Australian Domain Price War: The Gloves are off and Domain Prices Have Crashed in 2005

Summary: The retail price for com.au domains has never been this low! Premium full service registrars such as MelbourneIT and Bottle Domains sell a 2-year license for com.au domains at $140 and $99 respectively. You can now register the same com.au domain at Domain Central for only $49.

Melbourne, VIC March 9, 2005 -- Australian domain registrars have taken the gloves off and entered a com.au domain price war. And as always there is substantial conjecture about the sensibility of selling commodities like domains at break even or loss to gain market share.

Whether you agree with the practice or not, there is one certainty - the customer is the winner.

The retail price for com.au and net.au has never been this low. Premium full service registrars such as MelbourneIT and Bottle Domains sell a 2-year license for com.au domains from $140 and $99 respectively. You can register the same com.au domain at Domain Central for only $49 - cheaper than the current lowest wholesale price available to resellers.

Domain Central's operations officer, George Pongas stated, "We will always strive to be the cheapest registrar for com.au and net.au domains in the world. We want to encourage people to secure their IP and market position by registering as many domains relating to their business as possible. Our business benefits from efficiency gains and other operational advantages, and the aim is to pass on any savings to our customers."

So at this price something must be missing? To help lower the operational over heads, Domain Central has limited support to email only. "Phone support is very expensive and most domain registrants rarely require anything after the initial registration. So why should the majority pay for the needs of a select few? At the end of the day, people can buy a domain through us and if they are not happy with the service, they can transfer their domain free of charge to a registrar that offers phone support."

Asked how he thought the domain price war would affect Bottle Domains' business, CEO Nicholas Bolton commented. "We are a full service registrar, however our company's price-beating policy - under which we agree to beat the registration cost of other registrars - means our customers are protected both with service and price."