allan
10-31-2002, 03:12 AM
What are the thoughts of this board on purchasing a domain reselling business? Is this done often, and is there any advantage to it? I am not talking about setting up a reseller account, but buying a business that has been providing DNS registrations for a while -- even if the business is only a reseller.
If this is a common practice, my next questions are:
1. How do you valuate the business?
2. Where does one go to look for existing registration businesses that are for sale?
nameslave
10-31-2002, 07:46 AM
>uuallan: even if the business is only a reseller
Unless you are thinking of buying out an accredited REGISTRAR (which might require a deeper pocket), all you can find are resellers (of eNom or OpenSRS/Tucows).
I would say that many domain name resellers (of eNom) are in wrong track that they are trying to out-beat their competitors price-wise. Nobody cares for just a dollar or two unless you have hundreds or thousands of domain names. And that's exactly the reason why OpenSRS/Tucows stands just behind Verisign/NetSol and becomes the #2 registrar in terms of volume.
greggish
10-31-2002, 08:19 AM
I think that eNom has pulled ahead of OpenSRS for the #2 spot. I have been steadily moving all my domains to an $8.88 eNom reseller as they become due for renewal and I think many others are doing the same. OpenSRS is in big trouble IMHO.
nameslave
10-31-2002, 08:40 AM
No offense, greggish. It's NOT METHINK when I said "OpenSRS/Tucows stands just behind Verisign/NetSol and becomes the #2 registrar in terms of volume":
FACT (total registrations as of September 2002):
OpenSRS/Tucows - 3,044,787
eNom - 1,289,099
In terms of volume, eNom is behind not only Verisign/NetSol and OpenSRS/Tucows but also Register.com, MelbournIT, Bulkregister and GoDaddy.
Source: http://www.sotd.info/sotd/content/documents/SOTDQ302.pdf
thewitt
10-31-2002, 09:10 AM
eNom is currently #2 in quarterly growth, but #7 in size.
The SOTD report lists the following for growth last quarter
GoDaddy 268k
eNom 243k
Schlund.de 83k
Tucows 82k
DirectNIC.com 73k
OnlineNIC 60k
On the other end of the scale
Verisign -685k
Bulkregister -85k
EasySpace -36k
CoreNIC -33k
Now it's difficult to tell what's going to happen long term from just this list, you would really need to have the registrar's individual whois databases and correlate the transfer and new registration activity to tell what's going on - but the informed speculation is that most of the domains leaving Verisign are being dropped or transferred to the registrars experiencing growth, and that the general population of registered names is not increasing.
Our business echos this, with better than 80% of our domains in the past two quarters coming from transfers and not new registrations. Interestingly enough we get transfers in from nearly all the other registrars, including eNom and GoDaddy, so not everyone is consolidating to save a couple of dollars in their registration fees - as we charge more than eNom and GoDaddy, though less than Verisign and Register.com.
We do spot checks with our larger accounts asking why they transferred to us, and the answers are all over the scale. Price - even saving money trasnferring away from Verisign - is rarely part of the equation.
It's an interesting business.
-t
allan
10-31-2002, 09:27 AM
Originally posted by nameslave
>uuallan: even if the business is only a reseller
Unless you are thinking of buying out an accredited REGISTRAR (which might require a deeper pocket), all you can find are resellers (of eNom or OpenSRS/Tucows).
Right, I guess I phrased that badly -- I am especially interested in established reseller businesses, and if buying an established reseller is a good way to enter the market?
DotComster
10-31-2002, 08:00 PM
Best to start a new domain reselling biz than buying out an established one. You get to learn from your problems and mistakes instead of inheriting them.
Also - do not even start till you have a bit more knowledge of issues and choices involved.
allan
10-31-2002, 08:26 PM
Originally posted by DotComster
Best to start a new domain reselling biz than buying out an established one. You get to learn from your problems and mistakes instead of inheriting them.
Also - do not even start till you have a bit more knowledge of issues and choices involved.
I'm pretty well versed in DNS and domain registration, so that is not a problem. But, with all of the domain resellers out there it is really hard for a new company to stand out. I have some ideas for ways to differentiate the service, but I would rather start with an established company that has some traffic -- this will lower my barrier to entry significantly.
