OpenSRS Storefront FAQ
OpenSRS Storefront is new, and we expect you’ll have a lot of questions about it. We’ve tried to address as many as we could think of in this OpenSRS Storefront FAQ. If you don’t see the answer to your questions here, drop us a line in the comments and we’ll do our best to get you the information you need.
You can also check the documentation for OpenSRS Storefront.
What is OpenSRS Storefront?
OpenSRS Storefront is a third way to integrate with the OpenSRS backend to sell services. Storefront is a fully-hosted, domain sales and management website, including a payment processing gateway. Storefront is currently available as a technology preview to OpenSRS Resellers.
How much does it cost to become a Storefront Reseller?
Storefront is included in our reseller program just like the API and RWI. New OpenSRS Resellers pay the usual one-time activation fee of $95.
How do payments work for Storefront? Do I have to pre-fund my account?
Pre-funding is not required for Storefront sales because Storefront works on an affiliate model. Resellers are free to charge what they wish for the various services they offer. Payments are handled by OpenSRS (through our payment processor ShopCo.com). Resellers are charged a processing fee on sales and commissions are deposited into your account monthly.
How much do I make per domain name sold?
The retail price is set by the Storefront Reseller. After a purchase is made, your Reseller account is credited with the retail selling price less costs.
What are the costs? How can I figure out how much I’ll make?
Fixed costs factored into calculating the Reseller’s commission are:
- 6% Payment Processing Fee - all transactions processed via Storefront’s Shopco.com payment gateway are subject to a 6% payment processing fee. The 6% payment processing fee is calculated on the Reseller’s retail selling price. This fee is subtracted from the retail price charged to the end-user.
- Domain Wholesale Costs - standard domain pricing of cost plus the OpenSRS Management Fee plus any applicable ICANN fee.
- Applicable Taxes on Retail Transactions - GST will be collected on retail transactions from end-users with a Canadian address in their Storefront account. Note that the Reseller will not earn commission on the amount of the GST collected.
Taking the retail price and subtracting costs will give you the Reseller’s commission. Once the Reseller has earned at least $100 in commissions, a payout will be processed on the last day of the month and paid one month in arrears.
Can you give me an example of how the Reseller commission calculated?
Sure, here is an example of the calculation for a Storefront Reseller commission on the sale of a domain:
- $20.00 - Storefront Reseller’s retail selling price for a 1-year .com
- subtract: $1.20 (6% Payment Processing Fee)
- subtract: $6.86 (.COM Registry cost)
- subtract: $0.20 (ICANN Fee)
- subtract: $3.00 (OpenSRS Management Fee)
The result would be $8.74 paid into the resellers OpenSRS account.
Is the 6% Payment Processing Fee negotiable?
No. All Storefront Resellers are subject to the 6% payment processing fee. Keep in mind that using the Storefront Payment Gateway means you don’t have to setup and manage your own payment gateway. Additionally, Resellers are protected from fraudulent transactions (we take on all the risk).
How are domain prices set?
Resellers are free to set their own pricing. You can view OpenSRS Wholesale list pricing here.
Can I use my own payment gateway?
No. All Storefront Resellers use the payment gateway hosted at ShopCo.com.
What is GST?
GST, or Goods and Services Tax, is a Canadian sales tax collected on retail transactions from end-users with a Canadian address in their Storefront account. We are required by law to collect GST from Canadian buyers. Resellers do not earn commission on any GST collected.
Which OpenSRS Domains Services are available in Storefront?
At this point, in the preview stage, just the most popular gTLDs are available for sale in Storefront. We will be adding ccTLDs by December 1, 2008.
In addition, Storefront offers:
- Premium Domain Names - Resellers earn the standard 10% commission on Premium Names provisioned through Storefront; however, 6% of the full domain purchase price will be held back to cover the payment processing fee levied on all Storefront transactions, thereby crediting the Reseller’s account a gross commission of 4% on the sale of a Premium Name.
- Name Suggestion Tool - Name Suggestion Tool is enabled for all Storefront Resellers.
- WHOIS Privacy - WHOIS Privacy is free to Storefront Resellers and their end-users.
- Managed DNS - Managed DNS is free to Storefront Resellers and their end-users.
- Domain and email forwarding - available free to Resellers and to end users at a price determined by the Reseller
Are Storefront domains eligible for Parked Pages and Expired Domains Programs?
Resellers using Storefront to manage their domains are not eligible for revenue sharing in the Parked Pages Program or Expired Domains Programs. Revenue sharing is available to API/RWI customers only.
How can I customize my storefront?
You can upload a logo, choose from one of four themes and add your own text on the home page and about us and contact us pages. We’ll add further themes and customization options in the future.
Can I user Storefront to manage existing domains in my OpenSRS account?
Not during the preview period, but by December 1st, we’ll give you the option to transition your domains to Storefront.
November 19th, 2008 at 11:20 am
This looks great, but commission is too high, though. I pay 2.8% for a Worldpay online credit card handling system (and less for retail PDQ transactions). I would expect you to charge a little more for this, as you are providing a fully featured back-end. Further, the only point of using this would be for me to get my customers to pay for the whole service (domain name and hosting) in one transaction. You don’t provide any of my hosting services, so giving you 6% of that part of the fee just to handle payment processing is too high for it to be worthwhile. From your blog demo, it seems that I can add pricing for email forwarding within the storefront. As you update the storefront offering, would you consider allowing resellers to add other associated sales items to their storefront (eg hosting services), so that the reseller can put ALL of his sales through the one screen. If not, I have to make a separate charge to my customer to sell the hosting package (which is the more expensive part of it). If I’m doing that and collecting that money from my customer, I may as well collect the registration fee at the same time and save 6% commission. I am very happy to pay you a commission to collect my hosting fee as well, so long as you offer the option in your storefront and reduce the commission rate on that part of my sale that doesn’t relate to services that you provide.
Would you consider a sliding scale, whereby you charge 6% on the registration of domains (I would charge my customers 2-3 times your wholesale price) and (say) 3% on additional services sold at the same time for which you merely take payment, but do not provide any of the underlying service (eg hosting)? As an example, I currently charge £79 GBP + VAT (sales tax) per annum for a .com domain, including hosting, email services, support, etc. This equates to about $120 plus UK sales tax = $141; if I pay you 6% of that, your fee will be $8.46 on top of the $6.86 registration fee (a total fee to you of $15.32 for one domain!). That price destroys my business model. The only way around this would be for me to sell the domain name via your storefront and sell my other services separately, which doubles my work and removes the advantage that I get of having you process the fee for me.
My other question is to wonder whether you are considering allowing sales pricing in sterling or euro currencies as well as dollars. I’m not worried about your wholesale prices being in dollars, but I wish to charge my customers in sterling.
Thank you
Charlie
November 19th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I agree, the commission is high, even paypal is less than that.
My other thoughts:
- integrate with existing management or add a new one that is compatible with existing domains (no “transition” required)… If I point *all* my domain management tools at storefront, it seems as though they are no longer available in RWI. RWI and API use the same backend data, why can’t Storefront?
- integrate other products into Storefront on a reseller-preference basis. Eg, SSL certs.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
I agree with the above. The cc commission is more than double even the highest cc processors. In addition why can’t the parked pages revenue sharing programs be accessed. What happens If a domain is purchased through that program and later we want to move the domain to the revenue sharing plan?
Honestly, as long as the processing fees are as high as they are, I am not interested.
November 19th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I agree that 6% is a whopping big fee, even if you take into account the cost of hosting, keeping the software up to date etc.
A couple of questions:
1. Can the currency be to sterling (GBP) or is it only in dollars?
2. Can the colours etc be changed on the templates, or is it just one of four colour sets and you can upload a logo?
November 20th, 2008 at 6:30 am
I am currently developing an integrated site using the API together with my other services - payment through my own merchant account.
Just about to go live to be greeted by news of this free storefront - suddenly online competition will multiply gigantically as anyone anywhere can open an online domain shop at zero cost and zero experience.
Wow - thanks.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:37 am
In the past 10-years or so that I’ve been with you you’ve seen my account see-saw up and down.
With server issues, writing and re-writing scripts, costs and constant maintenance of over a dozen sites on top of network admin and everyday life, everything was just taking up way too much time … so piece by piece I let things slide. In fact I just finished “down-sizing” again.
That said, I obviously see this is a real help; and vs. a low volume merchant account, I doubt that I’ll miss a couple percent. There’s another pain I can throw in the trash.
You have no idea how much this storefront should take off of my hands. With this I will definately start taking an interest again and revive domains and SSL certs an active part of my setup.
Thank you!
James W.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Thanks for the comments everyone. Most appreciated.
I think we’ve covered most of your questions over at the main blog post introducing Storefront (http://opensrs.com/blog/2008/11/a-sneak-peek-at-the-new-opensrs-storefront/) but I did want to point out that the service charge on Storefront purchases is the cost of the credit card processing and the cost of using an (otherwise) free storefront. I think you’ll find that this is very competitive for domain storefronts.
Of course you can always develop to the API if you feel you can build better for cheaper and get a good price on payment processing. We’re happy either way. This is just another option for you to consider.
Cheers,
Ken.
November 21st, 2008 at 10:37 am
Where can we see a sample of the store?
November 21st, 2008 at 2:10 pm
@Mike @8: If you have an OpenSRS Reseller, log into the RWI and provision your Storefront. The setup guide is available here: http://opensrs.com/resources/documentation/storefront_reseller.pdf.
Or, visit our live demo site (for the end-user experience) at: http://domainstore.bostoncityinternet.com/.
Liam
November 25th, 2008 at 6:53 am
6% is too much (4% would be a good compromise I think), but when is it going to be fully operational? At the moment you can’t get past the new customer registration page.
Also we can’t use it until charges are in UK Sterling and there is access to all ccTLDs - when will this be happening?
November 25th, 2008 at 10:45 am
@jude: We are exploring the feasibility of adding different currencies at some point, but for now the US dollar will be currency of choice for Storefront. As well, it will only support new registrations until January, when we plan to allow pulling in domains previously registered through the RWI or API. Also, as outlined in the FAQ, ccTLDs will be added by December 1st.
November 25th, 2008 at 11:06 am
@ jude @10: Thanks for your question regarding the 6% payment processing fee. I’ll dig into a few things that we considered when determining this fee:
1) Maintaining your own merchant account is costly. Processing fees are typically in the range of 2.5% (high volume) - 4.5+% for a small-medium online merchant. Now add in fixed transaction fees of $0.25 (high volume) - $0.50+ per transaction. Add another $10 - $20 for a monthly statement fee and don’t forget to factor in the one-time setup-fee you paid to apply for a merchant account.
If you don’t have a merchant account and want to sell our domains services right away, our Storefront offering is a practical solution with a predictable cost of conducting business online.
If you have your own merchant account, our API is a probably a better fit for your needs.
2) There is no yearly subscription fee to use Storefront (unlike other turn-key solutions). Storefront is free to existing OpenSRS resellers. We don’t make money until you make money reselling our services.
If you are a new reseller, you pay a one-time $95 fee to create your OpenSRS Reseller account, giving you a choice of reselling our services via Storefront, API or manually through the Reseller Web Interface.
3) The OpenSRS Storefront payment processing fee is straightforward. We don’t levy a % + fixed fee on transactions like other reseller solutions. This approach is favorable to you, the reseller, on transactions USD$35 and less.
-Liam