This company is taking the opposite approach of Uniregistry. Will it work?
In light of Uniregistry’s sharp price increases for registering and renewing many of its top level domain names, it was interesting to learn this week that another registry is taking the opposite move.
Boston Ivy, which runs the .broker, .forex, .markets and .trading top level domain names, cut its wholesale prices as much as 97%.
The company is affiliated with financial firm IG and knows the space well. At the same time, its domains have not gotten traction at high prices. .Forex, for example, has fewer than 100 registrations according to nTLDStats. It used to have a $1,000 wholesale cost; now it is just $30. .Broker has been reduced from $500 to $20. .Trading is going from $50 to $12 and .Markets from $40 to $10.
I asked the company about this move and why it thinks it will pay off.
DNW: Why are you lowering the prices?
Boston Ivy: For the last few months we have been researching other registries and comparing prices to domains under management, while also talking to registrars and end users. What we have noticed was that high pricing even for the niche type markets (.Broker and .Forex) do not work. Domain investors, end users and companies do not want to pay high premiums year after year. We believe that lowering the prices will invite people to register our TLDs and making us more competitive.
DNW: You’re cutting the price for .forex to 1/33rd of its current price. Do you think you can sell 33 times as many .forex domains with the reduced price?
Boston Ivy: Yes, we believe that we can. It will be slow at first, but as we gain more exposure with companies within the industry, domain investors, end users and registrars we believe our new pricing model and strategy will work in their favour. We have already seen a new trend with .Broker, with the new pricing we believe forex follow suit. Also to make .Forex and .Broker more attractive, we have dropped most 3 character premium domain names to GA.
DNW: Another new TLD company, Uniregistry, is getting ready to increase its prices by as much as 30x. This is the exact opposite of what you’re doing. Based on your experience so far, does it make sense for a TLD to be priced at several hundred dollars wholesale?
Boston Ivy: It really depends on the situation. For us, we started at the higher price point and found that it was very difficult for us to bring in the new registrations. We also had a difficult time bringing registrars on-board with Boston Ivy as higher priced domain names do not sell very often. That being said it may work for Uniregistry as they already have a solid customer base.
DNW: So far, none of your TLDs has crossed 1,000 registrations. Do you think price is the main reason for this?
Boston Ivy: Yes, we believe that price is one of the main reasons. Marketing was also a major factor as most of the previous efforts were targeted to specific industries.However, as we have broadened our focus and highlighted that our TLDs are open we believe that everyone will have a chance with our new pricing model to register our TLDs; from companies and individuals in the industry to domain investors and end users who like the extensions.
At least Frank was honest about the state of Uni’s TLDs and what it takes to keep them running. Cutting prices is like saying “hey, we’re really desperate for business!” and is usually followed by closing up shop.
It cost next to nothing to run DNS servers, so companies that charge 100’s of dollars for a name should go bust. For example, .co.za has been priced at less that $8/y for many years and they stockpiled a lot of cash over the years. So down with the sheisters thinking domains are a get rich quick scheme.
Boston Ivy lowered their prices at least a week before the Uniregistry increase.
Also no one guarantees that Boston Ivy will not increase their prices to where they were. I wouldn’t trust them. Sorry.
I had an agreement with Boston Ivy and then they stopped replying to emails. Bad company.
Agreed. What it they decided later, “Hey, we have 30,000 registrations and it looks like financial companies use these. Let’s jack up the prices.”
Seeing how Uniregistry has played the registry game makes others likely to do the same.
I was not implying they did it in response to Uniregistry.
You didn’t imply a response but your title said “just” that seems to be that they did it after the Uniregistry increase.
I said that this was done before so that it is clear that this was totally unrelated.
Create a pie then divide it by 100 then divide that 100 by another 100 and then divide that 100 by another 100 and then try selling each individual slice to a market that knows next to nothing about existing domains let alone the new one’s and your left with lot’s of slices and not many people who want or know anything about pie’s and that’s gTLDs in a nutshell, yes there are always opportunities like any market but the numbers are against you…
Even after their haircut they’re more expensive than .com and not even 1/100 of quality of .com. Another failed attempt in the making.
We did buy several .broker names , worth a shot.
Hemp.broker
Cannabis.broker
Weed.broker
Livestock.broker
Coin.broker
Cruise.broker
Gemstone.broker
Wine.broker
Farm.broker
Artwork.broker
Cigar.broker
Scrap.broker
Are a few of the ones we picked up
I like your domain ‘scrap.broker’, seems relevant to me. I’m guessing you could flip it easily with minimal outreach.
Might be a reverse Move to attract domainers. Registration numbers, even at a loss have some value especially marketplace/brand reach…more outlets as a promotion. Not a solid long term solution in my opinion.
I bet 99.9% of people could not even find a place to register any of these extensions.
I’ve been trying to register a couple of .forex extensions via BostonIvy.co recommended registrars but I find this very hard going.
And the listed price per piece is not USD 30 but USD 49. I guess these sub contractors have not yet adjusted their prices downward.
The question is why you think .forex selling at $49 hasn’t been dropped in price when the original wholesale was $1000
You do understand the wholesale (in this case $30) Is the price the subcontractors pay and not the price you pay
No.
Good move, but the biggest problem remains: not price or marketing but the limited demand for niche extensions.
These registrations really should not be exceeding $30. I don’t think Uniregistry has any idea who will pay $300, and who won’t.
The founders has continually said don’t pay premium for domains, we are seeing it from Boston Ivy, they got no demand, no traction, and they are not even listed at any major exchange for purchase. They are essentially dead in the water, unless they made this change.
As for the party above who said they had an agreement, my guess is they picked a basket of domains, and sent an offer, they had talks, but until you have it signed, sealed, and delivered it ain’t no good, sorry to say.
The agreement was not about domain names.
Nevertheless if we both agree to the price and terms then it is an agreement.
Also to note, Boson Ivy still has many of the top names with $10-55K prices listed.
So do a lot of registries. Take insurance.club for instance…. $220k at one registrar.
Unless they have “grandfathered” existing registrants to remain at the higher price I’d say they are now in a lot of trouble, no way will they sell 33 times more names.
What will happen when they realize cutting the prices 97% only increased demand by 3 fold or 5 fold? This will be a very expensive experiment for them, but at least they can go back to the old pricing when needed.
These registries are doing extreme things with price because there has been no uptake of ntlds, it is getting hard to paper over that fact.
From the looks of it Mr.Phil above bought many more names than he listed, essentially backed the truck up, and every decent matching keyword left he tried to register, along with many of his friends.
At least the registry is making something, and at $30 people are likely to hold for a few years, where at $600 they were DOA.
You can see the effect, volume up about 50%
https://ntldstats.com/tld/broker
Think they are more DOA now than ever. Whereas last month they were looking at $60,000 annual revenue now they have $5,000 annual revenue.
The people picking them up will be in for a shock in the future in my view, the registry will either need to put the prices back up again or sell out to someone who will.
I think it really depends on what names are available. If they make the good names available (i.e 2, 3 and 4 characters – approx 1.7 million combinations if my math is right) I tihink they will do fine.
How much sense would those names make? oe.broker? 34.broker?
You can see the volume though, for a 2nd landrush it hasn’t made much difference.
For some reason the reply button isn’t showing.
To us sure 34.broker doesn’t work but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for someone else. If you look up 34.broker, it is standard price. All other TLDs are selling those types of names at premium price. By the looks of it all NL and LN names are standard price while other registries sell at premium. Same with LLL names. So there seems to be plenty of names available, especially in the 2 and 3 character list.
* Only ran a few tests on availability for NL, LN and LLL.
“To us sure 34.broker doesn’t work but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for someone else”
You could say the same thing about any available name.