.UK Announced

[Murray]

A) Sell-through rate: It’s a fact of life in the domain industry that few domain names sell in any given year. We figure on selling between 1%-2% of our inventory each year (although we’re always looking for ways to improve on that) and anecdotally that’s in line with other industry players. What that means in practice is that for every domain that sells, there are between 50 and 99 domains that will need renewing, which translates into carrying costs of many hundreds of pounds per sold domain name.

B) Acquisition costs: Domain names don’t grow on trees. Most portfolios have been painstakingly built up over time via a range of routes (free-to-register domains, catching expiring domains, opportunistic buys from other domainers or from end-users selling at prices perceived as offering additional latent value, etc.) And nearly every one of those routes incurs higher costs than just registering a domain name would.

I'm going to be honest, and this honesty does not come with any knowledge of domaining, so you can take this with a pinch of salt, but to me as a general person looking at your domain collection..

I think you have a stupid amount of domains and I think most of them are priced stupidly.

Your comments above.. I would guess you only sell 1-2% of your domains because you have a stupid amount of them, and again, they're stupidly priced, most of them I would guess no one would have ever registered anyway.

Obviously at some point in time you went way overboard on collecting domains and here you are today sitting on thousands of domains that the odd person may want, but wont buy from you anyway because you have over priced them, so what's the point in you having them.

</minirant>

 

[GreyWing]

I'm going to be honest, and this honesty does not come with any knowledge of domaining,

I think you have a stupid amount of domains and I think most of them are priced stupidly.

Not often I am speechless...

 

[Marcoose]

</minirant>

Did you mean to add the work mini in there?!

 

[Marcoose]

In other news today.....

 

[Murray]

Did you mean to add the work mini in there?!

Yes, because it was short.

I notice no one is really saying I'm wrong, probably because I'm not.

 

[Marcoose]

Yes, because it was short.

I notice no one is really saying I'm wrong, probably because I'm not.

I personally wouldn't charge what Edwin charges for his names but he has justified why he does before many times and I can understand his reasoning. At the end of the day though, the guy is probably worth more than both of us put together so he must be doing something right.

 

[GreyWing]

Yes, because it was short.

I notice no one is really saying I'm wrong, probably because I'm not.

lol, that could be it yep.. Or the fact that it has been up about 2 hours and it is 03:00 in the morning.

I personally can't be bothered to get involved in repeating stuff that has been gone through in other threads countless times.

 

[foz]

Obviously at some point in time you went way overboard on collecting domains and here you are today sitting on thousands of domains that the odd person may want, but wont buy from you anyway because you have over priced them, so what's the point in you having them.

It's not your worry then is it.

 

[foz]

I notice no one is really saying I'm wrong, probably because I'm not.

If you sell more in value than what was being paid out in renewals then it works. If you haven't done it nothing is obvious.

 

[Edwin]

I think for those who can be bothered to look, my reputation speaks for itself. I have also been extremely open many times about our business model and what we do to make it work. So I'll stop here.

 

[domsaleuk]

An article that may be of interest

Hi

have published this article which will hopefully be useful to give more of a look at the implications that the proposed .uk launch is set to have on businesses and marketing departments

http://www.dashdomains.co.uk/editors-opinion/just-say-no/

 

[addz123]

I watched the full Nominet Registar video last night and quite enjoyed it.

I think as a summary of the conference, there are still many registrars against the .uk proposal (probably 90% against in its current proposal) however there is a clear demand for more domain strings for UK businesses - which will always hurt domainers who hold a monopoly on .co.uk domains.

I don't think nominet could move ahead on direct.uk in its current proposal, especially as many registrars are upset at the lack of openness about their market research, mis-leading figures quoted by nominet, security issues and whether to publish the consultation responses.

A number of people at the conference pointed at the outright incompetence of nominet for releasing this .uk proposal (pointing to a lack of research on the economic effects this would have on businesses to re-brand and devaluation of .co.uk) in addition to them leaving out alternative proposals in the consultation paper for other 3rd level domains such as yourbusiness.safe.uk. The 2-letter domain auction, one year before the proposal for .uk was very unfair and stupid, but that's more to do with nominet and less with direct.uk consultation.

I think what interested me most was that the majority of the registrars (whether or not they are for or against it) view direct.uk as a tricky, complicated product. The security issues, address verification, website downtime for their customers if they have a virus, doesn't appear worthwhile for registrars and they don't want to have to deal with thousands of business customers complaining that their website has been taken down by nominet.

Finally, it really seems as though everyone is trying to protect .co.uk as the online brand for UK business - after all why would registrars want to weaken one of their core products in the .co.uk. If direct.uk does go ahead then there will be some big changes in the release format to make it more fair for businesses who operate the .co.uk domain. As many registrars confirmed, a lot of direct.uk registrations will be migrations and everyone sees the obvious problem with trademark holders taking domains where the .co.uk business has spent a dozen or so years developing and marketing theres. I always thought we as domainers were alone in this debat about wanting to protect our premium .co.uk domains, however it's clear that registrars also want more protection for their small business clients who want the equivalent .uk to protect their brand.

Overall, my opinion after watching that video is there's no way the direct.uk can or will go forward in its current proposal (there are far too many issues) however I do think a new uk domain format is on the tables and would benefit businesses. The idea of automatically migrating the .co.uk > .uk, and giving greater rights to the .co.uk, was also on the tables so I imagine there will be better rights for .co.uk owners if the proposal goes ahead.

 

[addz123]

New Proposal to Replace Direct.uk Consultation:

This is just my thoughts. I'd email nominet myself but if it's a good idea it's probably better to post on a public forum and get more numbers behind it.

Rather than opening up direct.uk (which removes ANY opportunity of releasing new uk domains in the next 50 yrs), why not offer a greater range of 3rd level domais for businesses.

e.g. YourCity.uk.com (.London.uk, .Sheffield.uk), .Accountants.uk, .law.uk, .Apps.uk.

For service related domains like .accountants.uk, nominet could verify the business has the relevant certificates and documents for that industry. This allows users to trust the domain, whilst creating more text strings for small businesses and products for nominet to market.

It also removes confusion between .uk and .co.uk.

If Nominet and that Piers guy that chaired the meeting are so worried about the new Gltd's being released next yr, why not release new cctlds themselves that fall under the .uk brand? If .apps becomes popular, why not release .apps.uk themsevles? This promotes greater growth and trust in the UK market for consumers, businesses and nominet alike.

 

[Marcoose]

New Proposal to Replace Direct.uk Consultation:

This is just my thoughts. I'd email nominet myself but if it's a good idea it's probably better to post on a public forum and get more numbers behind it.

Rather than opening up direct.uk (which removes ANY opportunity of releasing new uk domains in the next 50 yrs), why not offer a greater range of 3rd level domais for businesses.

e.g. YourCity.uk.com (.London.uk, .Sheffield.uk), .Accountants.uk, .law.uk, .Apps.uk.

For service related domains like .accountants.uk, nominet could verify the business has the relevant certificates and documents for that industry. This allows users to trust the domain, whilst creating more text strings for small businesses and products for nominet to market.

It also removes confusion between .uk and .co.uk.

If Nominet and that Piers guy that chaired the meeting are so worried about the new Gltd's being released next yr, why not release new cctlds themselves that fall under the .uk brand? If .apps becomes popular, why not release .apps.uk themsevles? This promotes greater growth and trust in the UK market for consumers, businesses and nominet alike.

A win for Nominet and a win for existing UK stakeholders. Probably the best suggestion yet. They will get a windfall, wont piss off existing .uk holders, won't have to deal with the MASSIVE legal headache, will be open to expansion in the future and there won't be anywhere near as much confusion. Great idea, Adam.

 

[monaghan]

New Proposal to Replace Direct.uk Consultation:

This is just my thoughts. I'd email nominet myself but if it's a good idea it's probably better to post on a public forum and get more numbers behind it.

Rather than opening up direct.uk (which removes ANY opportunity of releasing new uk domains in the next 50 yrs), why not offer a greater range of 3rd level domais for businesses.

e.g. YourCity.uk.com (.London.uk, .Sheffield.uk), .Accountants.uk, .law.uk, .Apps.uk.

For service related domains like .accountants.uk, nominet could verify the business has the relevant certificates and documents for that industry. This allows users to trust the domain, whilst creating more text strings for small businesses and products for nominet to market.

It also removes confusion between .uk and .co.uk.

If Nominet and that Piers guy that chaired the meeting are so worried about the new Gltd's being released next yr, why not release new cctlds themselves that fall under the .uk brand? If .apps becomes popular, why not release .apps.uk themsevles? This promotes greater growth and trust in the UK market for consumers, businesses and nominet alike.

Suggested this a while back, a few half decent generic terms would do the trick, perhaps some geos like London and other large cities and everyone is happy and huge potential for revenue as you can sell the same string under all of the generics and still a potential for auction as there's bound to be multiple interested parties for the popular strings.

 

[Alpha]

I'm going to be honest, and this honesty does not come with any knowledge of domaining, so you can take this with a pinch of salt, but to me as a general person looking at your domain collection..

I think you have a stupid amount of domains and I think most of them are priced stupidly.

Your comments above.. I would guess you only sell 1-2% of your domains because you have a stupid amount of them, and again, they're stupidly priced, most of them I would guess no one would have ever registered anyway.

Obviously at some point in time you went way overboard on collecting domains and here you are today sitting on thousands of domains that the odd person may want, but wont buy from you anyway because you have over priced them, so what's the point in you having them.

</minirant>

so in summary:

you admit to having no knowledge of domaining
but you think Edwin has too many domains (7,000 ish I believe)
and they are priced too high (often £x,xxx+)

so either you are wrong and naive, or you have a point.

so, what is your opinion then of Frank Schilling, he's a well known domainer?
You can see his website here

He has in excess of 300,000 domains
You can see the prices scrolling across the top of the page, $xx,xxx - $xxx,xxx

so by your standards he has waaay too many, and they are priced even higher.

But Frank makes $30m a year doing this.

I apologise for de-railling this thread, but buying/selling domains en masse is a real and profitable business. And for this very reason it is why the new .UK extension will be heavily speculated. Only the naive think that won't happen, and that real businesses will get "what they deserve".

 

[addz123]

Was suggested before. Including suggestions for safe.uk, and com.uk before, to offer a SLD which is possibly safer and includes the extra security features mandatorily. A Host Europe representative suggested, at the registrar conference, that the new gTLDs would kill any new SLDs under .uk (because registrants would pick .shop instead of shop.uk for example).

The attraction of second level registrations in .uk is the reduced URL and communication required to speak it.

I didn't understand that argument by the Host Europe representative because it's like saying why would someone use .co.uk when .com is available or org.uk when .org is available or .me.uk when .me is available.

The whole point is you add the .uk so that consumers know it's a UK company.

 

[Stephen]

UK or not UK?

The whole point is you add the .uk so that consumers know it's a UK company.

That is what the consumer may think and even want, but the reality due to the last 16 years of registrations, Nominet policy and the EU laws that 9% of UK domains are currently owned by people outside the UK.

What .uk really means, it is a domain that is being targeted at UK consumers, so is attractive to overseas companies wanting easy access to UK markets through the internet channel.

 

[righthand]

by your standards he has waaay too many, and they are priced even higher.

Yes Schilling does have too many and they are outrageously priced. The vast majority will never sell and that says all you need to know about the fairness of the pricing.

 

[righthand]

If it was a certainty that the vast majority of his domain names will never sell he'd know that and it would make sense for him to dump them. Why doesn't he?

Because it is more profitable to sell a small number of domains at a multiple of fair value and leave the rest unsold, than it is to sell all at fair value.

Fair value I define as a dollar more than whatever the second highest bidder will pay. The domain market is extraordinary - in very few other markets will frequently the top bidder be prepared to pay a multiple of anyone else. So in most markets it makes sense to settle for fair prices, but not in this one.

Perhaps domainers should have been required to turn over ten per cent of their stock each year, to stop them holding out for the multiple of fair value prices that leave so much stock unsold.