Yahoo Renewals at $34.95

[AHA7]

Hello,

It's not enough that their domain service sucks (disclaimer: I didn't try it personally but that's what I hear a lot), Yahoo has also decided to raise their annual renewal fee to $34.95!

If you're a Yahoo domain customer you'd better watch for what you're being charged

 

[weblord]

it reminds me of our local .ph registrar which charges U.S.$35/year but for new names you need to register it for 2 years.

 

[HuntingMoon]

getting into the registrar business and then raising their prices like this shows a lack of respect for the customer. there is no value added by yahoo in the registrar business and this move is lame.

 

[verbster]

I get a bit nervous when I see a dominant company make a marketing decision that seems to fly in the face of competition, let alone customer respect....makes me think something wicked this way comes.

Rasing renewal and registratiion prices to over $30 is kind of like popping gas prices up to $8 per gallon...most average and low income buyers won't be able to afford it and won't buy as much.

If other registrars (or ICANN) decide to raise prices accordingly, it would be an easy way to discourage people from buying just to resell or park, wouldn't it? And there are many other favorable consequences for richer domainers, registrars and such...enough to offset the negatives, I would guess. Even if the renewal/new reg totals drop by half, they still come out ahead when the price increase triples...

Look what it would do to parking, typos, TM issues, advertisers, and on and on.

Maybe competition will work it's magic and keep prices down, but the trend is not looking good...especially when it's not just the registrars that set prices.

 

[accent]

I tried a Yahoo store several years ago. Two months later I shut it down - I was getting about one visitor per day - not one sale, mind you, one visitor. A several hundred dollar lesson ---> Yahoo, as a result of their huge customer base, has no competition. A sufficient number of people will look to them and nowhere else for whatever they are selling, out of laziness and fear of the unknown.

So whatever they do is not an indication of any overall market trend.

Seems that I remember they started out selling domains below cost. Also, I heard somewhere that you cannot transfer out Yahoo domains. A rather ugly business practice, if true.

 

[raredn.com]

I tried a Yahoo store several years ago. Two months later I shut it down - I was getting about one visitor per day - not one sale, mind you, one visitor. A several hundred dollar lesson ---> Yahoo, as a result of their huge customer base, has no competition. A sufficient number of people will look to them and nowhere else for whatever they are selling, out of laziness and fear of the unknown.

So whatever they do is not an indication of any overall market trend.

Seems that I remember they started out selling domains below cost. Also, I heard somewhere that you cannot transfer out Yahoo domains. A rather ugly business practice, if true.

yahoo yahoo yahoo, what have you done

 

[flamewalker]

Rasing renewal and registratiion prices to over $30 is kind of like popping gas prices up to $8 per gallon...most average and low income buyers won't be able to afford it and won't buy as much.

More like the price of gas going from $2 per gallon to $10 per gallon ($34 = roughly 5x the wholesale price of domains, ~$7).