Encirca .Pro Reg Fees & Proxy Loophole

[akcampbell]

What do people think will happen to Encirca's $99 .Pro registration fee and proxy loophole if ICANN approve the current .Pro registry proposals to ease restrictions?

Presumably, if there are no pre-checking requirements and people can tick a box to agree to Registry.Pro's Terms of Use, there is less justification for a reg fee tenfold higher than any other gTLD?

The general consensus amoung domainers is that they would be prepared to pay $10-$20 for a .Pro but not $99. Surely, it would make more commercial sense For Encirca to sell 25,000 .Pros for $20 than 5,000 at $99?

There were 266,663 application for .Asia on the first day of the landrush period. Unlike .Pro, .Asia is geographically limited, isn't a gTLD, and arguably doesn't work as much magic on a keyword as .Pro.

I'm grateful to Encirca for providing the .Pro loophole in the first place and keeping .Pro afloat and if it was a choice between sticking with Encirca or transferring my domains to a bigger registrar, I would stick with Encirca provided there wasn't a significant difference in reg fees.

However, I'm pretty sure that other registrants who don't have the same loophole history would opt for the brand security of Godaddy or Moniker given the choice so if I was Tom Barratt, I'd want to take advantage of my first mover advantage and sweep up as many .Pro landrush customers as possible before bigger registrars move in.

If bigger registrars do put .Pro on their registration panels, and Encirca are sitting on 4,500 .Pros, they will have a problem. Bigger registrars can sell hundreds of thousands of .Pros during the landrush period. At that point Registry.pro won't need Encirca and will be less likely to turn a blind eye to the proxy loophole. That will kill Encirca's .Pro business.

I don't understand why Encirca removed the 25% holiday discount the week Registry.pro announced ICANN were considering relaxing the registration restriction. Surely, it would have made more sense to reinforce that ripple of interest by slashing reg fees and going flat out for landrush registrations before somebody else does.

I don't think Tom is maximising Encirca or Registry.Pro's revenue, safeguarding Encirca's market position, or optimising the development of .Pro by adopting a price skimming strategy. Price skimming is justified in the first few days of landrush as an allocation method and for helping registrars recoup start up costs but after 3-4 years all .Pro's worth $99 of anybody's money have been registered, so it's time to move on and get the domains people will pay $50, $20, or $5 for in the bag.

Encirca has built up alot of goodwill and loyalty among .Pro domainers but it's important Tom shows leadership on the issue of reg fees and trades off margin for volume sooner rather than later so .Pro can compete on a level playing field against other gTLD's.

Two options I am considering is either starting my own .Pro registrar offering discounted .Pros or doing a deal with a small registrar to offer discounted .Pro registrations in return for the business of the biggest professionally qualified .Pro domainers.

It would be good to hear .Pro domainers' views on this and especially Tom's views because I know he reads our posts and posts here sometimes.

 

[Ben42]

The only way to bring down the price is for there to be competition. Hopefully these new .pro rules will bring others into the mix.

Personally, I think if we want to see other registrars pick up .pro we have to lobby them. I've sent an email to Bob Parson's...it's a start. I would encourage others to contact their favorite registrars as well...Godaddy is my favorite for now, but no reason they have to stay that way.

 

[akcampbell]

I don't think other registrars will be interested in .Pro until Registry.pro stop charging them $50 per second level .Pro wholesale. The registry->registrar fee is contractually $6 but a .Pro has to include a digital certificate and Registry.Pro exploits this to justify an additional $44 mark-up. Encirca adds on another $49 to get to the current $99 reg fee. Proxy registrants don't receive the digital certification they are notionally paying for.

If there wasn't a requirement for a .Pro to be bundled with a digital certificate Registry.pro could only charge registrars $6. If registrars were paying $6 and didn't have to do authentication checks per the current restriction removal proposals, then other registrars might be interested but as things stand, prices might come down to $70 if we are lucky and that's still only the level of the 07 holiday promotion and 40% higher than the previous $49 promotion which Encirca and Registry.pro subsidised by taking $25 each instead of the usual $50.

As I said in my ICANN feedback, removing restrictions will do little to improve things for .Pro until the digital certificate issue is addressed. Encirca customers have been registering by proxy without restrictions since March 2005. Any spike in .Pro demand related to restriction removal happened then.

The virtual absence of interest in .Pro since is all down to the $99 reg fee and lifting restrictions will only give fees scope to fall to $70 not the $5-$10 that they would need to fall to to compete against other gTLD's on a level playing field.

Removing restrictions will give other registrars scope to compete down the second $50 slice of the current reg fee because they won't need to pre-check registrants but it doesn't address the first $50 slice of the fee. What's going to happen is that other registrars won't be interested in paying $50 for a .Pro wholesale so Encirca will be left with it's virtual monopoly and even the second $50 slice of the fee will be left unchallenged.

Therefore it's critical ICANN do something about the digital certificate bundling, this will get the wholesale price of .Pro's down and encourage bigger registrars to compete down the $49 registrar mark up. Without digital certificate bundling, .Pro reg fees would fall to $10-$15, with them they will stay at $80-$100 and .Pro will have as few registrants in 2011 as it does now.