A uniform registration process is key to selling your new TLD through Go Daddy.
Last week representatives of about 800 of the unique strings applied for as new top level domains gathered in Phoenix for Go Daddy Registry Days.
The event was designed to start a dialogue between the world’s largest domain name registrar and the many registries that hope to get shelf space at GoDaddy.com for their new TLDs.
At a high level, the message was pretty basic: KISS, or Keep It Simple, Stupid.
With hundreds of new TLDs competing for shelf space, it’s important to make your registration process similar to those of existing TLDs that have a simple process.
Go Daddy CFO Mike Zimmerman specifically pointed to Public Interest Registry’s .org as a good registration implementation model to follow. (Afilias provides registry services for .org.)
From a pricing standpoint, Zimmerman suggested started at the retail price and then working back to what the wholesale price will be, and to price in U.S. dollars. He also warned in general against very high price points.
Also, he suggested not trying to get cute with pricing, such as demand or event driven price changes. Save your creativity for marketing programs.
When it comes to finances, Go Daddy is shaking things up a bit.
The old model is that a registrar pre-pays the registry for future registrations with a deposit. Furthermore, when a domain expires the registry automatically charges the renewal fee and then refunds it if the registrant doesn’t end up renewing the domain through the deletion cycle.
Go Daddy is asking registries to bill it net 60, meaning that registries will be paid approximately two months after the end of the month in which a registration occurs. It also asks that it get billed for renewals at the end of the 45 day grace period instead of upon registration.
Post-pay probably makes a lot more sense than pre-pay, but I’m curious what payment relationships new TLD hopefuls have with their back end technical registry providers. (In other words, will they have to pay per-domain fees to their technical back end provider before they get paid by Go Daddy?) I also imagine new TLD companies will want to only offer a post pay model to credit worthy registrars.
Go Daddy CEO Blake Irving told me that he’d ideally like to carry every new TLD. That will obviously create a search and discovery challenge — more on that later.
MarkA says
Godaddy will be under significant pressure in the years ahead. Their market dominance will be threatened as registry owned registrars marginalize their profit model at the fringes (at first) and then to a gradual tipping point where they start to bleed registrations, in the future. Good customer service is no surrogate for being able to offer low prices, and ease of use which is under the direct control of those who own the inventory (registries). This TLD round is going to usher in great changes. And Godaddy will be a victim of those changes, not a beneficiary.
Dan Warner says
Registry retail prices are going to be fascinating. I’ve done a number of high value registry valuations (NPV). After reviewing them it seems apparent that very few registries will be able to sell domains for less than $50 retail. The volume of the market for most new gTLDs is such that even the most promising ones have to overcome the cost of registry technology provider fees, start-up costs, and ongoing administration. It seems that the new applicants are forgetting about the real costs of running a business.
Most of them seem to believe that the technology providers are:
A. Qualified to run a start-up business
B. Will do everything for them
C. Won’t charge very much for the work
D. Will actively pursue growth for each registry
The market has changed. Just listing new domains to register at GoDaddy isn’t enough. New gTLDs that don’t have people with real experience attacking the market for them are destined to fail.