skeptical to even ‘try’ them at first. Definitely some pros and cons.
To keep it simple:
Cons:
– connotes bit lower quality (what they accept as inventory, logos, etc) than competing brandable marketplaces
– higher overall commission than industry standard
– just implemented a charge of $1/per submission*
Pros:
– * they – literally hours later – rolled this back due to customer feedback
– on that same note, I have seen them implement changes with an expediency that *not one vendor* in the entire domain industry has kept up with to date
– in addition to making swift, overall changes based on user feedback, they have lightning fast customer support for all other issues
– appear to have massive marketing budget propelling their reach which trickles down to more end user awareness
Personal experience:
– I tried it out of curiosity and have been mostly indifferent overall, however their speed of submission ‘acceptance’ as well as their ability to iterate technical changes and customer feedback are nothing short of astonishing (I’d say they’re beating the industry standard by 5x)
– I will continue to list there (1 sale, over 50 listed so far) as I could see a future where a behemoth gobbles them up for greater exposure, thus giving sellers the same
– I have yet to partake in contests and don’t plan to