Hi everyone.

What are your ideas and methods behind reselling domains.

Basically so far I have a domain reseller account that is only used for personal domains and our whmcs is all ready configured to sell domains we just need to enable it.

We have been selling shared/reseller hosting, mainly vps's and servers now for quite a while and we have done well doing it, to start off with I thought not selling domains might put some people off that's why I got the domain account, but with regular sales I never saw the point in using it.

The main reasons are:


Fraud orders - you cant just turn off a domain if you get a fraud order
Extra time and effort - such little profit from them
Will anyone really buy them?


Questions:


What % of your customers get a domain with their hosting?
Is it a good idea?
your thoughts are very much apreicated. :)


Kind Regards,

I never sold a domain and its the same reason.

I was always scared of setting up a domain and it was a fraud.

Also not many people come and buy hosting and a domain from the same company at the same time.

May be we could have a special to make people but a domain and hosting from a company. I was thinking of something like that also.

Most people know to get their domains through GoDaddy, Domains.com, namecheap, etc. I never offered it, just because of the reasons you listed.

I believe you can cancel a domain within the first 3 days it is registered. Quite a few of our customers have bought domains through us as it's easier for them to get both services from one company.

There may not be much profit to be made on domains but it's an extra service you can offer.

John;6352519']I believe you can cancel a domain within the first 3 days it is registered. Quite a few of our customers have bought domains through us as it's easier for them to get both services from one company.

There may not be much profit to be made on domains but it's an extra service you can offer.

They just got rid of that 5 day rule a few months back I believe.

I agree with you about the fraud issue. It also makes verifying fraud orders even harder since you have no domain name to WHOIS for verification.

I offered domain names as part of my service, and it definitely is a lot of extra work compared to what you get in return.

One thing that offering domain names to your customers is that someone who is completely new to the idea of websites will be way less confused if they can do it all through one source. I have had no problem selling domain names to people at $15/year even though godaddy sells them for $8.00/year. It's more of a convenience thing for people, and it seems they are willing to pay for it. I'm willing to bet you would still get orders offering them at $20/year as well. That's almost another dollar/month you can get out of your customers. So if you are offering plans at $6/month, you will see a significant increase in profit margins.

You would be surprised at just how many users believe that you must have your domain registration with your web host. We constantly have domain registration transfer requests from people signing up for hosting.

You're losing out on potential customers because you do not offer registration. So you make only $1 per domain or whatever but you gain a lot of customers from the fact registration is just an option.

I've never been too interested in offering domain registration services... Far too much trouble for them, in my opinion.

We have experienced a very high percentage of customers ordering a domain with their hosting. Seems like they want 1-stop shopping or perhaps they think they have too. Who knows..

It really does not take much effort when utilizing WHMCS.

I was just more worried about the effort of fraud orders really.

Going to enable the account soon only for transfer in's and current clients to test.
Then maybe allow new domains for new clients later on.

About 95% of our customers either register or transfer domains to us - mainly because its simpler to have everything under one roof.

We offer domain registration (or transfer) free with each of our shared hosting plans.

We offer domain registration (or transfer) free with each of our shared hosting plans.

Only thing about "free" is your still charging for it somewhere :P

I find it odd that everyone says selling domains is too much work. Set it up with an API in WHMCS but never do automatic domain registration for fraud protection. Manually verify that the order is good then click accept. It seems like a no brainer.

Domain business you will hardly see any profit from it, unless your ICANN accredited. You just cant compete against these big companies like GoDaddy, Namecheap, ect...

My plan isn't to "compete" with large companies such as godaddy its to attract customers to purchase the hosting which we make the profit on.

Only thing about "free" is your still charging for it somewhere :P

Well, not really, since the web hosting plan price is the same whether your get the free domain or not. Or if you already have a domain name for your site, you still can obtain a free one (for instance, same on another extensions) that will be parked on the account.

Eventually, it is a matter of convenience and your target market. If you are selling locally (as we do) offering domain names is a must. Not all small business owners are that internet savvy to want to purchase domain names at a top registrar and then use another company for hosting. On the other hand, a difference of a few $ doesn't really offset their convenience to have everything controlled in one place.

Customers with only one or two websites usually prefer to purchase their domains and hosting from a single place.

before i have domain registering but getting lot fake orders,they will buy domain from hacked paypal a/c after 10-15days i may get charge back so i left it

We offer Domain prices reduced if they purchase a hosting plan. I think it goes back to human nature of them feeling like they got a better deal and more likely to buy both at the same time. Yes we loose a few $$ by doing that but I think we also get a customer for life if we provide a great product with great sevice. Just my two pennies...

I find it odd that everyone says selling domains is too much work. Set it up with an API in WHMCS but never do automatic domain registration for fraud protection. Manually verify that the order is good then click accept. It seems like a no brainer.

Am with Ethoshostingcom - let your WHMCS work for you. Using WHMCS api is what we do - when a Domain order comes its manually verify and then approved to prevent this sort of fraud issue(then again we don't sell lots of domains so it works for us).

We resell through WW or manually handle the domain names. But pure reselling i didn't find very profitable.


Lawrence

This is how I think. First people need internet such as ADSL and dial up, than they need domain, than web hosting.
So the best solution is to sell everything. We have more registered domains than web hosting accounts.
Hostgator has 2 mil+ registered domains and 200.000+ web hosting accounts.
:)