A question regarding premium domains

Where can you find this "pending " list, please? I have submitted names to instant domains that have been approved, so I get an email about those…but I don’t know how to check statuses otherwise…unless I just happen to see the red underline below my entry when searching my activity log. thanks

@Arnet Thanks for the input. I get what you’re saying, but a high end name is a high end name and the client can decide if they want it or not. They have a budget for it and they want names to be offered to them. Preventing people from pitching to them doesn’t make sense. With high end names, bating and switching is much harder. If I’m offering a medical or a fitness company the domain Physiological.com, for example (one of the names I own), then it’s a domain that clearly warrants a high price tag. It’s up to them to decide if it’s worth my asking price or not but they should get the chance to decide because if a price is agreed to- it’s a guaranteed sale and a smooth transaction that can be facilitated by SH. Any other domain that’s offered to them from a marketplace somewhere (unless it’s an exclusive brandable marketplace) is a shot in the dark where they might be able to get the domain or not. These deals quite often fail because of various reasons.

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Arnet, I don’t really think that is true when a CH comes here and says they are open to premium priced domains. They know they will get recommendations for those because they asked for them. It’s not a bait and switch for SH at all, it is giving the customer what they want.

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Hi kwazi- Don’t be disappointed if not all are accepted-- only about 20-25% of the names I submitted were accepted…and of course I thought they all were great - LOL. And so far I think we heard that only one person has sold one although there may be others out there of course. The names on the Squad Help site are so much better than the ones on other sites - so hopefully they will start selling more and more! Best of luck!

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@hollygirl you can find this on the my entries page…there is a drop down list on the top left had side for market place domain status with the pending option.:blush:

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Thanks, Christy! Appreciate the answer…

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How often does that scenario occur where the person says premium domains are okay? 5% of the time, %10, 1%? If SH starts to make exceptions for every situation which occurs 1% of the time, then the name submission rules will become more complicated than the US Tax code.

I am not against the idea. The problem is, how do you implement the rule without it appearing to some CH’s as bait and switch. How do you make sure that CH’s who do not want to pay for premium domains are not suggested premium domains over and over?

Arnet, they already have a rule that says you cannot submit the unless the CH asks for them. That’s always been the rule. The CH puts it in the brief and most of the time, those are also SH managed contests.

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And one more issue that I hadn’t thought of. What would SH become if they allowed domain resellers with premium domains to submit those names in contests? Wouldn’t SH just become another way for them to resell their $10,000 names?

We’ve been discussing creatives submitting the names. What’s to stop a domain reseller with a 1,000 premium domains to sign up with SH and then start submitting those domains to various contests. And not just one domain reseller, but hundreds.

This is supposed to be a creative community, not just another website for domain resellers. Aren’t there enough websites devoted to reselling domains?

Please @grant, respond to this, it’s seriously in my mind

there is nothing to stop them. How would SH know if they were domain sellers? We already have creatives here who are domain seller/buyers. Just like contests that could be held by domain sellers, how would they know. We’ve also had CH become creatives and visa-versa. I’m all for being fair, but too many restrictions/rules will drive the CH’s to other platforms other than SH in my opinion

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Explain that. I would think that rules/restrictions in this instance would reduce the number of creatives. How would it reduce the number of contests and/or CH’s?

@Arnet SH decided to choose the path of letting contest holders ask for aftermarket domains and state budgets so creatives can look for them. They also opened a marketplace that offers CHs domains that are labeled as premium. I didn’t support the marketplace when it was still an idea and when it was launched because I thought that SH would be better off focusing on contests. I still think that and the renewal situations of the domains will start making things problematic on a logistic level and for the creatives who will have to either pay for renewals and be in a weird situation where they’re paying for a domain they don’t own and getting a small cut of a future sale if it ever comes or have SH drop the names.

But since at this point SH has an active marketplace and more and more clients who are looking for high end domains- I think it should be in SH’s interest to have people offer such domains directly rather than send CHs to another marketplace. It’s sending a client to a competitor (a bad idea for many reasons) and can also be a disservice to the client because getting the domain is at the hands of a third party and situations may arise where a contest is won at SH but the domain can’t be bought. So domainers coming here and offering names, or better yet- creatives who will become domainers, isn’t a bad idea, IMO but the process needs to be vetted and the criteria should be high and that would prevent the scenario you’re worried about. Names that are in demand and that are selling for $XXXX-$XX,XXX on a regular basis. Pronounceable LLLL, pronounceable LLLLL that are better than the leftovers that are left around to hand reg at this point, dictionary words, word + letter, short brandable idioms/phrases (Fresh Start, Hot Potato etc.). These type of names.

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I am still not getting the connect here. In what way are you sending someone to a competitor? How can a CH look for a name he doesn’t know exists? Are you saying that there are customers who are determined to spend a certain amount for a domain name, say $5,000 and if we don’t have $5,000 names, they go look for one at a competitor? Or are you saying that they are looking for the domain name such as MadeUp.com and since we don’t have MadeUp.com, they will look elsewhere?

If a creative submits a premium domain that is not owned by anyone affiliated with SH the CH must purchase it from an outside seller. At that point SH and the creative are out of the loop (no cut of the premium price that we did leg work on) and ownership of said domain cannot be guaranteed to CH.

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Arnet, Moretal is one of the original creatives here on SH. He has since become a successful domainer as well but still participates here. So when he says “send them to the competition” he means HIS competition first. (We are sending CHs to other domainers who hold those domain names by subbing those names). But in another sense it is also SH’s competition. Those other domainers are receiving the lion’s share of the money that is gotten by us thinking up their names, finding the names are for sale, and subbing them into contests where the CH has said in their brief that they are open to those domains that are held by a domainer.

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And how often does this occur? Rarely I would guess. It seems to be much ado about nothing much.

First, we have to have a CH who decides he wants to pay a premium domain price, which is very rare, occurs maybe once or twice out of 100 contests if that often.

Then we have to have the same CH decide that the chosen name is a premium domain. If I had to guess, I would say this occurs about 1 in 500 contests. Or maybe less, does anyone know if it has ever occurred at all?

And we never lost the customer. Squad Help and the Namer received the same amount of money they would have if it was an original name. Except, in this case, the domainer received a portion of the money.

And please don’t be condescending to me or others by implying that because someone has been here since the beginning that they are right and anyone else is wrong. It’s not ingenious or a novel idea to actually purchase domains one discovers through their efforts here. It’s actually simply practical. Not everyone has to boast about their activities.

Arnet, it was never my intention in any way whatsoever to be condescending to you. I was ONLY telling you that because you had mentioned earlier something about domainers coming here to do this. This was about Moretal’s question, particular to Moretal’s history. Please do not read intent where there is none. I was explaining something and that is all. I have no idea why this is causing you to be angry at me but I hope it’s cleared up for you now.

What started out to be something that just answered your question has now turned into something else. This is the last I will say about it. Wow.

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@Arnet The requests for premium domains have become much more frequent recently. It’s not every 100 contests. It’s much less than that. Today alone I saw 3 new contests with requests for aftermarket domains. I doubt it if many contests have been awarded yet based on submissions of suggested domains from other marketplaces. If that has happened- then it’s probably happened in very few contests. That being said- when you have a client that’s open to spending thousands of dollars and actually asks you to suggest high end names for him there’s an opening for making thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of dollars- both to the seller and to SH who clearly wants to sell domains. They opened a marketplace after all.

When they send a client to another site/marketplace- they’re potentially sending money away that could have been spent on their site. And on top of that- they’re giving the clients ideas about looking elsewhere in the future. Many contest holders at SH are repeat customers. Referring them to other places, when you have two ways to find them domains on your own site (contests & a marketplace selling domains) is counterproductive because next time they might just use other sites instead of coming back to you.

I too have no intent to be condescending either in case you think that’s the case (if you do, I apologize). But I do understand domaining because it’s my main source of income. I’m in a position to offer CHs high end domains so I’m naturally looking for opportunities to pitch to more end users which can naturally be good for me. But it can be good for SH too who can take a commission, to the CHs who will be offered domains directly from the source and to other creatives who want to get into domaining. There are already some domainers here at SH and more should follow. Domaining can be rewarding on a whole different level and SH is in a position where they have end users approach them and ask them to offer them high end domains. Not taking advantage of the situation and sending these people to look for these domains elsewhere- just isn’t a good idea, IMO.

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Thank you for your thoughts and ideas. We have noted this feedback,and we are currently working on several enhancements to the marketplaces.

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