$6.95 Stargate New REGULAR Registration Price???

[lawpsych]

Wow ... it appears that the competition for domain registrations is really heating up. Unless I'm hallucinating, :cheeky: I just received a notice via email that Stargate has dropped its REGULAR registration price to $6.95 for .com domain registrations plus a $.25 "ICANN" fee. If this is for real, what will ENOM and other registrars with similar "RESELLER" account prices do to respond?? Just think of how much each of us spent to purchase the rights to a $6.95 reseller account at ENOM. Does anyone have additional information and/or predictions about what is likely to happen next?

By the way, the same information indicated that Stargate will be offering .info registrations for $1.00 plus the "ICANN" fee of $.25 per domain.

This really brings a smile to my face. Back in the "old days," about two years ago, I was told by a senior staff member at Stargate that ENOM would be pricing itself out of the market within 6 months by offering to register domains at that price.

Karma can be a real challenge (you know what I really wanted to say) at times.

Will someone else please check out this information and confirm that the information I have received is accurate? Can this really be true? What is going to happen next?

Hoping to be bringing you all good news,
Sheila

 

[typeins]

Hmmm.. yeah but arent there issues with their system?..

I remember there being some issue when a name i snapped or whatever ended up there.. was hard as anything to transfer it

 

[Dave Zan]

It says so in their main site stargate.com:

New Domain Names $6.95/year*
FREE with every domain!
FREE Registrant changes
FREE DomainLock
FREE URL Forwarding
FREE DNS Control
* plus ICANN fee

But remember, you get what you pay for. :wink:

 

[Theo]

Have used Stargate since 2000. Every registrar has had ups and downs. Currently, Stargate.com has a very versatile back-end manager for the domains and has moved to the right direction with added features, policies for expiring names and pricewise.

 

[typeins]

Yeah well i pay the same at eNom anyway.. so i dont plan on moving

 

[Castlemelody]

Greetings!

They require a redemption fee of $149.95 USD (as of writing and based on their FAQ). From my experience this applies immediately after your domain expires. There was once a problem with our credit card and we were not able to renew our domains. We ended up paying $119.95 for an expired domain. Aargh.

When we have the available funds, we may transfer to another registrar if this goes on and on.

 

[David G]

I may be mistaken but isn't Stargate the registrar who got lots of poor publicity a while back for wanting a costly fee to allow transfers away. Also for putting names right away into redemption and wanting a big fee for that too?

http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?t=62544&highlight=stargate

 

[typeins]

I dont know if they asked for a fee.. but i remember it was VERY hard to get my domains from there.

 

[lawpsych]

The point I am most interested in exploring is the issue of competition amongst registrars. Does anyone think that any of these lower prices will eventually lead to Enom's lowering their prices to resellers? How can resellers make any profits registering domain names if customers can acquire domains for $6.95 on their own? I would be interested in hearing any thoughts on this issue.

Best regards,
Sheila

 

[typeins]

Hmm.. even at $6.95 theres still some profit in there... not for the little guys.. but if ya have a million or 2 names then theres a few mil per year..

I think most registars take a hit on domains and make the money on the services anyway. pop email packs for $10.. blah blah..

 

[starg8]

I may be mistaken but isn't Stargate the registrar who got lots of poor publicity a while back for wanting a costly fee to allow transfers away. Also for putting names right away into redemption and wanting a big fee for that too?

http://www.dnforum.com/showthread.php?t=62544&highlight=stargate

Trader,

Stargate has never charged a fee for transfers away. We are just the opposite. There has probably never been an easier Registrar to transfer away from. Our old policy did place domains directly into Redemption after expiration. Our policy no longer drops domains directly into Redemption. We now have a 40 day holding period after expiration and prior to Redmpetion.

-Tom
http://www.stargate.com

Greetings!

They require a redemption fee of $149.95 USD (as of writing and based on their FAQ). From my experience this applies immediately after your domain expires. There was once a problem with our credit card and we were not able to renew our domains. We ended up paying $119.95 for an expired domain. Aargh.

When we have the available funds, we may transfer to another registrar if this goes on and on.

Castlemelody,

As I explained to Trader, we now offer a 40 day grace period after expiration date. Our FAQ addresses Redmeption and cost because domains will still fall into a Redemption period after the 40 day grace period.

-Tom
http://www.stargate.com

 

[Castlemelody]

Thanks for the info Tom. That's good news. It is good that you have changed your policy on dropping domains to the Redemption Period immediately. That was my complaint a long long time ago. It is good that you have heard my plea.

Good luck to your company.

 

[stuff]

I registered some off my first domains in stargate
dropking also got some for me and they were registered with stargate
I had no problems transfering out.

 

[Dave Zan]

The point I am most interested in exploring is the issue of competition amongst registrars. Does anyone think that any of these lower prices will eventually lead to Enom's lowering their prices to resellers?

Sheila, apparently eNom has finally discovered its niche: obtaining more and
more registrations by allowing their resellers to do the work for them.

How else has amazon.com become successful? One word: affiliates. (although
the word reseller applies more in domain registrars' case...)

So while eNom may not profit much from getting registrations on their own,
their supporting their resellers as much as possible more than make up for it.
If you dig deeper, you'll find a lot of seasoned domainers around here and the
other forums (especially those who are resellers of registrars) are preferably
using eNom. (there are exceptions, of course...)

Besides, letting their resellers do the legwork for them allows them more time
to explore other ideas and options, right?

How can resellers make any profits registering domain names if customers can acquire domains for $6.95 on their own? I would be interested in hearing any thoughts on this issue.

Acquire domains where? From registrars offering them for $6.95 or resellers for
even lower? :wink:

Registerfly offered specials for about $3-4, though it was time sensitive and I
think it's already over. Ev1servers is selling them for $6.49.

Besides, registrars and resellers aren't focusing on making money via domain
registrations anymore. Look at how many other services they're upselling to
their customers (or at least trying to).

Ah, the beauty of competition. :-D

 

[WebCat]

Registerfly offered specials for about $3-4, though it was time sensitive and I
think it's already over. Ev1servers is selling them for $6.49.

Besides, registrars and resellers aren't focusing on making money via domain
registrations anymore. Look at how many other services they're upselling to
their customers (or at least trying to).

Ah, the beauty of competition. :-D

Just a personal opinion- RegFly pretty much sucks, but it's hard to beat EV1's $6.49, although their customer service regarding domains leaves much to be desired!

 

[Anthony Ng]

... it's hard to beat EV1's $6.49,

Agree, esp. when they are actually using Tucows/OpenSRS backend, which is by far the most reliable in the industry.

 

[lawpsych]

Very interesting discussion, guys. However, my original question still remains ... if we are doing all of the work for ENOM and others, what are they going to do for us to keep us interested in doing so? Competition is great ... I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts about what incentives might be offered to domain name sellers in the process of all of these changes.

Perhaps there IS no answer to my question.

Best regards,
Sheila

 

[Dave Zan]

Very interesting discussion, guys. However, my original question still remains ... if we are doing all of the work for ENOM and others, what are they going to do for us to keep us interested in doing so? Competition is great ... I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts about what incentives might be offered to domain name sellers in the process of all of these changes.

Perhaps there IS no answer to my question.

Best regards,
Sheila

Sure there is! Just sign up as a reseller for enom, keep asking them questions,
and stick with them long enough to find out.

 

[lawpsych]

Dear Dave,

That sounds like a nice plan; however, I am already a reseller for ENOM, and have been for several years. I guess I was just hoping that some of the resellers in this forum who have access to more sources of information than I have could offer some encouraging information or predictions in that regard.

I have been "out of the loop" of information for about six to eight months now, dealing with a combination of life's challenges and a different set of projects, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if I have missed out on some important news. My bet, I guess, is that ENOM is probably not going to do much of anything to answer the competition from other registrars, because they won't feel that competition is necessary. I would love to be proven wrong, but I doubt that this will be the case!!

Back to the old grindstone (a report I've been having one heck of a time finishing),
Sheila

 

[typeins]

I've never had any issues with enom.. well actually until this morning when there was a problem with my account while bidding on 2 seperate auctions.. so i lost both names!! It told me my account wasnt verified and this i couldnt bid above $200. The only problem was i wasnt even bidding $200 at the time.. Very strange error.. anyway good luck to those who got the names.. they got BARGAINS!

Apart from that i've never had any problems with eNom that werent resolved pretty quickly which is why i keep all my names there.

Directnic kicks ass also but eNom's rates are better and every dollar counts when it comes to domains