Disruptive Registrar Company Setup?

[cato]

As I look around the landscape of Registrars, I see essentially the same kind of model - website where domains can be purchased, along with hosting, SSL, Email, etc.

Does this work?
Is there a better way to provide these services?
What is missing from the providers?
What would you recommend as best practices for these services?
What motivates you to buy from one versus another?


Thanks for your feedback!

 

[iowadawg]

And why?

You do not like namecheap, name.com, godaddy, enom, and a few hundred others?

If there is a better way, one or most of them will do it.

Now that you got your answer.

See if you can post another question that makes no sense.

 

[cato]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Actually I don't like what they do, there is no originality, they all look the same.

Maybe someone like you can use your brain to do something different and unique - a better way as you mention?


Does that question make sense?

 

[SearchEngineZ]

What is missing, and probably will always be so, is a bare-bones registrar that offers the cheapest prices + cheapest renewals, that is 100% trustworthy and fair, and will be around for ever.

Perhaps a major hosting or marketing services company could develop such, without any expectation of profit, just as a way of getting more leads for their core business?

 

[Joseph Green]

It is a highly competitive industry, so I wouldn't recommend starting a registrar. People are very loyal to their registrars, mainly because it is too time consuming to switch and learn a new interface. If it was fast and simple to switch registrars, then it would happen more often. Otherwise, it will take a lot of motivating and marketing to convince people to bother.

The biggest incentive is cost. Time is also a cost. Dedicated account managers can help with that.

As for disruption, the real opportunity there lies behind registries that also run a registrar, like Frank's Uniregistry.

There are a lot of services that can be integrated with domains at that level, such as security with .secure and trust with .bank

See if you can post another question that makes no sense.

That was unnecessary. It's a legitimate question in an industry that hasn't evolved in years.

 

[Name Trader]

Its basically a mixture of price, features, usability. GoDaddy.com has the predominant market share and coupons, Although my preferred registrar is Dynadot.com. You should never buy your hosting from the same company you choose as your registrar. The hosting market is even more fragmented than the registration market. There are a lot of good (and bad) small hosting companies. I personally use, BigBrainGlobal.com

 

[Rebies]

What is missing, and probably will always be so, is a bare-bones registrar that offers the cheapest prices + cheapest renewals, that is 100% trustworthy and fair, and will be around for ever.

Perhaps a major hosting or marketing services company could develop such, without any expectation of profit, just as a way of getting more leads for their core business?

Hmm. We do just that. We don't markup domains. We have a simple interface. And we are not profiting from most domain name registrations. Because we get it and are focused on growing. Give NameBright a try if you like. You won't find many of our customers who don't find it easier and cheaper!

 

[Dave_Z]

that is 100% trustworthy and fair, and will be around for ever.

He he, not gonna happen because different people have different ideas -- although they sometimes converge -- on what is "trustworthy and fair". Registrars and consumers, after all, come from their respective positions.

Still, some registrars try even if just maybe 99.99%. How they'll differentiate among themselves towards consumers is a challenge they constantly face.

Personally, I go for a registrar (i.e. Name.com, whom I'm using) that is at least forthright in their answers -- even if they maybe hurt.

 

[alien51]

What is missing, and probably will always be so, is a bare-bones registrar that offers the cheapest prices + cheapest renewals, that is 100% trustworthy and fair, and will be around for ever.

Quality is expensive. So "cheap" and "quality" do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. That is why people invented the term "you get what you paid for".

And besides, a business that is surviving on just very small profit margins, may not be a very interesting business to keep in the long run. Some things like "time spent and emotional stress" have unmeasured financial value, that if you add them to your cost, you would end up losing money instead. It's not worth it.

That's the same idea with Domaining for lots of people. Sometimes if you are just earning 50 or 100 bucks, that profit may not be enough to compensate the amount of time and effort you spent spamming emails, countless hours scanning drop lists, and going all through the negotiations and all.

So you would need to understand that some business will have to raise their prices, otherwise the business would not be very worthwhile to run.

Perhaps a major hosting or marketing services company could develop such, without any expectation of profit, just as a way of getting more leads for their core business?

That strategy has been done by others, outside the Domaining business.

For example, Sony and Microsoft are both losing money on their PlayStation and XBOX consoles. They are not earning anything from selling these game machines. But they try to lure customers to their platform, so they can sell game software. And that's where they make money.

Another perfect example is Google. They give away free software to attract customers to their software platform. Then they earn money from advertisers who take advantage of customers going to Google.