new gtlds What are your '.best' domain names?

DomainFQ.com said:

freight.Best
usr.Best
ipl.Best
pwr.Best

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Congrats

@Cyril.Best
Would you please let me know the renewal price of .best start in August this year?
Thank you

BabayS said:

@Cyril.Best
Would you please let me know the renewal price of .best start in August this year?
Thank you

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Cyril has not been active on NP for a long time but if he does reply you may not like that it is high and about double what .com is

namemarket said:

Cyril has not been active on NP for a long time but if he does reply you may not like that it is high and about double what .com is

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Is he?
Thanks for the info...
As he said that renewal price of .best will be reduced, begin on August 2019?
Am I wrong?

BabayS said:

Is he?
Thanks for the info...
As he said that renewal price of .best will be reduced, begin on August 2019?
Am I wrong?

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No you are correct. The renewal price was as promised reduced from about $70 to a wholesale to registrars of $15 on Aug 5. You can see retail values at various registrars on TLD-list but a number in $1 7-18 range.
Bob

Any inquiries or traditional silence?

Hi,

Sorry to not have been answering to you here before, but I was super busy over the last days with our pricing transition so would be sure first that everything was ok for our registrants with our registrars on the new .Best pricing before getting back to you. We still have few issues to fix locally with some .Best registrars but globally I can say that 99% of the pricing transition process is now complete with our registrars.

So, first on the .Best pricing, we have done what was announced here 6 months ago, I mean a pricing reduction of +75% on the renewal and standard registration price from $70 to $15 wholesale.

I can totally understand that $15 still represents a high fee for a lot of people (and even compare to dotcom).

So now, let me give you a few points on how and why we decided the set the new .Best wholesale renewal pricing at $15 coz I think that it's interesting also for registrants to understand what is actually happening/changing on the market.

The first thing is that the trend for registries is much more to increase their renewal price rather than lowering them. (There is, of course, still counter-examples but I mean globally)

It's not new but you probably know that Verisign has decided an increase plan with ICANN agreement to enter into a contract that would allow Verisign to increase .com prices 7% in each of the last four of each six years of the contract. So globally, dotcom renewals will also be an increase of 28% in the next years.

But the real reason why we choose to set our pricing at $15 is that the marketing is changing on the registrar-side.

I explain: there is actually two business model on the registrar-side.

1. The ones that are paying directly their marketing and charge more their registrants.
(coz of course if you advertize the Superbowl, then you could easily understand that you should also have an ROI on your marketing expenses - it's totally normal).

2. The ones that are investing in marketing, charge less the registrants on the retail price but charge the registries for the marketing. Coz at the end of the day, someone should pay the marketing.

And what is happening in the domain name industry is that the second business model is becoming more and more popular for registrars.

I don't want to go too far in details here but the ROI on selling a domain name is going to be more and more difficult in the next months for a lot of registries and I am pretty sure that it will also generate a lot of TLD merging/concentration for the ones that haven't find a usage of their TLD.

It starts already (.global was sold to affilias a few weeks ago for instance) and it will continue more and more in the next months.

So, of course, this will have also an impact on the renewal pricing for registrants in the future.

As for .Best we have decided to lower our pricing both on the wholesale renewal but also on the 1st year registration for the first year to enable .best registrants to enter the game at $1 and renew at $15.

We are now about 25K .Best live domains and just 6 months now from the public opening of the.best social network so still with great opportunities for registrants that understand that usage is the key to be successful in the long term.

Let me know if I can help with anything.

All the .Best for your future trade.

CF

BabayS said:

@Cyril.Best
Would you please let me know the renewal price of .best start in August this year?
Thank you

Click to expand...

Hi Babays,

On the .Best pricing, we have done what was announced here 6 months ago, I mean a pricing reduction of +75% on the wholesale renewal and standard registration price from $70 to $15 wholesale for our registrars.

You can check the final retail prices with our registrars on dynadot, ovh, namecheap, namesilo, ...

$1 first year $15 after is perfect! You are on the right path. I like to invest in ntld that has their crap together!

JayT said:

$1 first year $15 after is perfect! You are on the right path. I like to invest in ntld that has their crap together!

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Starting Today go just reg Jay.Best

Cyril.Best said:

...The first thing is that the trend for registries is much more to increase their renewal price rather than lowering them...

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Thanks for the detailed feedback on pricing Cyril. A big problem is even though .best renewals at registrar level went down from $80 (Godaddy early in year) to $17.50 (at Dynadot today) which makes the lowering of renewals seem very large but of dubious value..

With that said, I believe the vast majority of us paid in a range of $1.49 to $2.99 for .best with the great deals offered by several registrars earlier in year.

So for myself (average cost of buying being $2.50) a $17.50 renewal is NOT a reduction in my cost but instead is a massive 700% increase making likelihood of renewing most of my .best extremely unlikely.

^ reality is, costs money to operate. He is losing money at $1 each, .com is going to be around $10 soon and there are many millions of those...profits margins don't matter as much if you have so many domains sold.

Cyril.Best said:

Hi Babays,

On the .Best pricing, we have done what was announced here 6 months ago, I mean a pricing reduction of +75% on the wholesale renewal and standard registration price from $70 to $15 wholesale for our registrars.

You can check the final retail prices with our registrars on dynadot, ovh, namecheap, namesilo, ...

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Thank you very much @Cyril.Best

JayT said:

$1 first year $15 after is perfect! You are on the right path. I like to invest in ntld that has their crap together!

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Agree...

namemarket said:

Thanks for the detailed feedback on pricing Cyril. A big problem is even though .best renewals at registrar level went down from $80 (Godaddy early in year) to $17.50 (at Dynadot today) which makes the lowering of renewals seem very large but of dubious value..

With that said, I believe the vast majority of us paid in a range of $1.49 to $2.99 for .best with the great deals offered by several registrars earlier in year.

So for myself (average cost of buying being $2.50) a $17.50 renewal is NOT a reduction in my cost but instead is a massive 700% increase making likelihood of renewing most of my .best extremely unlikely.

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First, $17.50 for 2 years for a .Best is equal to 2 years of .com

But if you (or other .Best domain investors) would like to renew a lot of .Best domains for many years in advance to secure and reduce your renewal pricing, I can work on a special discount. Just DM the list of .Best domains you want to renew and for how many years and I can work on a special discount.

Thanks so much for getting active on NPs again @Cyril.Best and your comments re registry economics and trends in pricing are very informative. It is also great to see the major promised reduction in .best renewals as promised. That should help the aftermarket, and your comment about individual deals for those with large portfolios willing to renew multiple years is a further encouraging sign.

Sorry to be a stickler for details, but unless I am mistaken, the following is not quite accurate:

Cyril.Best said:

would allow Verisign to increase .com prices 7% in each of the last four of each six years of the contract

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My understanding is that it is a 6% per year increase that has been approved by US admin (for the last 4 yr of 6 yr contract like you say). With compounding effects that amounts to a 31% increase by the end of the 4 year period.

Bob

Bob Hawkes said:

Thanks so much for getting active on NPs again @Cyril.Best and your comments re registry economics and trends in pricing are very informative. It is also great to see the major promised reduction in .best renewals as promised. That should help the aftermarket, and your comment about individual deals for those with large portfolios willing to renew multiple years is a further encouraging sign.

Sorry to be a stickler for details, but unless I am mistaken, the following is not quite accurate:
My understanding is that it is a 6% per year increase that has been approved by US admin (for the last 4 yr of 6 yr contract like you say). With compounding effects that amounts to a 31% increase by the end of the 4 year period.

Bob

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Thanks Bob for the support and for the correction if was mistaken.

I got my info from DNW but don't know if the details are still 100% accurate.
Read it by yourlself ; https://domainnamewire.com/2019/02/19/verisigns-annual-report-and-com-price-increases/

Let me know if I can help the domainer community with registrars for domainers that would like to invest or secure their .best domains in the long term.

We will also communicate much more in september once the .Best pricing transition will be totally done on future .Best opportunities related to our social network.

All the .Best

CF

Hi @Cyril.Best My apologies. So it appears that my memory was faulty (not surprising or only time! ) and I should have checked before posting. So it does appear to be 7% per year for each of 4 years which with compounding is 31% over 4 year period (so i remembered that result right but not the per year). Anyway, my apologies, and thanks for catching it.

Bob

ps Re the social network, what is the best link to learn more about it?

In case people have not noticed there have recently been some aftermarket sales in .best. NameBio show that car and buy sold for $250, $260 a day or so ago. Also this month DNPric.es are showing a sale this month of house for $275. In the nonpublic subscription part of NameBio there are 3 additional sales above $85 each but less than $100. While we certainly hope to see more substantial sales, it is encouraging to finally see some modest ones. None of these are my sales.
Bob