On Hold marketplace - SH, Please reconsider

I’ve had several of my names put in a 3 day hold in the marketplace and never purchased… This results in others not shortlisting the name and preventing a potential other sale. I would like to ask SH to eliminate the 3 day hold, UNLESS the majority of other 3 day holds have actually resulted in sales. (I don’t want to hurt any other creative by suggesting this). At this point, though, I see no advantage to a 3 day hold unless SH has real evidence to the contrary). This should always be a 1st come, 1st served scenario. It is extremely frustrating to see a 3 day hold on our names that do not result in SALES and from my side of the computer, I feel that I lose potential sales because of it.

Thanks for considering.

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@Commulinks I think we’re on the same wave length these days - I too was just thinking about this b/c I’ve had a couple in the last few weeks on hold and sadly never purchased. I wouldn’t mind a 3 day hold if the potential buyer wanted to put down a minimal deposit (say $50 - just throwing out a number). Then SH could split that deposit with us if the buyer never followed through - a win win for everyone. Something like that may weed out flakey buyers. But yes, I agree, only if SH see’s this as problematic.

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I had a hold very recently, which was purchased after a day.

IMHO a hold is more of a potential sale and a sign of real purchasing interest than any other type of activity, so I wouldn’t worry about names being on-hold too much, but YMMV.

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I just sold a domain after 3-day hold. So… maybe there is some reasons for hold (for a Buyer).

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I would say about half of the time a hold turns into a sale in my experience (maybe a little less). But they don’t pull the name from the marketplace until the sale is finalized, which is definitely a good thing. I haven’t had any real interest in my listings in several weeks, so at this point even a 3 day hold would be encouraging.

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Thanks to everyone for chiming in! I am glad it is working for someone!

From experience, many domains are panic bought (if I don’t buy it right now someone else will get it), the shortlist function will also concern them if they see a name they really like. Giving them the 3 day hold function can lose these guys, they have time to go off and find something else or just change their mind.

I would like SH to remove it in the short term, just so they can see if there is a difference in sales or not, and then they can decide to keep it or lose it for good.

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I get them several times as well and haven’t ever had a purchase. I’d be interested in @CRen’s idea ( a down payment/deposit that is non-refundable) but changing it as well to offer a tier of options for the amount of days to place on hold to give more option to potential buyers and increase the benefit of the offer for all – example (Note: ^ = idea for amounts, amount can be changed):

  • 1-Day Hold = $10^ Non-refundable Deposit (applied towards purchase price ONLY if purchased, split between creative and SH 50/50 if not purchased)

  • 2-Day Hold = $25^ Non-refundable Deposit (applied towards purchase price ONLY if purchased, split between creative and SH 50/50 if not purchased)

  • 3-Day Hold = $50^ Non-refundable Deposit (applied towards purchase price ONLY if purchased, split between creative and SH 50/50 if not purchased)

  • 7-Day/A week Hold = $100^ Non-refundable Deposit (applied towards purchase price ONLY if purchased, split between creative and SH 50/50 if not purchased)

  • 1 Month Hold = 50% of total price of domain AT TIME OF hold^ Non-refundable Deposit (applied towards purchase price ONLY if purchased, split between creative and SH 50/50 if not purchased) i.e. $1199 price at time of hold requires $599.50 deposit.

With this, the buyer benefits in that they then have the option to place on hold to where no one can purchase the domain, and IF purchased they lose no money as that amount is then taken off automatically from the purchase price if they purchase it before the hold expires. The creative benefits as their domain isn’t adversely effected by no possible purchase abilities/desires during that hold period, the loss of interest because that domain is on hold is reasonably accounted for, and if the domain isn’t purchased from the hold – the creative gets half of the hold deposit added to their account, and hold will become a further incentive for buyers to return to actually purchase. SH benefits because creatives will have more trust in not only submitting for complete SH ownership but to also (arguably more importantly) list their owned domains with SH thereby fleshing out the marketplace with many more diverse names and profit abilities, potential buyers will treat the purchasing of SH listed domains more seriously, hold listings can become indicative of genuine interest and provide even more comprehensive and measurable statistics of value for SH owned names and plausibility of revenue potential for both SH owned AND creative owned domains in conclusion to stats that are provided both by views and shortlisting, half of the deposit is gained IF the domain is not purchased, hold will become a further incentive for buyers to return to actually purchase and therefore maintain a higher turn-over rate of purchase.

Therefore EVERYONE benefits in a multitude of ways and it also will help the marketplace potentially make increased profits for both creative and SH and gives more accountability to the PREMIUM quality of marketplace names and the seriousness at which domains are viewed by SH and treated by buyers.

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Wow @CRen,@rareworthy
I wish I were half as brilliant as you guys in coming up with these improvements/suggestions!!

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@Marye5
Thank you! You’re too sweet.

Actually, you did remind me of something.

@grant

As far as my above idea – to make it more plausible and to have it make more sense and be feasible, I am thinking that if/when a buyer does make a hold for a month (this won’t happen as often as the others can so it won’t really have to be worried about too much, but I can guarantee it will happen with some of the names we have as options) that the creatives’ share of the payout of the 50/50 be given to the level of expected commission. For instance – in the aforementioned above I gave the example of:

This would mean that if the creative stands to receive $200 commission (used only as example) on that particular name and the 50/50 split would be $299.75 for each SH and creative that SH and Creative get the commission level of the hold amount (in this case, each would get $200 – the remaining money just being accrued by SH to keep or disperse to creative depending on scenario) UNTIL either abandonment, cancel, or purchase of the hold occurs. If purchased – the creative has already been paid IN THIS SCENARIO because of the commission being LOWER than the hold and SH would receive the remaining $199.50 ($99.75 x 2) of the hold a well as have their $199.50 share of the hold AND the remaining $599.50 of the purchase price for a TOTAL of the purchase price minus creatives’ commission… If abandoned/canceled – the creative will receive the extra $99.75 of their share of the hold and SH will receive the extra $99.75 of their share.

in the case of a month hold (Or any of the other holds actually), when the commission is HIGHER than the hold amount (which it more than often will be):
Then the hold will simply be split 50/50 between creative and SH until when/if purchase of the domain is made. If/when purchase does occur – the creative will receive the rest of the amount to pay off the remaining part of their expected commission.

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I agree with others that a 3 day hold is far to long and that it “enables” the buyer to waffle.
At the same time, there has to be some flexibility for the client.
I would suggest a courtesy hold for a max of 24 hrs.

Keep in mind that 95% of the domains on SH could easily be paid for on a credit card.
So as AbleBrands said it just takes all the urgency out of the sale and encourages indecision.

The most crucial part of sales is the close.

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Totally agree with @Commulinks, @AbleBrands and @GibbonTake. I think potential buyers are given way too much time to think about it, get trademark reports, audience testing etc. GibbonTake phrased it perfectly: “The most crucial part of sales is the close”. Marketplaces shouldn’t give buyers reasons not to buy but encourage them to buy. At the moment, SH is losing that urgency and goes out of its way to give potential buyers tons of time to doubt themselves, find reasons to back out of the sale etc. So I too think the hold should be cancelled and the extra services provided to potential buyers should be reconsidered. Not sure about charging customers for the hold as @rareworthy suggests, but if the hold, and all the extra services that are delaying sales and making some clients choose not to buy, remain in place- then perhaps that could help as well.

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Do other domain marketplaces typically offer a hold feature? Or do they charge a fee for that convenience?

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As far as I know/remember, no other marketplace offers a hold option or offers trademark checks or audience testing. In fact, marketplaces make it clear that checking trademarks and doing due diligence before buying is the client’s responsibility. I think that SH is trying to differentiate itself by offering these services for free, but it’s counterproductive to making sales. Impulse buying and fear somebody else will get the product (or in this case domain) before you are a big part of why people make purchases and then feel good when they secure the product they want. Yes, sometimes they may regret the purchase but that shouldn’t mean that the marketplace needs to help them think about the purchase, delay the decision and provide them more and more data that could potentially sway them from buying.

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Me too, @Marye5, Me too

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In that case, I agree the holds seem counterproductive. I suppose it’s natural to assume audience testing and trademark checks should be offered because those services are already offered for contests, but the marketplace is really a different animal and should have an impulse-driven design. If the holds are to facilitate those others services, I say nix all three. Currently, a sale can be cancelled if a trademark issue is found anyway, correct?

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I think when a name is put on hold, the client hasn’t paid yet and that’s when the trademark check and the audience testing is done. So there’s no need for a refund since nothing has been paid. I checked a couple of domains now, and didn’t see the ‘hold for 3 days’ option though. It was there once, right? Pretty sure it was. Perhaps the hold is done by contacting SH support and asking them. Or it was eliminated. Or it’s now done after the client pays and then they do get a refund if anything isn’t to their liking. Not sure at this point. It would be good if @grant could chime in about this matter and explain SH’s policy and respond to this thread.

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At this point, we are not offering the complimentary 3 day hold to a majority of buyers, however this feature is still being tested in some limited cases. We will continue to test our features and make updates based upon the overall response and learnings.

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I’m pretty sure I speak for most creatives @grant when I say that we really appreciate that SH is so responsive to us and keen to test various features to see which provides the best outcome for us all.

Thanks!

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I’m not sure how all this works…but how do you know if your name gets put on hold? Thanks!