Company that operates four financial domains abandons premium renewal model.
Boston Ivy, the top level domain name that operates .broker, .forex, .markets and .trading, will drop premium renewals on premium domain names registered starting May 1.
The move comes after the company significantly cut its standard wholesale prices, and is similar to the move MMX made earlier this year.
Many new top level domain name operators charge premiums on their best domain names, and these premium prices are charged both for the initial registration and each subsequent year.
The high renewal fees effectively shut domain name investors out of the game and can confuse end users.
In addition to dropping premium renewals, Boston Ivy will release tens of thousands of short domain names including two and three-character names. It is also running a $5 promotion in May.
Boston Ivy, an IG business, initially rolled out its four domain names with wholesale prices of $40 to $1,000. It reduced prices earlier this year and saw a registration spike in some domains. For example, .broker domains under management have more than doubled after the wholesale price was slashed from $500 to $20. However, there are still fewer than 500 .broker names in the zone file.
You can see the released names here (.xls) and premium names here (.xls).
You can package anything and call it Premium but after a while people find out the truth.
“For example, .broker domains under management have more than doubled after the wholesale price was slashed from $500 to $20. However, there are still fewer than 500 .broker names in the zone file.”
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This is a pretty big screwup and looks like desperation. They are going to end up with even less revenue as the volume clearly isn’t making up for the price cut. Either way the are unprofitable, but they will be even less viable now.
They probably needed to raise prices given the predicament they were in, not drop them.
They need to get their extensions out in the public eye which they aren’t
Such strategy looks just like the registry it adapting to the market, nothing more. With so many applicants and so many financial TLDs, adapting the price to the market is the right thing to do. Not to forget that this is a niche TLD. Not to forget that selling domain names for a Registry is not the only way to earn money.
During the application round many mentioned that domain prices can only go down after launch, so they would prefer launching at a higher price and then go down according to demand.
I don’t think this is desperation, as someone mentioned above. I think they are just finally seeing what the market wants. You can never go wrong by giving what the market wants. If I had a nickle for every time someone complained about the premium renewal prices, I would be rich. I think it is too early to tell how the registry is going to look. At least they are not selling these names for 99 cents and turning them into spam TLDs like .top for example.
The one thing they need to do is get more registrars. I would sign up with them if I was a registrar now, considering all the potentially good names available. if they do that then you would see the numbers move up quickly.
Until they don’t…(?)
Premium renewals won’t be increased. That sounds good.
Presumably non-premium renewals won’t also be increased, or does this only apply to renewals for premium domain names which the registries hold and are trying to sell at mega-prices. Too much confusion. Needs clarification.
Many of the other new gTLDs are saying that renewals won’t be increased.
Is that FOREVER?
Where is all this contractually written?
IMHO, the problem with the premium name pricing model, either initial sales or renewals, is the registry thinks that they have something valuable in a “good” domain name, and can charge for it. They do not. When a business uses a good domain name and creates a brand around it that consumers associate with a product or service that consumers want, then value is created. Similarly if a good domain generates organic type in traffic it could be valuable if someone can convert the trafic to revenue. Otherwise it is nothing.
So you are arguing that an unused .com domain has no value, too?
I’m arguing it is not the registry’s value. An unused com is worth something but the value does not belong to the registry. It removes incentive to invest in the name if someone else gets the benefit. Even speculators add value and help a market function. People who speculate in real estate help price discovery, make a market, smooth over irrational market corrections, etc. If the property recording agency got all the extra value in a good location it would harm the market, and if they took too much of the extra value it would move people to less desirable properties so that at least they could benefit from their development of the property.
Their tlds need to be made available on all the mainstream registrars in order to reach end users (I think they are working on this). Boston Ivy owns only a few tlds but their tlds are top quality terms related to finance. It may take them a few years to be popular and for their tlds to have many registrations. Decreasing renewal prices is the way to go. It is proven that even big companies would not buy or invest in domains that have high renewals. If you own domains that have high renewals, it will not be easy to find a buyer hence the resale price will decrease dramatically even if you own category killer names. I think Boston Ivy is taking time to do this because they do proper research and study before deciding to implement things for the benefit of their company and for the benefit of domain investors and end users.