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Pricing changes at Netfleet - existing clients will not be affected.

FleurF

Archived Member
Please see my latest blog regarding our pricing changes; http://www.netfleet.com.au/blog/?p=923

Although our COR will now increase to $49.95 (incl. GST) site-wide, our price for renewals will NOT increase for existing clients.

Netfleet has the lowest industry wide renewals and the price increase to $22.95 (Incl. GST) will only come into affect for all new clients.

You as existing clients will still have all your existing AND NEW domain renewal prices set at $18.43 (Incl GST).

So, if you are an existing Netfleet client, renewals on your existing portfolio and all items you add to your portfolio over time will remain at the cost price of $18.43 (Incl. GST)
 

Ashman

Top Contributor
With Netfleet's COR fee effectively doubling with this decision the best option for COR now seems to be VentraIP at $19.95 including 2 years registration.

Would be good to see a mass migration to VentraIP for COR and other domain transactions.
 

Bacon Farmer

Top Contributor
Or you could support Netfleet because you want them around and financially healthy.

And because they help you make money with your domain trading?
 

Mick

Top Contributor
VentraIP at $19.95 including 2 years registration.
Wholesale customers receive it slightly cheaper too. It's a completely automated process so theres no need for the manual fee which we used to charge for the process. :)
 

Bacon Farmer

Top Contributor
Yeah my point was poorly put.

I like to keep domains won on the drop where I got them ie drop or netfleet to support their business, that was my point.
 

Chris.C

Top Contributor
I got no issue with NetFleet finding a price range for its services that make it commercially viable, but I think $50 CORs will force serious portfolio owners to reconsider if NetFleet is where they want to be doing their CORs.

More importantly I think informed buyers might shy away from purchasing domains on NetFleet if they are going to be the one's paying the COR and might contact domain owners direct which will mean NetFleet will miss out on both the COR fees and the 8% commission (which is what NetFleet should really be concerned about)...
 

neddy

Top Contributor
I got no issue with NetFleet finding a price range for its services that make it commercially viable, but I think $50 CORs will force serious portfolio owners to reconsider if NetFleet is where they want to be doing their CORs.

More importantly I think informed buyers might shy away from purchasing domains on NetFleet if they are going to be the one's paying the COR and might contact domain owners direct which will mean NetFleet will miss out on both the COR fees and the 8% commission (which is what NetFleet should really be concerned about)...

Good points Chris.

I love Netfleet's COR process - it is the easiest and the best imho. And I've used them all.

But at $50, and as a large portfolio holder, they have lost me.

And I do say that with regret.
 

FleurF

Archived Member
Good points Chris.

I love Netfleet's COR process - it is the easiest and the best imho. And I've used them all.

But at $50, and as a large portfolio holder, they have lost me.

And I do say that with regret.

Netfleet's COR is definitely the easiest and the most streamlined anywhere in the industry AND Netfleet's top level of support is also unmatched anywhere in the industry.

For all existing clients;
* NAS are NOT affected,
* Domain Catalogue (Buy Domains) are NOT affected,

the increased COR will only affect your private sales and will still include the advertised 2 year registration cost.

You could choose to take the COR on private sales elsewhere but we know the level of support we give to uninitiated buyers and I'm sure you will soon find that handling these enquiries yourselves will become far more of an issue than charging buyers the increased COR - especially when most if not all of those buyers won't even be aware of the price change.
 

neddy

Top Contributor
the increased COR will only affect your private sales and will still include the advertised 2 year registration cost.

You could choose to take the COR on private sales elsewhere but we know the level of support we give to uninitiated buyers and I'm sure you will soon find that handling these enquiries yourselves will become far more of an issue than charging buyers the increased COR - especially when most if not all of those buyers won't even be aware of the price change.

Just to repeat, NF's COR is the best for ease of use.

But given that the majority of my transactions are private sales, then $50 is too much of an impost / cost of sale.

To give you some feedback Fleur, because of your past pricing structure of $18.43, when I sell my domains I always include "the cost of transfer and a new 2 year registration". I select "I will pay", and I control the process.

Endusers like this - it just makes the process so easy. I have trialled the other way of getting them to pay, but that was more painful for me.

As for your comment about level of support, do you have a publicly available phone number if endusers are having trouble with anything? Or do they have to do a ticket?

If I can give you one further bit of feedback from a grizzly old domainer; I was both surprised and dismayed that you made your pricing change with immediate effect.

Normal business practise (I would have thought) is to give notice of your upcoming changes.

e.g. Due to a review of our cost of service, we are regrettably forced to change some of our pricing structures. As from the 1st September 2013, our prices on the following ......... etc

Once again, just my constructive opinion.
 

FleurF

Archived Member
Just to repeat, NF's COR is the best for ease of use.

But given that the majority of my transactions are private sales, then $50 is too much of an impost / cost of sale.

To give you some feedback Fleur, because of your past pricing structure of $18.43, when I sell my domains I always include "the cost of transfer and a new 2 year registration". I select "I will pay", and I control the process.

Endusers like this - it just makes the process so easy. I have trialled the other way of getting them to pay, but that was more painful for me.

As for your comment about level of support, do you have a publicly available phone number if endusers are having trouble with anything? Or do they have to do a ticket?

If I can give you one further bit of feedback from a grizzly old domainer; I was both surprised and dismayed that you made your pricing change with immediate effect.

Normal business practise (I would have thought) is to give notice of your upcoming changes.

e.g. Due to a review of our cost of service, we are regrettably forced to change some of our pricing structures. As from the 1st September 2013, our prices on the following ......... etc

Once again, just my constructive opinion.

Hi Ned,

Very constructive indeed - thank you for your feedback , we are all human and all in business and we all sometimes make mistakes - it is infinitely more appealing to both take on board and respond to constructive feedback than it is to respond to some of the mud slinging that I've read from some forum members this week.

Firstly, I'd like to address that I didn't state "with immediate affect" - I did say "will now be" which was understandably why you assumed with immediate effect.

As I'm sure you will note, not one of our prices have yet changed - the new prices will come into affect on September 2 after we've had the opportunity to inform our whole customer base (not just DNtrade). I wrote the blog in haste so that I could inform the DNtrade forum and didn't think through the misleading language until you've brought it up now.

For the record - the pricing change will come into effect on September 2nd.

With respect to Netfleet support. When any user signs up to Netfleet, they immediately receive an automated "welcome letter" from myself including
1. My direct phone line
2. My personal email address
3. The support email address
4. Netfleet Facebook page
5. Netfleet LinkedIn company page and
6. Netfleet Twitter handle.

End users therefore have multiple direct and indirect methods of contacting either myself or support.

All of our support tickets are free of charge and answered within 48 hours (most within 12) M-F and all support tickets are answered by either myself or Anthony therefore no-one is left floundering with level one support.

Pleased to take the ownership for some new marketing initiatives (some great and some not-so-great :eek:) and to both take on and escalate the feedback and constructive critism to our board but also incredibly proud to stand behind our service, our support, our platform and our results for new and existing clients alike.
 

neddy

Top Contributor
Nice response Fleur. Thank you.

Good to know that your price changes are going to happen in a couple of weeks rather than immediately. Your blog post (which hasn't changed) still states:

"Our Change of Registrant process includes 2 years of domain name registration and will now be $49.95 (including GST)".

The "will now be" and no mention of 2nd September obviously threw me. ;)

Many of us that signed up years ago never got that welcome email with all that info! LOL!

Just a suggestion, but perhaps you could put that info on your support and contact pages? Some people delete or lose emails. :)

Cheers, Ned
 

FleurF

Archived Member
Many of us that signed up years ago never got that welcome email with all that info! LOL!

Just a suggestion, but perhaps you could put that info on your support and contact pages? Some people delete or lose emails. :)

Cheers, Ned

Many things change and improve over time Ned.

My direct phone number and direct email is also on my support ticket signature and anyone who asks to speak with us directly via support is always called back.

At present with such a small team and a data base of 19K+, adding a phone number to our website would be very difficult to manage. As it is, I take multiple calls daily.
 

neddy

Top Contributor
Many things change and improve over time Ned.

My direct phone number and direct email is also on my support ticket signature and anyone who asks to speak with us directly via support is always called back.

At present with such a small team and a data base of 19K+, adding a phone number to our website would be very difficult to manage. As it is, I take multiple calls daily.

With regards your first sentence, let's hope so Fleur - particularly the "improve" bit! ;)

I know if I've ever had an issue I phone Anthony, and he gets things sorted. He's terrific. It's great to have his number, because I would hate to rely on tickets. I've read on here that a few people have had issues with tickets taking a long time to be answered.

If there is one thing that "Gen Y" and "grumpy old men" have in common is that we both want things now! :D

I meant to say this in my previous post, but you're still a long way from convincing me and others on the $50 COR charge on private sales. I could live with a modest price increase - but not a savage one. So regrettably, you have still lost me on that front.

I will now use Drop exclusively - their price for DNT members is good; their service is excellent - emails are answered within 2 hours or sooner - and they have direct phone lines for each team member. They even have someone on duty every weekend. Can't ask for more than that.
 

Chris.C

Top Contributor
I love Netfleet's COR process - it is the easiest and the best imho. And I've used them all.
I 100% agree.

I have done CORs with 5 different registrars and NetFleet is hands down the best.

That's said if there is one thing I have learned about working online for over a decade, it is you can't rest on your lorals as competition will always step in quickly to fill the gap in the online world.

To give you some feedback Fleur, because of your past pricing structure of $18.43, when I sell my domains I always include "the cost of transfer and a new 2 year registration". I select "I will pay", and I control the process.
I agree again.

Not having to try and close a sale with "oh you will also have to pay the transfer fees as well" removes a major point of friction to the sales processes.

If I can give you one further bit of feedback from a grizzly old domainer; I was both surprised and dismayed that you made your pricing change with immediate effect.
100% agree!

I client of mine who has had their domains hosted with you for some time now (including having purchased many domains via your Snapper, AMA and catalogue systems) and was in the process of organising to initiate CORs on over 250 domains into a different entity to help split it's online and offline operations.

I'm sure NetFleet have a number of clients that use your service that aren't "domainers" that regularly "sell" their domains rather they just "acquire" domains on platforms like Snapper, AMA and the catalogue and develop them or park them for later use.

And these people aren't greedy, they understand business and they want their suppliers to make money too, if anything "stability" and "features" are more important to them than the "lowest price" (they've just been fortunate that NetFleet in the last 12 months has offered both the features and lowest price).

So if your CORs AND RENEWAL prices went to $20 to make your more commercially viable I know they wouldn't flinch, but when I tell them your prices on CORs have gone from $18 to $50 I'm pretty sure they are going to ask me to move the whole portfolio on principle regardless of if the renewal prices remain the same.

You could argue that these guys are the wrong people to have a portfolio hosted with NetFleet, and maybe they should move off to somewhere like VentraIP, but at the same time these are the clients you want frequenting NetFleet as often as possible because they are the ones not afraid to spend decent money on good domains when they come up.

;)

I was actually the one that talked them into switching from their previous domain host (AustDomains) to NetFleet because I told them that NetFleet was the innovators and cost leaders in the AU domain space, but I suspect we will now end up completing the CORs elsewhere and with no incentive to switch back after that point they will likely request I leave the domains at the new domain host (especially given that their one gripe about NetFleet was that they can't register domains cheaply which was always a hassle for them because they registered dozens of domains every year).

Also have you run any analysis on how many people have done CORs on your service (particularly bulk) and then not moved domains elsewhere?

I suspect their would be a lot of people completing CORs and then leaving their domains with NetFleet, if not moving all their domains to NetFleet.

This would be a major indirect benefit from having people completing CORs on your service as opposed to other platforms.

Ie, if someone completes a COR on NetFleet what incentive do they have from moving their domain elsewhere after that point when they also offer the cheapest renewal price in the industry by some margin.

I can't tell you the number of times I've said the following to a buyer, "we'll do the COR on NetFleet because it is the cheapest, fastest and easiest platform for completing a COR - it is actually where I host all my domains - you should look into hosting your domains their - but it's still 100% free to transfer your domains to another registrar after the COR is complete if you want to".

Ie every time we do a private CORs on NetFleet (yes you are presently doing it for cost) but we are endorsing the NetFleet brand to someone that isn't presently a NetFleet customer who automatically becomes one as a result of that COR being completed on your system and they may bring their rest of their domains to your platform as a result.

So maybe you want to keep your COR "competitively price" (please note I'm not saying "do it at cost" but "competitive price" will prevent switching).

Just saying.

;)

Normal business practice (I would have thought) is to give notice of your upcoming changes.
I certainly would have appreciated this, especially given that I'm going to have to go back to my client and say "actually we can't do the CORs for the price I quoted you at the start of the week, we will have to move them to VentraIP first".

I get that NetFleet operates within commercial reality and that doing things for cost isn't unsustainable, but there are "tipping points" and with things like domain portfolios sometimes things are hard to "untip".

Ie if my client gets the transfer done at VentraIP they won't come back even if you did drop your price back to below VentraIp's because the difference between your original price and VentraIP's price will probably never be great enough to justify the labour cost of the switch again.

Just saying.

:rolleyes:
 

neddy

Top Contributor
So maybe you want to keep your COR "competitively price" (please note I'm not saying "do it at cost" but "competitive price" will prevent switching).

Good point Chris.

I'm going to have to go back to my client and say "actually we can't do the CORs for the price I quoted you at the start of the week, we will have to move them to VentraIP first".

Fleur has clarified that the pricing changes will be effective 2nd September. So you have some time to get it done.
 

Chris.C

Top Contributor
Fleur has clarified that the pricing changes will be effective 2nd September. So you have some time to get it done.
My apologies... skim reading.

;)

Well that is good news for NetFleet and my client (and me because I won't need to move 250 domains = headache).

Now I just need to press my client to get my client to prioritise this (which I'm hoping will be be easier now that there is a deadline).
 

findtim

Top Contributor
especially given that I'm going to have to go back to my client and say "actually we can't do the CORs for the price I quoted you at the start of the week,

this is the nuts guts, i've been bagged forever over registering domains with CrazyD ( and yes they still offer substandard service ) but today or lets say september 3rd ! i am happy that i didn't take everyones advice and move all my domains to NF ( you can find multiple posts on this subject with members telling me to move to NF )

Chris C is detailing, i think , the embarrassment of having to go back to a client and say " my advice was correct at the time but now its going to cost you "

SURE, nothing lasts forever, whats happened here is we all have to rethink what we say to our clients from the start.

tim
 

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