On Thu, 5 Jun 2003, domainwhiz wrote:
> The point is that should my dollars go to support a registrar who is
> creating competition for our company and acting in a fashion that will
> cause a direct impact to their higher end customers? When you add in
> the lack of competitive pricing, and the fact that they gave us all
> implied assurances that this wouldn't happen, while trying to placate us
> and keep us as customers so they could continue to enjoy our
> revenue....someone give me a reason why the better resellers should
> consider Tucows. Statistically we have little need for support from
> them. I am sure most of the better resellers are about the same.
You have a few simple choices:
1) Use a registrar that is charging enough money to exist
solely on registration activity and aspires to nothing else(no other
business units, no other services/revenue generators whatsoever, no
parent companies, etc.)
2) Use a registrar that offers lower prices but offers other
revenue-generating goods/services, some of which may indeed compete
with your offerings.
3) Start your own registrar.
Bad news. Option #1 is a myth, always has been(including NSI.) If #1 did
exist it wouldn't for long as everyone would have moved to #2 by now for the
lower pricing which is what we are seeing now. While I'm certainly open to
correction, there are no registrars with an ICANN contract that qualify as
a #1 for you to move to. I find it pretty unlikely that you are in the
financial position to do #3, otherwise you wouldn't be here complaining.
(It would however be interesting if you could to see you come to the
realization that #2 mode is really the only way to go currently for any chance
at staying afloat, and get complaints about you not being in mode #1.)
Given that #1 never existed, it's rather unclear how you could
reasonably arrive at the belief that Tucows, a publicly-traded corporation
with a long (Internet-time) history of other activities prior to being in the
domain name business represented to you that they were or would operate as
#1. They never were, there was never a time it would have made any sense
for them to have been, or to have represented anything that could
reasonably be taken to mean what you are asserting.
You are off arguing in #2 territory. Registrars, their parent companies,
etc. aren't getting rich off of domain registration fees alone. They do
other stuff. Some of that stuff you may have been doing first.
Since such practices are prevalent in the industry, demanding or
otherwise expecting that a registrar(subsidiary, parent company, etc.
yadda yadda) engage in no other business other than registrations in order
to gain you as a reseller along with the vast wealth the 10?,100?,1000?
domains you are bringing with you creates anually is pretty amusing.
About all I'd reasonably expect as a small-mid size reseller is that I
*might* be able to negotiate what services the registrar are able to offer
through you directly so as to avoid direct competition by bypassing you and
accessing the customer you acquired directly.
But in the world of Tucows, who really "owns" the customer and have they
represented in a legally binding way that they wouldn't try to sell
services, whether they are competing or not, to "your" customer?
The Tucows->Reseller and Tucows->Registrant contracts would seem to
provide all the answers we need.
The Tucows contract defines a customer as "an organization or individual
applying to register, transfer or renew a domain name via the agency of
Reseller and/or Tucows." (note the and/or.)
As a registrant, in addition to anything else, I sign a contract
between myself and Tucows, with language and terms set by Tucows(
and ICANN+TLD+whomever else is in the mood for some regulation,) subject to
modification by Tucows.
While the Tucows contract is conspicuously silent in any overt way as
to who ultimately owns the customer, if Joe-Bob's bait and domain
names makes me sign up for additional services, and/or agree to other
contractual terms, the contract states that in case of a reseller<->Tucows
conflict, Tucows terms trumps the reseller terms. And there is the
requirement to send all client communications to Tucows.
It's important to understand that despite what some might like to think,
and irrespective of the complete absence of or varying levels to which
Tucows has chosen to exploit it, such language offers them a relationship
with the registrant("the customer") which is separate, distinct, and
*superior* to that between the reseller and customer.
The contract also contains a provision allowing Tucows to contact me. The
language specifically states such communication "...may include notices
describing changes, upgrades, new products ..."
This all adds up to a situation where the customer is less "yours," than
they are "theirs" rather or not they'd frame it in those terms(doubtful).
Tucows has the right to contact registrants if they have
new/changed/upgraded services to offer, and there isn't any prohibition
against them offering those services, competing or not.
If there existed mode #1 registrars, if the contract offered you ultimate
ownership of the customer, and if it didn't contain language that
explicitly permits behaviour that you felt betrayed about, your complaints
on these subjects *might* have some merit.
While I'm thankfully not Elliot, I would imagine a measured response
would be an invitation for potentially interested resellers to evaluate
such services as additional revenue opportunities rather than as competition
given minimal, if any infrastructure costs and the ability to leverage
existing sales channels and billing/customer support infrastructure.
(we focus on infrastructure, you focus on sales/services.) Win win
and all that.
The balancing act comes in deciding the nature/depth of such services vs.
their potential value vs. the amount of overlap with competitve reseller
services vs. the potential customer/reseller gain by offering such
services vs. possible attrition due to offering those services.
If I were pointy-hair again for a day, that's what I'd do anyways.
In any case while I can understand you might be unhappy that Elliot&Co.
are or will offer competing services, lambasting them because you
somehow expected them to act in a way that defies all logic seems somewhat
silly, and I find it somewhat unlikely that moving your/customers domains
to a lower-priced registrar is going to help much in this regard.
If you want to stick to the argument that Tucows pricing is uncompetitive,
you'd probably have more people agreeing with you.
Personally, I think unless prices drop within the next few quarters,
and/or Tucows begins offering some "must-have" services that consumers
want they will begin to see an erosion in the registration base as the
price difference becomes compelling enough for registrants to
switch and for higher-volume resellers to bite the bullet and make
the investment in time/money to switch to reselling for someone offering
better pricing.
While I always appreciate a quality service, in this case I think that
unless tied to other compelling offerings a "service over price" strategy
for domain registration is destined to fail. Registrants rarely need a whole
lot of "service" surrounding inserting a few lines into a couple
of databases, the most of important of which(the registry) the registrar
is unlikely to be running anyways. When registrants do contact a
registrar/reseller it's usually post-sale at which point it's too late for the
service level to have any bearing on the purchase decision. This also renders
the level of service Tucows provides resellers, however great, largely
irrelevant in the overall analysis of this particular issue.
Further complicating matters, I don't see a hell of a lot of new
domain-centric "must-have services" to anchor a "service over price" strategy
to on the horizon, so while I respect Tucows early vision and initative in
the space, I hope there is a much more compelling story in the works that
the masses aren't privvy to yet.
When faced with a 100% price difference between a Tucows reseller and GoDaddy
for what are functionally identical services, why would a consumer choose
to pay double? Will their domain taste better? Will it resolve harder?
Will it make them look sexier?
If I'm a reseller who generates a significant amount of their income
through registrations and I potentially can increase my margins noticibly
while gaining more customers through markedly better registrar
pricing, why wouldn't I risk lower quality service from the registrar if
the potential revenue was enough?
My answer as a registrant to the widening price disparity was simply to
vote with my feet. Tucows is not Verisign(registrar.) While Verisign retains
millions of domains of customers unaware of alternatives, used to paying
$35/yr for a domain who are accustomed to suffering horrible customer service
or have never had to use it, everyone using Tucows made a concious
choice to use an alternative. Rather that decision was based on price,
service level, ancillary services, or some combination of those, they know
alternatives exist and don't be suprised if they do a little price
shopping come renewal time.
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Patrick Greenwell
Asking the wrong questions is the leading cause of wrong answers
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