Everything sold in a retail environment includes a “mark up”, the term is used to describe the difference between the cost of producing the product and the “juice” the retailer charges for the product.

Mark up often varies from store to store, but why? One assumes it is simply because businesses want to make more money. However, price variation occurs due to other factors such as distance, local area marketing, supply and demand etc.

Purchasing a computer in regional parts of Australia is likely to cost you more than in the city. However, purchasing fresh fruit is most likely priced the opposite. These price fluctuations are due to variables such as adding the cost of distribution and general supply and demand.

When it comes to purchasing “electrons” or something in the digital world, you might ask; “Why do prices at one domain name registrar have mark up more than 20 times that of another?”.

Well, in the digital world it comes down to things like marketing spend (recovering the cost to acquire you as a customer), customer service (helping you costs money, they want that money back), technology (some registrars software is substantially better than others, it probably cost them more to produce). Even with all that considered, you will quickly realise that the highest priced registrars probably just want the PROFIT.

The Australian domain name registrars mark up the price of com.au domain names anywhere from $5.40 to an amazing $117.45!

According to AusRegistry, Australia’s official wholesale domain name provider, there are currently 25 .auDA accredited registrars.

The Australian Domain Name Administrator (auDA) charges a fee of $4.95 with every com.au registration. The wholesaler, AusRegistry charges $17.60 per com.au domain, making the wholesale rate of a com.au domain name $22.55.

These prices vary for the different .au products, as per below:

Below is a table of the auDA accredited registrars and the current retail prices. As you can see, Intaserve.com is currently the cheapest com.au registrar in Australia. This list is produced in alphabetical order, is representative of the minimum 2 year registration term and includes GST. NameScout Corporation is incorporated in Barbados and does not charge GST.

Late last week, Thursday 13th December, the Australian Domain Administration (auDA) board approved the recommendations from the 2007 Names Policy Panel.

Overall there was not much of a change, the Panel agreed that the current rules for .au domain registration, renewal, licensing etc are all quite appropriate.

The Panel did recommend some changes to the transfer policy (change of registrant / owner) to allow “transfer of a domain name licence for any reason”.

In the new year, auDA will work on implementing the new policy, which will mean owners of .com.au domain names will be able to sell their domains for the very first time.

Previously, selling a .com.au name (transferring registrant) was a complicated process and according to the auDA publication, only those “in the know” were taking advantage of a supposed loop-hole in the policy.

Overall, I believe this will be a good change for the Australian domain name industry. For once we will be able to trade names like all other TLDs (Top Level Domains) .com, .co.uk, etc. Well, kind of. The new .au registrant still has to be eligible for the domain name and comply with the regular auDA policy, such as having an ABN.

It will be very interesting once this policy is active to see how people decide to sell, trade and ultimately transfer their Australian domain names.

I received a letter in the mail from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) recently. It looks like they are “cleaning up” the Australian Business Register (ABR). The letter says that because I haven’t reported any income against my ABN on my tax returns, I must not need it (my ABN, not income). Anyway, I originally applied for an ABN just so I could register .com.au domain names, as per Australian Domain Name Administration regulations.

This is the first financial year I could earn an income from my .au domains, and subsequently income on my ABN. Anyway, I have to call them and tell them why I need it. I will see if the “to register .au domains” is a good enough reason, and whether or not I can keep it on that merit only. Otherwise I’ll tell them that I am “just about to ramp it up”.

The other day I tried to call, I got put on hold but then something else came up so I had to hang up. I called back later and the message said something along the lines of “we are experiencing a high volume of calls and can not take your call right now”. I couldn’t even join the queue! I will let you know as soon as I can get through to them.