What's the future of the pure "domain registrar"?

What's the end result of domains not being a profit center?

[Webwork]

Notice how more and more, registrars are essentially giving away - at cost - domains and looking to make their money on value added services: Hosting, domain safeguards, drop services, now even co-sponsored domain parking PPC programs.

It's always been the case that registrars had other offerings, but in my observation, "other offerings" are now their main focus. Clearly, one registrar lead the way in a big way and recently announced that it is the biggest registrar (in total domains registered).

So, what's the future for stand alone discount domain registrars? A slow but certain death, since there's only so far to go on the money to be made in the discount domain market?

Will there be no room for smaller players? If there is, where and why? Simply because so many people still don't have a firm grip on the issues?

What does that trend me for the rest of us?

Will there come a point where your domain only costs $A, if you buy services, but it will cost 3xA if you only want a domain? At that point will most of the other competitors be already forced out of the market?

Anticipating this market trend is there an opportunity in the making or is it monopoly on the rise?

[encyclo]

The domain registrars really dont have much choice when it comes to offering ancillary services - most often that choice of registrar is solely determined by price: lowest wins. Any registrar who wants a significant part of the market is going to have to cut profits on domain sales right to the bone, or as you say, actually give them away at cost. If they want to make any profit at all, they must use the domains as loss-leaders for a vast array of search engine submission, site-building, or pointless "privacy option" add-ons, all charged at exhorbitant prices, naturally.

The trend? Domain-only registrars are dead, only a few big registrars will survive, with a glut of affiliates scraping a living on sheer volume.

[jmccormac]

Encyclo's point about a few super registrars surviving is a good one. I'm currently checking every website in com/net/org/biz/info and there are a few distinct patterns emerging with millions of domains hosted on some of these super registrars. There are no associated active websites for these domains.

The domain only registrars will survive though as long as their is a never ending sprawl of new gTLDs. Each new gTLD has a bit of buzz for the first year or so and then the registrars have to resort to sales gimmicks like giving free .$gtld registrations to the owners of .com domains hosted with them. (This is what artificially bosted the domain count in .info to its present inflated size.)

Most of the small operators will be forced out of the market as the domains market consolidates. The survivors will use domains as a loss leader to sell other services.

Regards...jmcc

[davezan]

Like most if not everything else in life, the toughest will survive. In another forum
which asked for some predictions on the domain name industry, I offered one where
we'll see mergers and acquisitions take place.

For those who are offering low-priced registrations, their best chance is to focus
on a niche. One registrar's niche is maximum security while another has arguably the
"best" reseller solutions.

For those 2 I'm sure we're familiar with who charge pretty high, at least they offer
24/7 toll-free phone support and compensate by rendering as much good customer
service as they possibly can...not to mention the other services they're marketing...