Please help - Question about Registrars

[fasteasycash]

Hi,

I wonder if you could help me. This website seems to contain a knowledgable and approachable community. I am currently researching the domain industry for my business studies degree coursework. I cannot seem to find information about the cost of sales of registrars. For example GoDaddy sell a domain at $8.95, what costs would Godaddy incur? Is there an ICANN cut, etc....?

Any help would be very much appreciated

Thanks
Kindest Regards
Craig

[Dave Zan]

Some bits to help you get started:

http://www.verisign.com/press_releas...ge_041054.html

VeriSign announced that as of Oct. 15, 2007, the registry fee for .com domain names will increase from $6.00 to $6.42 and that the registry fee for .net domain names will increase, from $3.50 to $3.85. This will be the first registry fee increase for .com and .net since the fee structure was put in place by ICANN in 1999.

The prices stated there have gone up since that time. Then VeriSign said they
will raise it again:

http://www.verisign.com/press_releas...ge_043470.html

VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN), the leading provider of Internet infrastructure for the networked world, today announced, effective as of October 1, 2008, an increase in registry domain name fees for .com and .net, per its agreements with ICANN.

VeriSign announced that the registry fee for .com domain names will increase from $6.42 to $6.86 and that the registry fee for .net domain names will increase, from $3.85 to $4.23.

Somewhere in ICANN's site they state they charge registrars $0.20 for a new
.com or so registration.

Of course, that's not taking into account merchant fees, overhead...

[Rebel.com]

Well Dave beat me to it and his answer is bang on! If you need any more information about registrars feel free to PM me. I currently run business development for 4 registrars and a drop catcher.

Cheers,
Jason

[Keyword Factory]

What it comes to is that no registrar could survive on domain registrations alone. Many people here have unrealistic expectations of service levels and expect registrars to function on tiny profits. It is funny how people expect an account executive to handle their account when they propbably spend much more at a supermarket yet there is no expectation of an account executive following them around as they load their cart.

[Rebel.com]

This is very true, registrars selling domains and making very little profit are usually recovering those profits elsewhere such as their parking programs. Some registrars will only give you the good pricing if you park with them and then they recover the profits in their share of the parking revenue.

Other registrars sell cheap in order to gain market share, some even sell at a loss. The question is how do you maintain a business like this? How can you provide support to those customers if you can't afford staff? Be very weary of registrars selling cheap...you get what you pay for.