New Registrar module -- NetEarth One

[netearth]

Okay so, what you fund is not real money?? How does that make sense?

 

Hi Serenade,

 

JasonO and Ask21900 are completly correct, the only "REAL" money that you are paying out is going to your reseller account which you fund, this is where we take funds from you for your purchases.

 

Your "Customer" account that you are funding is you, therefore your not technically paying out and receiving any money, it is just so the WHMCS module when creating an order has funds to place that order.

 

You control all orders via your Reseller account, thats where you place money within the system, ie. your hard earned cash.

 

As long as you always have "Real" money in your reseller account, and your customer account (for your domains only) always has cash, everything will be seamless.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[Jase]

Do the Manged DNS Tools work in WHMCS using the API?

 

And does Managed DNS Tools cost anything extra for resellers?

[netearth]

Do the Manged DNS Tools work in WHMCS using the API?

 

And does Managed DNS Tools cost anything extra for resellers?

 

Hi Jase,

 

There is a charge for Managed DNS, currently $0.25 per zone for the year.

 

I will ask Matt as to the Module specifics and report back here.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[martyn1]

With help from Chris@netearth I managed to complete a purchase for testing. Everything appears to be OK with the following exceptions:

 

1. Because my first test failed I credited the invoice and began a second transaction. Everything appeard to work except the new invoice did not offer to make payment with the funds already on the account. I accepted the default (Paypal) but after clicking the submit button I was left on a blank page, blank, all except for the word dnsmail, I checked the source to see if there were any headers but there were none. Just the word dnsmail.

 

2. In the customer client area the order is still Pending. The invoice is showed as paid. I can manually enable the domain through the admin CP but it would be good if domain purchases could complete without my intervention if possible.

 

3. I received an email saying there was an error and here's what it said:-

 

Client ID: 0000000001

Domain: xtratrix.com

Error: java.lang.String

 

4. An email arrived telling the buyer he had not paid yet. Followed by one congratulating him saying the domain had been registered, and yet another saying payment had been paid.

 

I realise the final two emails were correct and I'm impressed that WHMCS worked out what needed to be done, perhaps responding to the errors as they happened. It would be better to let people select funds already on account rather than forcing them to select a merchant at payment time.

 

Overall a lot of complex logic ran smoothly, a little help ironing out the final wrinkles would be great.

 

Kind Regards,

Martyn

[netearth]

Hi All,

 

ManagedDNS, like with the RC/Directi Module doesn't work atm. We will be assisting Matt with making this work, please stay tuned.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[ask21900]

Hi Jase,

 

There is a charge for Managed DNS, currently $0.25 per zone for the year.

 

I will ask Matt as to the Module specifics and report back here.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

 

Is there any plans to possibly drop the .25 per zone charge for changes done through API?

 

Please... Please... Please.... I really want to get rid of my current primary registrar

[netearth]

Is there any plans to possibly drop the .25 per zone charge for changes done through API?

 

Please... Please... Please.... I really want to get rid of my current primary registrar

 

Hi Ask21900,

 

The most we would probably do is to drop the price if enough people requested it. Please remember that this is for the year, your domain prices are extremly keen...

 

If there were enough resellers interested in MangedDNS, then we may drop the price by 20% but that would be about it.

 

I have some ideas as to a DNS service we could setup, we have spoken with Matt about it, but it really is in its "pipe dream" days at the moment. I will of course keep you posted should it me moved on from its current "idea" to an actual testbed scenario. But there will still be some form of charge, less than the 25cents a year.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[lynnette]

I like the prices, everything worked fine when I did an order through WHMCS to netearthone and it seems to have worked ok with a transfer order (still being processed) but a couple of things:

 

1. There are no facilities in WHMCS for my customer to change the nameservers, contact details etc like there is with the enom module. Is that coming soon?

 

2. Is there a way to change the email that goes out to a customer when they transfer a domain, its a bit confusing at the moment, it has my company name as the reseller and then says "[under Registrar: NetEarth One, Inc.]" then "has received a request from" then its got the customer name (also me) for NetEarth One, Inc. to become the new registrar of record.

[netearth]

Hi Lynnette,

 

I would have thought there would have been, re: nameserver changes etc, we are just getting a copy of WHMCS installed to better support you guys and check out the module as it was written by Matt.

 

There is no way of customising the emails that are sent out, although you can customise what emails are sent out and to whom, you or your customer. Click Settings, Mail Preferences.

 

However we have to show within the email the new registrar, in this case NetEarth One, Inc. is the registrar. This is an ICANN stipulation.

 

Once we have a copy of WHMCS installed we will be able to look into your points above.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[lynnette]

Thanks for answering those questions Chris, if those nameserver changes etc are put into place this will be perfect

[Jase]

In my experience less then 10% of people actually use Managed DNS. So if you want to offer free Managed DNS, you would only need to increase your domain name prices by 10% of 25 cents. Or 2.5 cents.

 

Even though not alot of people use Managed DNS, many companies are offering it free with domain names and customers are aware of it. Therefore it is highly important to offer it.

 

And there is nothing worse then having to tell customers you don't even offer Managed DNS.

 

 

Is there any plans to possibly drop the .25 per zone charge for changes done through API?

 

Please... Please... Please.... I really want to get rid of my current primary registrar

[netearth]

In my experience less then 10% of people actually use Managed DNS. So if you want to offer free Managed DNS, you would only need to increase your domain name prices by 10% of 25 cents. Or 2.5 cents.

 

Even though not alot of people use Managed DNS, many companies are offering it free with domain names and customers are aware of it. Therefore it is highly important to offer it.

 

And there is nothing worse then having to tell customers you don't even offer Managed DNS.

 

Hi Jase,

 

The whole point is to keep the domain prices down for the resellers, not everyone would want the service. I could be wrong but I dont see the point of putting everyone's prices up to save the few a few cents...

 

Certainly when I was a reseller, I looked for the cheapest domain prices balanced with support, so that I could always bolt things on... Its a simple process, if a user wants something then they would request it, if they dont, they wont.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[Lucidity]

I didn't see anything listed on your site about whois privacy for our clients - do you offer it? Is there a charge?

 

Thanks,

Cynthia

[netearth]

I didn't see anything listed on your site about whois privacy for our clients - do you offer it? Is there a charge?

 

Thanks,

Cynthia

 

Hi Cynthia,

 

Yes WHOIS privacy is available is FOC.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[Lucidity]

Great. Going to signup now.

 

Cynthia

LucidityHosting

[netearth]

Great. Going to signup now.

 

Cynthia

LucidityHosting

 

Goo stuff, start saving

 

Regards,

Chris

[lynnette]

I like the prices, everything worked fine when I did an order through WHMCS to netearthone and it seems to have worked ok with a transfer order (still being processed) but a couple of things:

 

1. There are no facilities in WHMCS for my customer to change the nameservers, contact details etc like there is with the enom module. Is that coming soon?

 

Just wanted to tell you, the post I made was our mistake. For some reason the registrar hadn't been set in the client profile for the domain so it obviously wasn't showing up in the clients area, we only noticed that today because its not normally a problem. Clients can change nameservers, and registrant details so thats good enough for us. Also just had today a transfer go through fine from godaddy to us, so that part of it is all working fine

[netearth]

Just wanted to tell you, the post I made was our mistake. For some reason the registrar hadn't been set in the client profile for the domain so it obviously wasn't showing up in the clients area, we only noticed that today because its not normally a problem. Clients can change nameservers, and registrant details so thats good enough for us. Also just had today a transfer go through fine from godaddy to us, so that part of it is all working fine

 

Hi Lynnette,

 

Thats ok, at least you know its all working fine, thats the main thing.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[Lethanialist]

Does WHOIS Privacy registration work on this module? I know that NetEarth supports it, but does the module/API function enough to do so automatically?

[netearth]

Hi Lethanialist,

 

From discussions with Matt the other day, I beleive it does, yes.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[9DollarDomains]

However we have to show within the email the new registrar, in this case NetEarth One, Inc. is the registrar. This is an ICANN stipulation.

Hi. I understand that this is an ICANN requirement (the domain owner needs to know that his name is being transfered from one registrar to another) but your site also says "Completely Private labeled experience for your Customers" and "Your customer's cannot discover us". What are you refering to there then? Is that refering to just new registrations/renewals? Is it only Transfers where our customer's would see your name? Thank you.

[netearth]

Hi. I understand that this is an ICANN requirement (the domain owner needs to know that his name is being transfered from one registrar to another) but your site also says "Completely Private labeled experience for your Customers" and "Your customer's cannot discover us". What are you refering to there then? Is that refering to just new registrations/renewals? Is it only Transfers where our customer's would see your name? Thank you.

 

Hi 9DollarDomains,

 

Those 2 terms are to do with the "front of house", what the end user can see if front of them. If a registrant is keen enough and spends enough time googling, I am afraid they will always find out who the registrar is of their domain.

 

There are a couple of places where we have to show the registrant which ICANN registrar holds the domain record, more notebally than the email of transfer, the WHOIS will always show whois.netearthone.com, then the rather long legal notice at the bottom of a WHOIS "The registrar of record is NetEarth One, Inc." is also shown, but some WHOIS lookup sites, blank the whole legal notice anyway.

 

You will notice the same above for Directi/RC as we use their platform.

 

Kind regards,

Chris

[beetransman]

Hi Chris,

 

Unfortunately once this was to be discovered they can then use NetEarthOne at a cheaper price than what they pay us the reseller due to the low prices offered to regular customers. Or they could join as a reseller with just 1 domain or a few.

 

I believe to be a serious reseller you would need to follow other reseller models and not compete with your own customers? Most rellers don't want a reseller account with a company that is competeing for their customers with lower prices for all the same services they offer?

[netearth]

Hi Beetransman,

 

Whilst I understand your point, end users can't just join as resellers as we check that they are resellers. For instance, they have to have a site that resells hosting and/or domains.

 

We are looking into raising our end user pricing, but at the end of the day, you could say the same re GoDaddy couldnt you, ie Godaddy and WildWestDomains.

 

I for know Directi/RC have more than one end user site, with pricing not far off ours.

 

At the end of the day, if you want to save money registering domains, and your "front of house" is your own, then the end user will never know about NE1 unless they dig inot it. We give good and fast support service's to our reseller base.

 

But to be honest, this isnt a debate that should be in a technical forum. If you wish to or any other reseller wish to debate this, then they should email directly.

 

Regards.

Chris

[allynne]

Chris.

You bought up the issue of GoDaddy/WildWest. This is majorly different because the average person sees these as two different companies. Yes, if you look closely and know what you are looking for, then you can find out that they are the same company.

 

The issue here is branding. If you go to WildWestDomains.com, you cannot buy a domain unless you become a reseller (at which point you could then buy cheper than GoDaddy). In this case though, if my client goes to NetEarthOne.com, they can buy the same domain I am trying to sell them but at a cheaper rate than I will ever be able to offer.

 

I think what you need to decide is whether you want to sell domains or be a registrar. If you want to do both then I would highly recommend building a separate retail brand that has little or no connection to the registrar brand ... because otherwise your resellers are not likely to be there supporting a new business when they can have greater confidence with a well established registrar (even if they do charge a little bit more)

 

And although I understand your comment about not discussing this here, I believe it SHOULD be discussed in public and not behind closed emails.