register.com ouch!

Register.com slides on 'disappointing' Q2 results (RCOM)
Shares of Register.com (RCOM) are slumping $2.04, or 28 percent, to $5.21 in pre-open trading after the domain name registrar reported late Monday second quarter earnings that missed expectations .
All these geniuses ("analysts" ) need to do is read the state of the domain report.......

[bidawinner]

Well lets see..register.com wants $35 a year while everyone else wants $8.99 per domain roughly..gee I wonder why our registrations are slipping !LOL they have to sell VOLUME to compete and you dont do volume by being the most expensive hotdog vender on the block.. 101 register.com 101

BID

I see the stock trading at 2 bucks (althoguh I don't know what I am talking about...).... ripe for Net Sol adquisition....

[Domain]

If a registrar is going to charge a premium price for domain name registrations then the user experience at that registrar should be superior to all other registrars. The businesses that are charging $35.00 a name could learn a lesson or two from enom. enom has become #1 in growth by offering superior customer service and functionality.

Originally posted by bidawinner
Well lets see..register.com wants $35 a year while everyone else wants $8.99 per domain roughly..gee I wonder why our registrations are slipping !LOL they have to sell VOLUME to compete and you dont do volume by being the most expensive hotdog vender on the block.. 101 register.com 101

BID

easy to say they say they need to lower their prices buy if they do that they are going to suffer a massive revenue fall anyway. Register.com likely have a big % of customers who don't care much what they pay so reducing the prices for everyone to compete with discount registrars would likely be financial suicide even though volumes could be maintained.

Keeping the price high while offer a cheap registrar alternative (namebargain.com) is a sound stratergy in my opnion, and better than simply reducing prices for all your customers - lets face it; all the registrars with publically available info look to be doing badly right now.

When you look at the cheaper registrars how many are actually making money? opensrs weren't last I heard, and wouldn't be surprised if enom was in the same boat. Even if they had 30% of the market, what does it matter if you aren't making money?

[domainscot]

bucket shops rule people get wise and start to learn about prices

Their prices have always been too high, but then again a lot of big corps use them because of the security aspect or something.

Oh well. Im sticking with the likes of GoDaddy- stupid name, great value

Alicia

Register.com uses resellers who can sell for anything they want, and have their own direct, more expensive registration service - sort of like eNom. They make money on both the wholesale and retail end of the business.

eNom offers retail registration for a much higher price than most of their resellers do as well.

-t

[fizz]

IMO the rapid demise of the Afternic forums has impacted on Register.com. They had a gem in Afternic - and paid many millions for it - but by letting its forums go unmoderated meant they were hijacked by a few angry individuals and abuse was rampant.

The total removal of the forums was a bad business decision as the traffic was huge and they were serving up plently of Register.com ads, and it highlighted the auctions and the registrar. Having forum moderators would have been a much smarter decision for Afternic and Register.com.

The other problem was with their former auction payment system, which led to many grievances. Register.com should have moved much sooner to install a trusted escrow system.

[abrams1117]

I think that AfterNic shot itself in the foot when it took away appraisals.
People may have appraised Domains for a 1,000 times their true value,but, it was :
fun.

Are they still around?

lol

[FineE]

I renember when I was their customer paid $35 / reg and thier stock was trading at around $100.

Now I am a competitor at $8.75, 1 / 4 of their price. How many other former customers have become competitors at a fraction of thier price? No wonder the stock is trading so low.

[Bob]

Originally posted by fizz
IMO the rapid demise of the Afternic forums has impacted on Register.com. They had a gem in Afternic - and paid many millions for it - but by letting its forums go unmoderated meant they were hijacked by a few angry individuals and abuse was rampant.

Another demise was the poor escrow procedure.

This situation actually happened to me not once, but TWICE (and to at least another person).

1) Person bids on an action an AN
2) Auction closes with reserve met
3) Buyer pays with credit card.
4) As soon as payment is entered, AN tells the seller to transfer the name
5) Seller gets name. May or may not confirm transfer.
6) AN waits several weeks to pay seller

The problem starts with #4 - There is no verification time in there. As soon as the payment is submitted, you are INSTRUCTED by the escrow department to transfer the name.

I had two names sold, one for $2800 and one for $2600. The buyer paid for them with a stolen credt card. AN immediately told me to transfer the names. I did. Buyer ran off. 4 weeks later I get a call from Register.com asking me not to transfer the names because the credit card is stolen.

Well, too late for me.

Isn't that the point of an escrow service? To verify funds? Isn't that what we were paying them $50 (or 5%) to do? For me, losing 2 names and over $5000 was the last time I dealt with AN. The original owners certainly made a bundle. Good for them. It wa a great place while they had it.

-Bob

[EroGenius]

Originally posted by thewitt
Register.com uses resellers who can sell for anything they want, and have their own direct, more expensive registration service - sort of like eNom. They make money on both the wholesale and retail end of the business.
eNom offers retail registration for a much higher price than most of their resellers do as well.
-t

Yeah. Register.com's wholesale prices are $20. So, theoretically, their resellers can earn $15 ($35 SRP). They do the CC processing (or you can).

At $6.95-$8.95 based on volume pre-pay with an API for integrating it into your business, Enom is a much better deal by far. RegistryRocket is a neat service, but not a solution for everyone. I don't even think I'd want to do PDQ, but its good to have. A combination between my.register.com and PDQ (level of customization and automation), and Enom prices would be a killer service.

~ EG

Your prices for register.com wholesale are not anywhere near what they quoted me...

I did not discard them as a supplier based on wholesale price.

-t