Starting a domain registration service...

com · Jan 7, 2003

Hey, all, how is everyone doing?

I am thinking of starting a domain registration service. Can someone please point me to any resources describing the process in detail?

What do i need in order to start?

What are some pitfalls to watch for?

What are the pros and cons of the business?

Thank you in advance.

DotComster · Jan 8, 2003

Domain reselling is much easier and cheaper. Becomeing a Registrar is a $100K project I think, and the profit margins are just too thin these days.

com · Jan 8, 2003

Point taken. Same questions now for Domain Reselling. Anyone?

DomainOrders · Jan 8, 2003

One con, in my opinion, is that there is a LOT of competition out there (a lot of people (re)selling domains), many at some pretty low prices, and not much profit margin. For example, I can give you a $8.95 reseller account where your cost for .com is 8.95/yr. You'd have to resell those for around $11/yr and come out with less than $1 profit after you pay credit card fees. The thing would be if you can develop a good market for yourself, selling a good quantity of names, and you get enough money to where you can get a reseller account where the domains cost you less. Then you might be able to sell them for $9-$10/yr and come out with $1-$2 profit. But you'd be selling enough of them that it would add up.

A couple of pros: it gives you an opportunity to save money on domain purchases for yourself, and it makes a nice add-on to other things, such as hosting, a site with webmaster tools, etc.

Another pro -- you get to engage in a forum like this with all the nice people we have around here!

com · Jan 8, 2003

Thats the point. I will be providing domain registration as an additional service on my site. It will not be my #1 source of income, i just need it to complete the picture.

ObtainADomain · Jan 11, 2003

You mentioned that reselling is not your main priority, a side source of income. As someone dabbling in reselling as a hobby myself, I've honestly found that reselling through Godaddy (Wild West Domains) to be the most hassel free and one of the more professional looking of the resellers and you might want to consider it especially if you don't want put too much work into reselling:

http://www.wildwestdomains.com/defaultwwd.asp?prog_id=wildwestdomains

My Enom reseller is requiring a lot of work to make it look nice (trying to use API/PHP) and it still isn't set up yet (Godaddy set up in less than an hour). The Enom PDQ (the ready made interface from Enom) just has such a cheap look to it. If I was a novice at buying domains and I came across a PDQ site, I would move on as the cheap looks makes me think: "Don't trust this site."

As to my attempt at a Do-dora reseller, don't ask!

ObtainADomain