Registry just slashed its wholesale prices up to 97% — A TLD
This firm is taking the opposite approach of Uniregistry. Will it work?
In light of Uniregistry’s sharp price increases for registering and renewing many of its top level domain names, it was interesting to learn this stretch that another registry is taking the opposite move.
Boston Ivy, which runs the .broker, .forex, .markets and .trading top level domain names, cut its wholesale prices as much as 97%.
The firm is affiliated with financial firm IG and knows the space well. At the same time, its domains have not gotten traction at high prices. .Forex, for example, has fewer than 100 registrations as stated by nTLDStats. It used to have a $1,000 wholesale cost; now it is just $30. .Broker has been reduced from $500 to $20. .Trading is going from $50 to $12 and .Markets from $40 to $10.
I asked the firm regarding this move and why it thinks it will pay off.
DNW: Why are you lowering the prices?
Boston Ivy: For the last few months we have been researching other registries and comparing prices to domains under management, while also talking to registrars and end users. What we have noticed was that high pricing even for the niche type markets (.Broker and .Forex) do not work. Domain investors, end users and firms do not want to pay high premiums year following year. We believe that lowering the prices will invite people to register our TLDs and making us more competitive.
DNW: You’re cutting the price for .forex to 1/33rd of its current price. Do you think you can sell 33 times as many .forex domains with the reduced price?
Boston Ivy: Yes, we believe that we can. It will be slow at first, but as we gain more exposure with firms within the industry, domain investors, end users and registrars we believe our fresh pricing model and strategy will work in their favour. We have by now seen a fresh trend with .Broker, with the fresh pricing we believe forex follow suit. Also to make .Forex and .Broker more attractive, we have dropped most 3 character premium domain names to GA.
DNW: Another fresh TLD firm, Uniregistry, is getting ready to increase its prices by as much as 30x. This is the exact opposite of what you’re doing. Based on your experience so far, does it make sense for a TLD to be priced at a number of hundred dollars wholesale?
Boston Ivy: It really depends on the situation. For us, we started at the higher price point and found that it was very difficult for us to bring in the fresh registrations. We also had a difficult time bringing registrars on-board with Boston Ivy as higher priced domain names do not sell very often. That being stated it may work for Uniregistry as they by now have a solid client base.
DNW: So far, none of your TLDs has crossed 1,000 registrations. Do you think price is the main reason for this?
Boston Ivy: Yes, we believe that price is one of the main reasons. Marketing was also a major factor as most of the previous efforts were targeted to specific industries.Still, as we have broadened our focus and highlighted that our TLDs are open we believe that everyone will have a chance with our fresh pricing model to register our TLDs; from firms and individuals in the industry to domain investors and end users who like the extensions.
