Client discovered my reseller costs and is unhappy
Hi,
I have recently copped a barragge of a abuse from one of my clients who until now has been perfect with three domains and sites. They have discovered through doing a 'whois' lookup who I am using as a domain name registrar and are upset that I am marking up the registration costs.
True, I am marking up the domain registration price as do most other developers, I actually undercut most other developers!!! I have spent endless hours searching for low cost registrars and due to their recent price reductions my retail figures are now 300% of theirs.
So, my question is.. Is that unreasonable (we are talking .com.au's)?
There are still compainies charging 600% !!!
Thanks....
andy206uk posted this at 01:25 — 11th January 2007.
He has: 1,758 posts
Joined: Jul 2002
Firstly your client is an idiot - how exactly does he expect you to stay in business if you don't mark up the prices you pay? Businesses need profit to survive. End of.
If he continues to argue, ask him if he would supply his customers with his service without marking up his cost price. He wouldn't... and he shouldn't expect you to do the same. If he says yes, then he's probably struggling to stay afloat which is why he's quibbling a few dollars here and there.
Tell him that the mark up on the base price covers your time and effort to handle the registration process and renewals for him - if he doesn't like it, transfer the domains to his own account and leave him to it. Client's like that really aren't worth the hassle.
(these are the same type of customers who expect cheap websites because their next door neighbours 13 year old nephew will build him a site for free!)
Ok... rant over.
Andy
Dudester posted this at 02:25 — 11th January 2007.
He has: 43 posts
Joined: Apr 2004
Thanks for your response and your support.
Its the first irrate customer I have had out of the 60 or so I have in my Reseller Acc now. Took me a little by surprise as most clients rave over how low priced we are !!
And what tops it off is I was actually building her 1 page site free this time too !!
Cant win them all I guess.....
(Next time I wont be offerring freebies)
FrankR posted this at 03:36 — 11th January 2007.
He has: 45 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
If you can get away with a 300% markup on domain registrations with your customers then you are doing a fantastic marketing job! You should be firm and polite with your disgruntled customer, but be careful.
If after politely explaining the whole package you offer, if the customer is still angry you might consider offering to give her a partial refund and help her move to another provider of her choosing. A happy ex-customer may tell nobody about her problems, but an unhappy one will tell many people how bad you are.
Remember to negotiate on packages and not just price. Your offerings must balance price, features, and service level. All of these components all interconnected and must remain balanced.
Frank
Author of SQL Converter for Excel, which is an Excel add-in for converting data to MySQL.
Dudester posted this at 04:24 — 11th January 2007.
He has: 43 posts
Joined: Apr 2004
Hi Frank,
Our domain prices were based on a markup of just $1 around 18 months ago and in that time span the registrars prices have plumeted and there are still many other operators charging well above us. The Australian .com.au market has only just started becoming competitive.
Your second point is the annoying thing, as we offer many other features and value added services which we dont charge for, this site was even going to be a freebie. (WAS!)
Thanks for your comments....
Greg K posted this at 05:33 — 11th January 2007.
He has: 2,145 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
It is called free choice. They didn't sign up and agree to pay you a certain profit, they agreed to pay a certain price. If your costs change, that is completely up to you if you adjust those prices. And just as it is your choice to change the prices, it is their choice to switch to another provider.
Kinda reminds me of Matthew 20:1-15, don't complain what you agree to...
-Greg
void posted this at 13:29 — 11th January 2007.
He has: 39 posts
Joined: Oct 2006
Yea I agree with what other guys have mentioned above and you don’t have to worry much about these kinds of customers as they are a part and parcel in any business so just handle them tactfully.
No person can say any **** to you about your prices as it’s your own personal business which you are looking after and it’s not some ‘fixed-price’ thing by which you are bonded. You are the owner of the business so you’ll decide the price of your service and not the customer, you can tell her that it was the best package you could make available to all your customers and come on guys we all want to be filthy rich, okay so let us just do it,,,right??
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