Premium Domains
Searching for a domain name has been likened to searching for an apartment in New York City — all the good ones are taken. At Tucows, we think it's time to rethink the domain selling process. Instead of helping people looking for a specific name, only to find it taken, we have tools that can help you offer a better way to help your customers find the perfect domain name.
You've heard the saying everything has a price. Well, to a certain extent, that rings true for domain names as well. While a name like computerstore.com, for example, is already taken, it also might be for sale. We call these "for sale" names Premium Domains — high quality top-level domain names that can be bought in what's called the domain name aftermarket, or secondary market.
The problem with buying a domain that is already owned is that historically it hasn't been easy to connect the seller with the buyer, especially the average domain buyer. That is, until now.
Tucows now offers Premium Domains that can be bought as if they were regular domains, fresh off the shelf. We've partnered with Fabulous.com and NameMedia, and added in some great domains from our own portfolio to offer over 700,000 premium domains from the secondary market directly to your customers.
Domains here, get your domains here!
Back in 1995 if you wanted a .com domain, you had no choice but to go to Network Solutions and pay $100 for the privilege. Fortunately, things have changed. In 1999 Tucows became one of the first domain registrars and reasonably priced domains were made available to the average Internet user. The land rush was on.
Since then, things in the domain marketplace have changed dramatically. There are very few good domains left on the open market, and at the same time, the domain name has become incredibly important when it comes to running a successful business — online or not. Pretty much all that's left unregistered, especially in the important .com, and .net space are less meaningful names, or domains with words like easy or online or biz tacked on the beginning or end. These are not the ideal kind of names to build a business around.
Because the domain name landscape has changed, so should the way you sell domains. The old way was simple: offer a search box where customers can enter the domain name they wanted. If it was available, they could click to buy it. If not, sorry, try again. But with so few good domains now available on the open market, that model simply doesn't work anymore.
"Do I have a domain name for you!"
Let's say you have a potential customer who is planning to open a coffee shop in his hometown of Boston. He's a smart guy who understands that having a great domain name plays an important part in the success of his new venture.
He heads to your site with credit card in hand to secure that perfect domain name. He types in bostoncoffee.com. It's worth a shot, but clearly, that's the kind of domain name that's more often than not already taken. Sorry, no sale. He's disappointed, but he really needs a great domain name. He types bostoncafe.com but it's also taken.
Our entrepreneur could sit there for a while thinking up alternatives and checking availability, but to help out in this kind of situation, we introduced our Name Suggestion tool. Instead of just saying bostoncoffee.com is taken, the tool offers dozens of similar options — everything from bestbostoncoffee.com to bostoncappuccino.com. To be sure, some of those are going to be pretty good domains, and for some buyers, you might make a sale right there. But it still isn't quite a perfect domain for our business owner. He knows that a really good domain will be the calling card for his new business.
Here's the thing: when people come to your site, they're ready to buy a domain, but some of them are pretty picky. They want the perfect domain on which to build their business. So it makes sense to give them the best possible chance to find it.
How about a Premium Domain?
A search for Boston coffee shop that includes Premium Domains reveals the perfect domain for our customer:
BostonCityCafe.com is for sale and the price is $750.
That price might seem to be a barrier at first, but remember that your customer is looking for a domain name on which he can build a business. In fact, $750 is a small price to pay for a premium domain name that perfectly describes what he's all about. The customer clicks to buy and we handle the rest, just like a regular domain purchase.
Behind the scenes, Tucows manages a transfer of the domain name from the seller to the buyer. As a result of our partnerships with NameMedia and Fabulous.com, we are able to significantly simplify that transfer process. In fact, a premium domain transaction is typically completed (transferred from seller to buyer) in under a minute.
As a Tucows reseller, you get a straight 10% cut, immediately. That means whereas on a new domain registration, you see a few dollars, on a single Premium Domain purchase, you'll see anywhere from $10 to $500 depending on the list price of the domain. And once you've sold that domain name, you've entered into a relationship with a customer that could translate into more business, like hosting their websites or providing managed email.
Where's the downside?
There isn't one. With Premium Domains you get to offer more domain name options and make more sales all because we've opened up the domains aftermarket to the average domain buyer.
Take Tucows Premium Domains for a spin
The best way to understand how Premium Domains can work for your customers and your business is to see it in action. We've put together a demo implementation of the Tucows API that shows just how powerful the combination of search, suggestion and Premuim Domains can be. We call it the "Duke of URL" and you can see what he can do here.
