pfj
Established Member
- Impact
- 72
I'm really not sure why anyone would register .business or .company - unless the domains are "pointless.business" or "struggling.company" (both available for registration! go get 'em, boys!) - but in a an attempt to rescue these two clunky gTLD strings from their slow descent into pointlessness, Donuts have announced that they will slash wholesale pricing from October 1st - but only for new customers. Renewals (and registration of previously registered names) will follow the older higher pricing.
With .business racking up a mere 12000 registrations in the 21 months since launching in December 2014 - and registrations taking a steep dive in February this year - there seems little chance that a price slash will drive much in the way of an increase in registrations.
While .company has fared somewhat better - achieving around 46,000 registrations in the 29 months since launch in March 2014 - this gTLD and its stablemate seem to amassed a significant proportion (in excess of 40%) of registrations through GoDaddy where the names have been on near-permanent promotion and currently retail for £7.99 a piece.
Other registrars are pitching the names at around double the price, suggesting that Donuts strategy might be to equalise pricing across their registrar partners, hopefully spurring promotional activity and growth in registrations. Assuming that current wholesale pricing is around the $10 mark and assuming that a significant number of these names have been registered at a substantially discounted wholesale price made available to GoDaddy, the registries are clearly struggling to break even, with .company perhaps bringing in gross revenue of around $300k while .business may be falling as much as $100k shy of the standard ICANN new gTLD application fee of $185k.
More broadly, it gives an interesting insight into the challenges faced by niche registries: the appeal of either of these domains is severely limited and even with bargain basement pricing they are struggling to grow their pool of registrations.
Will a price cut to these domains spur interest? Can either of them drive significant volumes of registrations? Is it fair for Donuts to introduce preferential pricing for new customers while early adopters are locked into paying more? Do any NamePros users hold interesting domains in either registry? Should registries be able to discriminate against existing customers like this?
With .business racking up a mere 12000 registrations in the 21 months since launching in December 2014 - and registrations taking a steep dive in February this year - there seems little chance that a price slash will drive much in the way of an increase in registrations.
While .company has fared somewhat better - achieving around 46,000 registrations in the 29 months since launch in March 2014 - this gTLD and its stablemate seem to amassed a significant proportion (in excess of 40%) of registrations through GoDaddy where the names have been on near-permanent promotion and currently retail for £7.99 a piece.
Other registrars are pitching the names at around double the price, suggesting that Donuts strategy might be to equalise pricing across their registrar partners, hopefully spurring promotional activity and growth in registrations. Assuming that current wholesale pricing is around the $10 mark and assuming that a significant number of these names have been registered at a substantially discounted wholesale price made available to GoDaddy, the registries are clearly struggling to break even, with .company perhaps bringing in gross revenue of around $300k while .business may be falling as much as $100k shy of the standard ICANN new gTLD application fee of $185k.
More broadly, it gives an interesting insight into the challenges faced by niche registries: the appeal of either of these domains is severely limited and even with bargain basement pricing they are struggling to grow their pool of registrations.
Will a price cut to these domains spur interest? Can either of them drive significant volumes of registrations? Is it fair for Donuts to introduce preferential pricing for new customers while early adopters are locked into paying more? Do any NamePros users hold interesting domains in either registry? Should registries be able to discriminate against existing customers like this?
